Doing the “Brass Dance”

At 6’1″, 240 lbs, I am really not in the best shape to run “competitively”. I do a few of these runs every year just as motivation and as a goal for training. I need to be at least another 20 pounds lighter to get anywhere near being able to compete !!

I was never a distance guy, I was always a sprinter type, going from 1st to 3rd on a single was my kind of speed.

When I run these races, I usually find another runner within the first 1/2 mile that is running the pace that I want to run and tag along!

Now, it might just be a coincidence, but I usually end up behind someone like this:

Butt

It was at about the 1 1/2 mile mark that I knew that I had made a mistake. The young lady was going faster than I wanted to and she was putting distance between us.

I struggled to keep up with her but at the 3 mile mark, she began to fade. When I train on the treadmill at the gym, I always end with a 2-3 minute kick and that’s where I turned it on and was able to pass the young lady with maybe 50 yards left.

PHEW !!!

I worked hard for this run. I did well, but was actually disappointed that I hadn’t done better with the extra hard work that I had done. From the first race of this year to this one, I did cut 1 full minute off of my pace. That does make me feel good.

Oh, is this the point where I should tell you that there were only 2 men in my age group?

Rule Five: “Bridgework Ahead”

Sep13

There are times when I read things on blogs and I have to think things like, “Why did they tell us that”, “Should they have told us that” or “WOW, I have to rethink reading this blog in the future.”

I don’t think this information will reach any of those levels, but have to wonder ! (The internet is forever and there are no mulligans or do overs)

When I was 15 I went on a church organized canoe trip to the Boundary Waters out of Ely, Minnesota. I did this trip two years in a row and really enjoyed it a lot. There were four females and four males on this trip, including one male and one female adult counselor. On the male side, two of us were 15 and the other was 18 and just graduated high school. One the female side, all three girls were 18 and just out of high school as well.

Two of the girls were very pretty, the third, I guess you’d have to say she was close to being a “double bagger.” We had a rare layover and we actually got to spend the day swimming and playing around (more to this story in a different post) and there was a time when one of the (pretty) girls was laying flat on her towel near the edge of the water. She was tall, close to a six footer, and weighed about 160 pounds. She wore a bikini that was the style of the day (abt 1978) and the top of her bottoms went right over her pelvic bones. I did not know at the time that it was called a “Bikini Bridge.” All I knew that I got a pretty darn good look down her swimsuit !!

Yeah, I know it’s really not that big of a deal except to an extremely introverted, geeky 15 year old, it was magical !

Enjoy !!

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Dire Straits “Lady Writer”

Sep12

“Lady Writer” is by far the best song off of the otherwise dismal second album “Communiqué” rushed out in 1979 as a quick follow up to the far better 1978 self titled album, “Dire Straits.” I don’t know Mark Knopfler’s musical writing history, but “Lady Writer” sounds like it should have been on the first album sounding much like “Down To The Waterline” (another of my favorites) and of course the uber classic rock song “Sultans Of Swing.”

I have always wondered what this song would sound like with a more “Clapton” voice rather than the Knopfler “Dylan” sound. Until Dylan admits that he did not write “Blowing In The Wind”, I won’t be much of a fan.

Knopfler is a rock guitar master and that is the reason he’s toured with Eric Clapton.

Enjoy