running-is-cheaper-than-therapy

I’m sorry, internets. I’m not neglecting you on purpose.

I’d love to pretend that I’ve been so busy being a Rock Star that I haven’t had time to blog. I’ve had time. It’s not me, it’s me. I just don’t feel like oversharing as much as I used to.

Here’s a little snippet of what’s been going on:

We sold my wife’s mom’s house. Yay! We have that behind us, after six months of fretting and working on things. We’ve learned some stuff. We hate the housing market right now (there are so many foreclosures and people trying to sell that - hell, just read a paper. It sucks) Still, it’s done.

We closed on it, and it took maybe ten minutes. There was also a four hour drive (each way) to make this happen. But the kids saw their grandparents (it’s been too long) and Dad (that would be me) tried hard not to piss everyone off (it sorta worked, for a while).

Father’s Day was low key; the way I like it. We had cupcakes, everyone went swimming, we watched geeky science shows on TV, my family cooked me a steak dinner. Pretty awesome, yes?

I’m still running; I have 23 miles so far in June, including three four mile runs. The heat is kicking my ass. Actually, it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity. It was 77 this morning with a dew point of
76 or so. Yeah. But get this - I think I saw a fox this morning. Ran across the road about twenty yards in front of me, and it was pretty light out. Very slender, dog shaped, but with a bushy tail
that was almost as long as it’s body, very fast.

(disclaimer: this was toward the end of my run, so a pink girraffe on a cell phone wouldn’t have surprsised me at this point)

I’m alarmed by oil prices as much as anyone, I guess, but there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it, so I’m trying not to lose any sleep. Just watch with me while our economy follows our environment right into the crapper. Sorry, kids, we enjoyed fucking your planet up for you, maybe some of you are smart enough to recover from our mistakes.

Whew, I’m such a happy little bastard! Sorry about that. (I keep saying “sorry” and can’t seem to quit, and I think it’s driving my wife nuts, because she comments on it. Not sure what to do about it,
though. Oh, another thing that drives her nuts? That I’m ‘addicted to movies.’ Another thing I can’t seem to get out of my system. It could be whores and drugs, though, so maybe it’s not such a bad vice? And what’s with the parenthesis? Dayum.)

This is going downhill, fast, so I better just quit. Have a nice one.

So, it’s Summer.

I thought maybe I should write something here, since I haven’t been writing much lately. Work is busy, kids are nuts, I’m an idiot, what else is new? Anyway.

Here’s something for me to talk about this summer: I’ve made up my mind to lose 20 pounds by Labor Day. I want to be below 250. I’ve been stuck at my current weight - just at or below 270 - since at least January. I don’t even want to pull up my 2007 chart (yes, chart, shut up) and see how far back my current stagnation goes.

I’ve been running - 183 miles since January. That’s nothing to sneeze at, and I’m proud of the fact that a 270 pound middle aged guy CAN run that much. That is 65 times that I have laced up the shoes and gone out and pounded the pavement. Wow. But in spite of all that, I still weigh the same.

Why? Well, I could list a dozen reason. Like the fact that donuts are sold by the dozen. Or that I happen to love Pop Tarts more than is humanly possible. And that I don’t get enough salad in my life. So that’s why I’m going to go about losing some poundage this summer. It should make running a little easier (imagine being the legs on a 270 pound guy, running. yeah. Ouch.). It might make it less traumatic for the kids when I take them to the swimming pool. Maybe less chest pain. Etc.

20 pounds in three months. I was gonna start on the 1st of June, but hey, the kids wanted McDonalds… I can do this.

Today: ran 4 miles, 48 minutes and 16 seconds. Weight: 267.4 according to my poor, abused bathroom scale. Cereal with raisins for breakfast, with a yogurt chaser. I’m on my way.

(stop laughing. You know who you are…)

I have run three days in a row. Well, just barely, I ran tonite after dinner because I overslept this morning, but it’s still today so that counts, I think.

Anyway, three in a row. Eight miles. For me? That’s doing alright.

Four more scheduled Sunday, gonna try and walk and/or maybe go swimming between now and then.

Go, me.

It has been over a week since I have gone running. I pulled something
in my right calf (I wrote about it, yeah, that’s how boring I am)
almost two weeks ago. Last week I still ran a few times, and it just
got worse. So I’ve been off my schedule since last Thursday.

My leg feels fine, now.

So, I’m out of excuses, I need to get back out there (I can feel my
“muscles” reverting back to their lethargic status) and will this
weekend. Maybe in the morning.

really, really.

After a while, nothing continued to happen.

Hope y’all are well. We are doing Home Stuff, which means Get Organized or Die Trying Week. For inspiration we are watching the HGTV shows where the designer goes to the persons house and makes them throw away their crap, amidst tears and gnashing of teeth.

The kids haven’t drawn (much) blood yet, the dogs only ran away three times yesterday, and there’s only an 80% chance of thunderstorms (some possibly severe) today, so of course they’ll wanna ride bikes all day.

In the Lard Ass department, I ran 3 1/2 miles today, before dawn. It was good. It was humid. But I did it. I’m planning on five miles on Sunday to finish out the year in a good way. I was going to do it Monday but that would be just kidding myself.

There’s not much point in watching TV, we get Wall-to-Wall coverage of the Greatest Dead President Since Reagan, also all the “best of” and “worst of” 2006 shows and “how to get organized or die trying.” Nothing I wanna see.

It just started raining. Hard. Must be time to run to the store!