beginning of the end

just came back from my last wknd training run! whooo hooo
did the familiar old loops: around laurelhurst park
up stark to 60th
and around the mt tabor reservoir.

the marathon is a wk from today. in fact by a wk from right now i'll
be done.

i felt good and strong and thankful while running. i couldn't help myself
from doing a sort of inventory, realizing all the people
- friends & family - that had gotten me to this point.
the shoes from jon e, the headphones from dad,
the songs on the ipod from david h, the running jacket
from sue, the headband from mm - and this naturally gave way to
another sort of inventory, a historical one filled
w/ friends & family and others w/o whom
i wouldn't be sitting here typing this:
the doctors and nurses just doing their job, the random kind word from a stranger,
the boundless love from family - all of it unquantifiable and all
of it essential to me currently
being alive.

thank you

no rhyme or reason

sad news yesterday

she just turned 13.
her service is on may 5
and on may 6 i run marathon
don't know what that means
if anything
but i will run for her and her
family







life is a precious gift

tick-tocking downward

indeed indeed. some voices from the past have
echoed back to me lately out of [seeming] nowhere and this, in
conjunction w/ my general state of befuddlement
and the encroachment of my 'middle aged'-ness [not just yet, but
coming, coming, coming] has led to
a state of semi-stupor. watching the UP series has(n't)
helped since you'll be looking at a person who's lived for
nearly 5 decades but w/ only a cut separating her at 7 from her at 35 or 49
baffles me. but then i'm generally baffled. radiation has(n't) certainly
helped....been reading house of leaves which also has(n't) helped and which
can be blamed for any [parenthetical] asides on my part

too much coffee today. or not enough.

ran in laurelhurst park this morning. knee started aching right away. stopped
when i stopped. only a few runs left.

mm finished write around portland
today. nuts. that was a ten wk blip albeit work intensive for sure.

been planning trip to paris. found a nighttime moonlight bike ride. def doing that one. oh and the french cinemateque will be showing a bunch of great stuff when we're there
altman, renoir, hitchcock, kurosawa, bunuel. plus the bldg was
designed by f. gehry no less. plus a friend i used to work w/
in LA now lives in paris. hope to see him

4/22/07

6 mi run this am. went up to the mt tabor reservoir, circled a few times and came home. no sweat. 2 wks from today is the marathon. unbelievable. also, 2 wks from today i'll take my first sip of alcohol in over 6 mos. been on the wagon for
training's sake but there's a bar in vancouver that mm and i wandered into on our honeymoon w/ an extensive scotch & whisky menu that i'm planning to celebrate
at. certainly we'll imbibe in paris as well, which we'll be in 4 wks from today.

saw into great silence yesterday. a 3 hr movie about monks in the french alps. all the perversions of the monastic life on full display. lots of contemplation. lots of praying. then more contemplation offset by bouts of praying. snow. sunshine. then praying. rather amazing film, though certainly one that demands an amount of patience on the part of the modern viewer.

(un)titled

mm bought me a cd of american experimental noise & music spanning back several decades. here's the first pass at tossing some footage together to one of the tracks.

4*20*07 training run

i need a haircut quite desperately but mm has said no, that
i should let it grow until the marathon, as good luck, a talisman, something.
it's quite voluminous and floppy, so much so
that i've been required to run with a headband
which makes look, along w/ my
full running regailia in mm's estimation like
i fell out of a wes anderson movie.
or crazy. or both. ah whatever. i just don't care. almost
done w/ training! slept in a bit today
put on my headband and set out thru laurelhurst park.
3 mi. Nice and easy, though my knee pains flared up again
a few minutes in. must be ITBS (or whatever the initials are)

in unbelieveable, meaningless-yet-somehow-infuriating news, pitchfork
gave 31knots a 4?! excuse me? a 4?!! wtf? it raised the slumbering but never quite
dead discussion mm & i have about critics and criticism. such a crapshoot as to be useless, except of course that a good review from a place like that can do wonders, so you find yourself hoping for a favorable response from a venue you don't respect anyway? swirls of conflict. what does it all mean? i suppose that you have to give as little credence to the good ones as the bad. how can that be though?
the math doesn't seem to add up here.it always feels like those who cannot do, review. [hmm, i guess that doesn't really hold up, witness the nyt bk reviewers (many hypersucessful novelists & writers), witness the cahiers du cinema critics (ie, the truffauts, the rohmers, the godards). must revise position
and ponder further, except that i don't want to really]. at bottom, it just bums me out b/c 31knots is incredible and deserves - at barest minimum - some type of institutional acknowledgement. a 4 doesn't cut it. even if you think the album has missteps you should acknowledge the intent of the artist. whatever.

up

been watching the up series. made it thru 42 up. only 49 up left to go.
utterly fascinating and all-consuming and just all-around incredible
as an epic work of art and a social document. i'm prone to hyperbole
but it's tremendous, amazing, vital, essential, etc. go out and buy it, rent it, borrow it, watch it.

intersection(s) & rising tide

we've had several balls in the air for the past few mos
but now it feels as if they're all intersecting
little tributaries joining w/ tremendous
force and power and - naturally - a dizzying effect.
things feel like they're surging. full throttle.
nbtf has sent my press release out to several outlets.
today i was told i had a chance to talk at the expo
in vancouver on the fri b/f the marathon but
due to a variety of schedules and times to negotiate
i'm not going up there until saturday. oh well,
it was exciting for a few minutes.
meantime mm is finishing up write around portland.
only one more wk. meantime mm and i have each
managed to finish writing projects that had been dogging
us like albatross(es)(sp?). meantime planning for paris trip continues.
meantime, took maxwell to vet today just to be sure that
his urinary system is order and vet discovers a growth in
his mouth that will require surgical removal and biopsy
sooner rather than later (and several hundred dollars).
oh, and the house. on and on.

yesterday ran 3 mi. ran fast and hard b/c i could and
also b/c it was nice and lovely and - if all goes well w/ house
buying - laurelhurst pk will not be an option for
nearby runs any longer.

running again tomorrow. script is done, at least this draft, so i can sleep in
and run at my leisure

22 mi

set out on sat AM armed w/ several packets of liquid carbohydrates, a handful of ibuprofins, a new pair of earphones designed to actually stay in the ear during running (thanks dad) and a headband, with which to mitigate the floppiness of my hair - which mm won't let me cut till after marathon. by the time i returned home it was after 2:30 in the pm. i'll be up front w/ you: it hurt. but at least it's done. all that's left after a meager training run here or there is the marathon itself.

the first couple hours were fantastic b/c i modified the walk/run ratio. brought it down to 9min of run to 1 min of walk. (down from 14/1) it made more of an immediate difference than i thought possible and had the added benefit of not making my knee flare up until deeper into the run. around the 3 hr mark i stopped at mom and dad's to refill water bottle and say hi. headed back out and only got about 15 minutes
b/f i started to feel wiped. ate a packet and walked for a bit. then walked for a bit more. then kept walking. frankly i walked more than i wanted to but i would rather save myself for the marathon than push it on a training run. in fact, i had such success w/ the modified ratio that i plan to push it even further on the big day - say to 8/2? maybe? - to guarantee that i don't collapse.

very much looking forward to going back to BC. mm and i honeymooned there some 7 yrs ago. then, a mere 10 days after the marathon we fly to europe for a vacation in paris.

saturday night went to see 31knots
awesome, as per usual.

hiking w/ sipes & mm (& maxwell)

this was something i tossed together last yr
after we hiked up to angel's rest in the gorge. messing around w/ movie-maker
and a 2 megapixel camera.

4*12 training run

3 mi this am. due to time constraints had to dash off into the chill and wet
w/ the dog. he was well-behaved and seems to
be recovering nicely from whatever
urinary malady caused him to pee blood
this wknd (and separated us from a couple hundred of our dollars)
ah, pets.

trying to carbo-load and hydrate myself properly for this wknd.
i'm planning on doing a diff walk break ratio but i haven't decided what yet. 7/1? 9/1? convinced it'll be dumping rain on me so i'm just going
to invest in some lame sort of poncho or whatnot. i guess they're called
garbage bags.

had family gathering last night b/c aunt mary was in
town. good times.

entracement and dis-junction

3 mi training run this am.
starting to really get mental fatigue/burnout again
mm suggests a running partner and/or modulating
the intensity of work out w/ more walk breaks.
i currently am running 14/1 ratio - ie every 14 min i stop running
and walk and gather myself for a minute
maybe i should up it? sometimes i lock into a goal
a little too directly, to my own detriment? also knee troubles about 90 min in for the past few wks
prob not a good sign.
or, at least, a sign of pushing too hard. too much, too soon
my goal here is to finish the marathon really, nothing more.
i'd prefer to beat my previous (slow) times but
whatever. who cares. this wknd is the big, big, biggest
training run to date.

meantime, i'm doing my best to finish a script in the next 2 wks.
it's gonna be tight. [i mean that in terms of the time allotment
not as in street vernacular for the dope-ness of my script].

been reading m. pollan's omnivore's dilemma which i find
both endlessly fascinating and disturbing.

cresting

rain on saturday, so i slept in.
sunday went out for 14 mi but only managed 10.5 due to a combo
of knee problems and fatigue, some of it mental.
this upcoming wknd is 20 plus
the last big run b/f the marathon
almost there

18 going on 19

started raining friday night and by all accounting it was to continue into and through the dawn. when i woke, there was a grey pall overhead but no actual precipitation so i ventured forth armed w/ a kneebrace and 2 packets of liquid carbohydrates.

went down to the river via hawthorne br. and all the way up to sellwood. wove my way through the streets, picking up the new part of the springwater corridor. timed it so i'd end up at the parents to refill water bottle and refresh w/ only an hr left on my run. ended up feeling good (and being far enough from home) to do 19 mi instead of 18 which was good. my knee started bothering me about 90 min in which was bad. still kind of hurts today. may ease up on the training/mileages in honor of the idea of actually finishing the marathon, which is now a mere 5 wks away.

a busy wknd. saw friends, saw houses, did taxes. oh, learned today that p & c
had their baby and all is well. oh, and on friday heard from tim and from tom and both had good news to report on recent scans. awesome all around.