New Kid in Hogtown

Returning to Gainesville, Florida for a visit is one of Cindy and my favorite things to do.  For one reason it’s where we went to college and it’s always fun to take in the sights—those that have been in existence since we were enrolled as well as those that came on the scene well after we graduated many years ago.  For another it allows us to engage in one of our favorite activities: ‘Gator shopping.’  I know the local businesses have appreciated our loyal and generous support over the years.  I can tell because all of them send us Christmas cards.     
    

Another reason is that occasionally we have the opportunity to show off our favorite city to someone else for the very first time.  Our most recent trip to Gainesville was no exception, because that was when we formally introduced our grandson Krischan to the magic of the home of the Florida Gators, also known as ‘Hogtown’ by the locals and the student body. 

We made the five-hour drive from Senoia to Gainesville on a Saturday.  That evening we had dinner at the home of friends of ours (also Gators, of course) who just so happen to have a three-year old son.  Krischan was a natural playing ‘big brother’ to his new friend and when it came time to head to our hotel it was all we could do to convince him it was time to go. 

‘Yes, Krischan we know it’s early but G-Pa has a marathon to run in the morning and he’d like to get at least a couple hours of sleep before he has to run 26 miles.’

Cindy tried her best.  Only this is apparently what Krischan actually heard her say:

‘G-Pa said we need to leave NOW and yes I know you’re having a great time playing with the train set and watching cartoons with your friend but your G-Pa is pure evil and wants nothing more than to make your life miserable.’

Well, at least I’d be getting a couple hours of sleep before running 26 miles.

Race morning I asked Cindy to take Krischan and meet me at a specific spot on the course so he could run the final quarter-mile with me, thus allowing the two of us to cross the finish line together (I had already cleared this ahead of time with the Race Director). With almost 26 miles under my belt I met up with Krischan, and he immediately started running so fast it was as if it was his way of punishing me for making his life miserable the night before.

As we neared the finish line I slowed down slightly so Krischan could cross the finish line a step in front of me.  I made eye contact with a volunteer and motioned for her to place the finisher’s medal around Krischan’s neck and she politely obliged.  The smile on his face was…well, let’s just say that ‘miserable’ was no longer in either one of our vocabularies. 

(A little background: Krischan has completed four one-mile fun runs.  All of these fun runs had an accompanying 5-kilometer (3.1 miles) race.  Krischan, upon completing his fun runs invariably asks me if he will be getting a medal.  I always give him the same answer: Medals are only given for the longer race.  The stage is now set for the next paragraph.)

Krischan’s beaming smile was momentarily interrupted by this rather insightful comment:

‘Gee, that didn’t FEEL like three miles!’

After a couple slices of post-race pizza we headed back to the hotel for a short nap and a shower.  We then headed out to stimulate the local economy and did our very best to buy every new product in orange and blue the city had to offer (Note: We were $ucce$$ful). 

Our new favorite store selling ‘all things Gator’ is called Alumni Hall.  Let me tell you, it was like a kid in a candy store.  Krischan seemed to like it, too.  Wearing his new orange Gator T-shirt, Krischan made a point to do the ‘Gator Chomp’ for one of the girls ringing up one of our purchases while making it perfectly clear he doesn’t like the Bulldogs (of the University of Georgia).  I doubt it’s possible for any grandfather to have been any prouder of their grandson than I was of mine at that particular moment in time.

We then turned our attention to taking Krischan to see some of the places on campus that make the University of Florida so special.  Our first stop was Ben Hill Griffin Stadium and Florida Field, also known as ‘the Swamp.’  How did he enjoy his first trip inside the house that Tim Tebow, Emmitt Smith and Steve Spurrier built?  Let me answer with a simple equation:

Excited boy + empty 88,548 seats + an unscripted Sunday afternoon

= 88,548 possible places to sit

I should have remembered that from my freshman calculus class and probably would have…had I not taken the class over 40 years ago.  And studied. 

Outside the stadium we stopped to see the bronze statues of the three Gator Heisman Trophy winners; Tebow, Spurrier and Danny Wuerffel.  I asked Krischan to sit in front of the latter’s statue so I could take a photograph, reminding him that he had met Danny Wuerffel several months ago at the College Football Hall of Fame.  You may remember that Krischan wasn’t too impressed meeting the quarterback of Florida’s first National Championship football team in person.  Well, let me be the first to tell you Krischan was even less impressed with his bronze statue.  Getting him to sit still for a single picture was slightly less difficult than getting him to leave our friends’ house the night before. 

However, he was impressed with the bronze statue of an alligator sitting outside the stadium.  He was even more impressed with he saw a second bronzed alligator twice the size of the first.  In fact he asked me to take pictures of him in a variety of positions: With his arm stuck inside the alligator’s mouth, riding the alligator bareback and lying beneath it as if he was in the midst of an alligator stampede (should there be such a thing). It was nothing less than Reptile Heaven indeed for a wide-eyed five-year old boy getting his introduction to the mystique of the Swamp.

With a little time left to kill before joining our friends for dinner, we made quick stops at the O’Connell Center (the ‘O-Dome’), where the Gator basketball team plays home games and Lake Alice, one of the favorite spots for student recreation (alas, there were no live alligators to be seen, although there were white heron everywhere).

Krischan seemed to really enjoy his orange and blue weekend.  So much, in fact that once we got back home I wrote ‘Florida’ between the words ‘Krischan’ and ‘Kollege Fund’ on the envelope that won’t be needed for another 12 years.

Twelve years that will most certainly go by in the blink of an eye.

Or as quick as a Gator Chomp.   

All the Proof I Need

There was a time when every marathon was an adventure.  On race morning I literally couldn’t wait to get to the starting line to see what the next 26.2 miles had in store for me.  There were old friends, familiar faces and race directors I knew by name.  A plethora of courses I knew like the back of my hand: Some easy, some not-so-much and some somewhere in the middle.  Then there was the thrill of crossing the finish line just one more time. 

Most of all there was the anticipation of what might turn this particular marathon into an adventure.  A random stranger asking me at the 10-mile mark if I could get their friend to the finish line in a Boston-qualifying time because the random stranger could no longer keep up the pace; experiencing the effects of consuming a Twinkie and a glass (or two) of champagne at an aid station with 16 miles still left to run; running an entire marathon accompanied by my nine-year old son…on his bicycle (the fact I had to push him up two mountains did not detract from the experience whatsoever).

But then something strange happened.  I was no longer feeling any excitement on the morning of the marathon.  Suddenly and without warning they were no longer an adventure.  The thrill of finishing…was gone.  What changed? 

I wasn’t seeing the familiar faces I had come to know.  Many of my favorite marathons were no more (RIP Atlanta, Tybee Island, Vulcan).  Entry fees were increasing at an alarming rate while the quality of the races remained virtually status quo.  Marathons simply were no longer any fun.

I had high hopes this would change when I lined up for the Five Points of Life Marathon in Gainesville, Florida.  Twenty years after pedaling his two-wheeler beside me for 26.2 miles in Birmingham, Alabama, my son Josh was standing next to me ready, willing and hopefully able for his first attempt at covering the distance on foot.  As for me, this would be my last marathon; the only reason I was running was because I told Josh long ago I would run his first marathon with him.  Otherwise my final marathon would have been a little over two years ago (the fact that there have been three others since that time is irrelevant to the fact that Five Points was going to be my final-and-this-time-I-really-really-mean-it final marathon).          

So at 7 a.m. on a brisk February morning Josh and I were on our way.  We headed north on 34^th Street, side-by-side, stride-for-stride and wearing matching Currex Insole singlets.  (Yes, they are a sponsor of mine, and no I don’t get paid.  Satisfied?)

Josh had his mind set on running the marathon in three hours and 50 minutes.  I had my mind set on doing whatever I could to make sure Josh crossed the finish line.  We both had our minds set on having a great time.

We both failed.  But I take the blame; I should have known better.  After all, this wasn’t my first rodeo. 

Josh was focused on maintain a pace of 8:40 to 8:50 per mile for as long as he could, and then settling for 9-minute miles once fatigue set in.  I should have done a better job of having him focus on taking his time, enjoying the experience and listening to what his body was telling him.  Josh’s plan worked just fine; that is to say it worked just fine for the first 18 miles.  That’s when Josh’s legs started to cramp up something fierce. 

We took several walk breaks for a couple of miles, then took a couple of running breaks from what essentially had turned into a walk for a couple of miles.  Then at the 22-mile aid station Josh laid down on his back and for all intents and purposes his marathon had come to an end.  The volunteer—a retired doctor—told Josh his cramps could possibly be the result of dehydration or muscle fatigue and encouraged him to drink lots and lots of Gatorade.  Twenty minutes later Josh, still prone on the ground said he thought he could finish the race.  The doctor told him he’d rather see him drop out today and return next year and win than see him continue.  The doctor looked at me and said ‘Aren’t you his dad?  You tell him (to drop out)!’ 

Me, the guy who ran practically the entirety of the 100-mile Western States Endurance Run with the balls of his feet split wide open while dismissing the advice of the on-course foot doctor who told him that should he continue (this occurring at mile 62) he could risk infection and the subsequent loss of his feet?  Me, the guy who ran (OK, mostly walked.  OK, OK, totally walked) the last 13 miles of the Badwater Ultramarathon bouncing between two members of his support crew so he wouldn’t wander off the side of Mount Whitney? 

Sorry, doc: You’ve got the wrong guy.  Consider my silence to be your clue.

The doctor said he’d give Josh a ride to the medical station at mile 23.  I told him I’d meet them there.  I then spent another 10 minutes with Josh at the medical tent—wanting to stay with him on one hand and wanting to get to mile 26 on the other because that is where my wife would be with my grandson who was eager to run the last quarter-mile to the finish line with me.

Once Josh assured me he would be fine, I told him I’d be back for him once I crossed the finish line.  The next four miles were torture, the result of my legs tightening up from standing around for the better part of half an hour.  My grandson Krischan was eager to run when I finally showed up and believe me when I say it was all I could do to keep up with him for that final quarter-mile.

We crossed the finish line together and I motioned for the finish line volunteer to drape the finisher’s medal around Krischan’s neck.  Krischan, who before today had run four one-mile fun runs and came to understand that medals are only for those who run in the longer, accompanying 3.1-mile races said: ‘That didn’t feel like three miles!’

I then walked to the car and drove back to the 23-mile medical station where Josh said he was given (surprise!) even more Gatorade to drink.  He said he felt a little bit better before coming up with this: ‘Well, Dad, I guess you’re going to have to run one more marathon.’

Postscript: Three days later I received an Email with proofs from the race.  For those who don’t know, proofs are photographs taken of the runners during a race that can set you back about a gazillion dollars.  I was surprised to find that there wasn’t ONE SINGLE PROOF of Josh and me running together.  Hey race photographers: NEWS FLASH!  If you see two runners running side-by-side, stride-by-stride in matching singlets who appear to be about a generation apart in age you might want to take a photograph with both of them in it as the chances are pretty decent that they might like to have one.

Examining the proofs a little bit more I couldn’t help but notice the expression on my face while running with Josh.  I’m fishing for a couple adjectives here…let’s see.  Pained.  Exhausted.  Old.  Yep…old.  Sad but true.   Josh’s face?  Stern.   Focused.  Much, much too serious.   

But the proofs with Krischan and I were different.  I looked happy.  Rested.  Young(er), even.  In fact, I had the same expression on my face that I remembered from proofs of races I ran in a decade or two ago.  A time when I smiled when I was running. 

As for Krischan in the photos, it was evident he was just enjoying the moment.  He loves to run and he loves his G-Pa.  He didn’t know how far we had run, how fast (or slow) we had run or that I had already run 26 miles before I joined him for the sprint to the finish line.  That’s how it is when you’re enjoying the moment, and that’s exactly what I should have passed on to Josh. 

There are all kinds of inferences to be made from looking at the photos but one thing is certain: At the moment I’m not capable of running competitive marathons.  The proof is…well, the proof is in the proofs. 

I’m sorry Josh didn’t finish, but he’s young, willing and one day will be more than able of running 26.2 miles.  If anyone is responsible for Josh not finishing it’s me.  I knew better and I should have set a better example.  After all, the Five Points of Life Marathon wasn’t my first rodeo.

But it may very well be my last. 

Running on Fumes

I’m running out of gas.

I know I’ve said it before but this time I really, really, really mean it.

I’m literally running out of gas.

I’ve promised myself more times than I care to admit that I would limit my weekly mileage.  It all began in 1998 when I was putting in well over 100 miles a week.  Since I wasn’t anywhere near world class, had no chance of qualifying for the Olympics nor earning a living by running lots of miles I thought it wise to cut back a bit. 

‘A bit.’  Ninety miles a week for the next eight years hardly qualifies as ‘a bit.’  So in 2007 I got serious and made a firm commitment to reduce my weekly mileage…to 85 miles a week.  OK, baby steps.  A few years later (2010) I took it a step further and cut back to 75 a week (more baby steps) where I held steady for a few years.     

Then ‘it’ happened.  I turned 60 years old and asked myself as seriously as I’m capable of asking myself a question out loud:

‘How many 60 year old men are running 70 miles a week?’

(If you happen to know don’t tell me because even if it’s only one,

 I’ll feel compelled to make it two.)

So now I’m more than five weeks into my 61^st year on earth and I’m still putting in 70 miles a week.  But this time I have a reason: My younger son Josh will be running his first marathon and he wants me to run it with him.  So I decided to maintain my weekly regimen of 70 miles a week until it got me through Josh’s first---and my last---marathon on the 15^th of February. 

Let me back up for a moment.  I’ll admit I ran my ‘last’ marathon in Honolulu a couple of years ago during the weekend I turned 58.  I’ll also admit there were three other ‘last’ marathons after that.  But this time—once (if) I cross the finish line of the Five Points of Life Marathon in Gainesville, Florida---it will effectively signal the end of my marathon career.  That’s all, folks; color me ‘done.’

Coincidentally I ran my very first marathon in that same city—Gainesville--a little more than six years before Josh was born.  I was wearing my $5 USA Olympic size 9 running shoes that I bought from the original Athletic Attic which was located about three miles from the trailer park I lived in during my senior year at the University of Florida.  (Today I wear a size 10, the larger feet no doubt a result of the millions of times they slapped the asphalt over the years.) 

This marathon will be special for three reasons.  The first two are obvious: It will be Josh’s first and my last.  The third reason is I’ll be promoting an insole company I represent all over the world—all over the world that isn’t the United States, that is—on American soil.  I’ll be wearing the company’s singlet that arrived in the mail the other day.  While it fits perfectly and is made of a fabric I like, it has the most hideous color scheme you’d ever want to run across.  At the top of the singlet the color is sort of a ‘faded coral’ and as you work your way down the singlet the color ‘morphs’ through various colors until you reach the very bottom of the singlet bearing a color best described as ‘dry urine.’   

    

Speaking of dry urine (also known as the official color of ‘done’)…

That’s an apt description of how I’ve been feeling lately.  I’ve had some sort of flu off-and-on (mostly on) for the past five weeks.  In fact I’ve been sick more days this year alone than in all the years I’ve been running combined.  I’m thinking my immune system is waving the white flag.  Various parts of my body ache almost every day; I imagine they’re rebelling because they haven’t had any real down time since 1978.  I yawn all the time, the result of a lifetime of sleep deprivation that began with the birth of my first son in 1982.  That was the year I started to run in the morning, and with a job that required me to be at work as early as 5 a.m., well…feel free to do the math.  (By the way, if I yawn in your presence and you make a snide remark like ‘What’s wrong, didn’t get your beauty sleep last night?’ my response will be ‘It’s not a yawn; it’s a critique.’  You might want to save your breath.)

So I’m still putting in 70 miles a week until I get through this next/last marathon.  After that I’m cutting back.

I really, really, really mean it this time. 

Really. 

Postscript: They day after I wrote this I ran 10 miles and then another mile in a fun run with my grandson.  The next day I ran 15 miles with Josh, our last long run before the marathon—then only a week away.  I made plans to take it easy up until and then after the marathon.  After that, I need to be running the mileage expected of a 60-year old man.

In church the morning after our 15-mile run the pastor said something in his message about asking yourself if you were young or old, and if you had to think about it you were old.

That definitely made me think.            

Man Date

I got back from my Saturday morning run and Krischan was already sitting on the couch, engrossed in one of the latest video games that is so above my pay grade I couldn’t tell you what it was or how it was played if my life depended on it.   I asked him if he wanted me to fix him the usual for breakfast (frozen waffles) only to find out his Yia-Yia already made them for him.  I remember the last time Cindy made him waffles he wouldn’t eat them because they weren’t ‘crunchy like G-Pa’s.’  I asked Krischan what changed and he told me he ‘showed her how to make them.’  Apparently there’s more than one way to turn a toaster oven on. 

We had the whole day in front of us with nothing official on our agendas, freeing us up to do what Krischan refers to as ‘man things.’  We started the day by running a couple of errands that resulted in a couple gallons of ice cream we didn’t really need and a large bag of gummi candy that would be ancient history well before lunchtime Sunday.  We came home and had lunch: Spicy chicken sandwiches and veggie straws.  Let me be the first to say, if there’s a five-year old on the planet who likes vegetables more than Krischan then he must be a rabbit.  He looked at the veggie straws, held up a red one and said ‘ooh, this one is tomato!’  Then he asked if he could have a tomato while pushing the chicken sandwich (‘it’s too spicy!) to the side. 

After lunch we went down to the basement to assemble a weight bench we will be using in the months ahead to ‘make our muscles bigger.’  While I removed what must have been 1,000 pieces out of the 2’ X 4’ cardboard box, Krischan picked up Cindy’s five-pound hand barbells and proceeded to flaunt his muscles while I was trying to distinguish those 1,000 different parts that the directions referred to by part number but apparently the manufacturer didn’t think it important to indicate these part numbers on the parts themselves.  It’s a good thing I had my trusty assistant to help, because it was a lot easier having Krischan bring me the 15 or so parts that MIGHT be ‘Part # 127’ than it was for me to get up from my seat each time to siphon through the parts until I found the right one. 

The entire construction process took the two of us about four hours.  All I had to show for that time was a sore back from bending over, a sore right arm from tightening about 500 screws and twice that many bolts and a patience that was on the verge of detonating.   Oh yeah: And a really great weight bench that in all honesty will never give me a workout nearly as strenuous as the one it gave me today while assembling it.  As for Krischan, he discovered the batteries in his remote-control motorcycle still had life, that a lot of my Florida Gator memorabilia doubled as playthings (he walked around all afternoon wearing my authentic leather football helmet) and that his G-Pa could build really big things all by himself (at which point I reminded him that I couldn’t have done it without his help). 

We then retired to the couch and turned on the Florida-Arkansas basketball game.  Krischan noticed the Florida Gator logo in the middle of the court and said ‘everyone likes the Gators’ and noticed that the fans on television were all cheering for them.  He said ‘I like the Gators’ before telling me that ‘the Gators have 55 and the Hogs have 47.’  This surprised me on several levels: (1) I didn’t know he could read double-digit numbers, (2) I never told him the opposing team was the Hogs and (3) I didn’t know how he could distinguish which team had which number of points so I asked him about all three.  In order: (1) ‘G-Pa, I can count to one hundred!’ (2) ‘They have hogs on their uniforms and the Gators will win because gators eat hogs.’ (3) ‘I know you’ve tried to teach Yia-Yia that when the teams are listed on the screen side-by-side the home team is on the right and when the teams are listed one on top of the other the home team is on the bottom, and today the Gators were listed on the right.’  (I totally made that last one up but in the hopes that Cindy will read this one day maybe it will sink in once and for all.)

Florida ended up winning the game (gators eat hogs, remember?) and Krischan summed it up best when he said:

‘That was the best football game I’ve ever seen.’