The Adjustment Bureau

The way that your heart beats makes all the difference
In learning to live
Here before me is my soul
I'm learning to live
I won't give up
Till I've no more to give


— Dream Theater, "Learning to Live"

I had a free day from the kids. In the summer, that meant a chance at a long mountain run.
But a half hour before I needed to go to bed to make the early wake up that was certain to follow, I still didn't know what I wanted to do.
I had a good idea. I wanted to do Mount Audubon, a 13,223-foot mountain in the Indian Peaks, a gorgeous area less than two hours from my house.
Something held me back. I should say someone. The old me.
I knew my times in the mountains would be cut when I had kids. I was all right with that. After years of climbing 20 peaks every summer, in my chase for the 14ers and nabbing as much as I could in Rocky Mountain National Park and the Indian Peaks, I was ready for a change. It was easy to get burned out by the time fall rolled around. It would be nice to focus on running, a new sport for me, and, hey, I'd still get out there, right?
Well, sure. But to say this has been an adjustment would be a sorry understatement. Jayden is 6 and the girls are 4, and yet my time in the peaks hasn't increased with their ages, as I thought it would, it's decreased.
Therefore, this time was valuable, like poker chips, and the old me didn't like picking Audubon.
The old me was an advanced climber, and boring Audubon, with a trail all the way to the top, a relatively short hike to get to its summit, was not worth my time. I'd done it a few times already too. The old me was a peak snob. The old me COULD be. I could do traverses that took two days. Scrambles. Tough stuff.
Yet I am learning to adjust. The thing is, I had some freelance work to do, and the kids would be home that afternoon, along with my wife, and I wanted to be there for them.
Aubudon would let me run it, for a morning, and it was close. It fits the new me.
So I ran Audubon. The mountain was challenging enough, making the run more difficult than I thought it would be. The weather was gorgeous and so was the mountain. I made the summit. Then I ran back down. It was three hours of bliss.
I listened to Dream Theater on the way up, one of my favorite metal bands. The song "Learning to Live" echoed through my ears as I walked across Aububon's summit and signed the register with my kids' names.

The Funk of a family trip

It only took about an hour for the funk to latch on to our clothes like a leech.
The camping stink.
Our first camping trip as a family was officially underway.
As you might have guessed by now, time in the mountains is important to me. I want it to be important to my kids too. Our efforts seem to be working. The girls, at their tender age, ask to climb mountains. The boy, with Kindergarten approaching, asks to go to the mountains every week.
The mountains, to these young minds, means anything with trees and without a McDonald's within 100 yards, but we're starting small. Still, Friday we'd head up to Rocky Mountain National Park, and that counts as a full-fledged day in the mountains. The thin air made our Kansas friends, silly flatlanders that they are, breathe heavy even during a simple walk.
I bought a six-person tent, a camping bed/air mattress/princess pad and a rechargeable pump to blow it up. I booked a reservation for a campsite in the park with a cushy bathroom, running water, a place to wash your dishes and a large tent pad. There was a picnic bench at each site. And a firepit.
I'm not used to such luxuries. My camping trips were out of necessity, a tent at 11,000 feet to break up a particularly tough 14er or a place to stay when the drive was almost a full day. Car camping, as we called it, was heaven. I usually had to pack in, which meant water pumped from a river, not a faucet I could just turn on, and dinner was boiled water in a pouch with freeze-dried food. A pillow was a tiny thing I could fit into my pack. My clothes were what I had on.
Kate, bless her, did this kind of camping with me as well, though she's moved on. She does agree with me, bless her, that camping should be done in a tent and not a huge vehicle that works off a rumbling generator all night, though she probably agrees because we can't afford anything but a tent. I'm more on principle: You have to rough it a bit in order to rough it.
I camped with Jayden last year, so I knew he was up for anything. We weren't sure about the girls. Last year, when they threw a fit if their milk wasn't topped off the moment they asked for it, we would have laughed, tearfully, at the idea of a camping trip. But they've chilled out. The 4s are much better than the 3s.
So, having no idea if the tent would actually set up (I still like to gamble a bit even if online poker is now akin to selling meth to grade schoolers), we set out, got to the site, sat on the bench and, yes, the tent set up. Our Kansas friends, however, camping veterans they are, had to bail me out for the air beds/princess pads, a necessity for Kate's blanching at most things roughing it. I didn't see the valves in the box. They had extras. Once the pads were plumped, the kids and Kate staked their spots. I was left with my camping mattresses and a sleeping bag. That's OK. At least there was running water and peanut butter pie.
The smell set in soon after.
I can't explain it. I've slept in many tents, sleeping bags and in all kinds of areas, and yet the smell is the same. You can't imitate it. It's not what Kate calls "mountain stink" from a hiking trip or race stink from running. It's not shoe stink or old leather stink or underwear stink. It's sort of like BO wrapped in tarp and smoked in campfire.
Man. Those campfires. That was the only bummer for me. I did, I have to admit, like the bathroom and the running water and the picnic bench and the pie on ice.
But one of my favorite parts of being in the mountains is the sweet smell of pine and clean in the air, and the campground smelled like a campfire. Every spot among the hundreds had to have a campfire going. And here's the thing. Why? We cooked our hot dogs. Fine. We roasted marshmallows with a neighbor. Cool. But you don't need a raging campfire so you can showcase your mediocre guitar skills to your stoned mates, as a guy I named "Jack Johnson" did until the quiet hour crept in at 10 p.m.
After a brief battle for Mommy turf, which was expected, the girls settled down and went right to sleep. They're already veterans. But Jayden, as usual, was a maniac.
"Daddy, can I see if it's darker out now?" he asked me 20 times as 9 p.m. melted into 10 p.m.
Finally, I agreed to it. We walked outside together. The campfire smell had faded into the black of night. We looked at the stars. I agreed they were pretty cool.

Connected in disconnect

Jayden was only 6, but he was already showing signs of addiction.
We thought about "Intervention." Instead, Kate had him color three strips of paper.
They were his tickets.
They were tickets to anything electronic.
He needed them.
Before the tickets, his morning could be full of cartoons, or sometimes I'd have to pry my cell phone from his warm, sweaty hands.
NO! ANGRY BIRDS! he'd yell, as if I'd yanked the needle from his arm just before the heroin was delivered. When I got home, rather than a hug, I'd be greeted with, "Can I do your phone?"
In between, maybe he'd do the computer, such as a NickJr. website or a pbskids.org site.
We knew it was bad. But here's the sad part. The dangerous part. I thought it was also nice.
It kept him occupied, and a quiet, occupied young kid = quiet, occupied parent actually doing something for himself or herself.
Like, you know, playing with my iPhone.
Still, the girls keep themselves occupied by using their imaginations. They play with each other, with themselves, with toys.
Jayden relied on us for his entertainment. It was like he had forgotten how to play. To be a kid. To go outside and run around and poke bugs.

What was worse was we are not freaky parents who wondered why our babies weren't crawling at three months, but we had contemplated looking into ADHD for Jayden. He could not hold still, even telling us, at one point, "I want to but I can't." Kate had to ask him 10 times to put on his shoes.

When we instituted the rule, meaning a half hour plugged into something electronic, he gave us a ticket. And we noticed something almost right away.

He was focused.
Now he would sit with us and do homework. He wanted to read more books. He wanted to go outside more (even if the weenie does come right back in because of mosquitoes and 95-degree air).
He is in our face more.
A focused Jayden means I have to be Dad more. He makes me put my iPhone away. The iPhone is one of the best things that's happened to me in the last few months. It's also one of the worst.
I'm not alone. CNN just did a story on people who obsessively check their smart phones. The study said, on average, people checked their smartphones an average of 34 times a day. That's 34 times a day! A day!
My nose was in my smartphone so often that my kids sometimes would say, "Daddy!" to pull my attention away from it. When I wasn't checking it, I was playing Angry Birds or Tiny Wings or Words With Friends.
Jayden comes by it rightly. A diversion like that is like a trough of queso and chips to someone on a diet.
Disconnect is my biggest problem as a father and a husband. It's a serious weakness.
I need people for my job, and yet people drain me, and when I get home, I'm desperate for a recharge (much like my iPhone at the end of the day). Burying my face in my phone is a recharge. My family bears the brunt of that.
So I've tried to be better about it. I talk to the girls, play with the kids and wrestle with them at nights now. I still play my phone too. I wish it weren't an effort to interact. But it's the way I am.
Jayden really needed those tickets.
Turns out I did too.

The longest mile

"How much can you know about yourself, you've never been in a fight?"

— Tyler Durden, "Fight Club."

How much do you really know about yourself, after all, if you've never fought something? It seems like an arrogant question because the person asking it surely DOES know the struggle and wants nothing more than to tell you about it. But the reason I'm asking it is it's the exact question I asked myself three minutes before the start of the mile. And I am going to tell you about my own struggle, at the risk of sounding like that arrogant bastard, because you need to hear it.

You need to hear it because many times the person wielding the question is NOT arrogant. At least he or she is not nearly as arrogant as you might think when they ask that question. And the reason they want to tell you about the struggle is because they are proud, and because they want to possibly inspire you, but mostly, they want you to relate to them because everyone struggles, in relationships, at your job, at parenting. 

And I know all this because I am that person.

• • • 

I have blogged about my running quite a bit. You've read about half marathons, trail runs, runs up mountains, tough 10Ks, 5Ks and even a couple marathons. And I will tell you, right now, nothing tells me more about myself than the mile.

It's the mile, just a mile, that challenges me the most. It's by far the hardest thing I do during a season. When I tell people I'd rather run a half marathon, they don't believe me. Seriously. I'm not kidding. Because an hour and 45 minutes of mild suffering is far more agreeable to me than four minutes of pure hell.

If you do them right*, races don't get easier as they go down in distance. They get harder. 

* When I say "right," I mean as a runner who trains hard and takes it fairly seriously, like me. I would never do anything but encourage anyone who enters a race, even if you do a 5K twice a year because you want to ease the guilt of overeating before the 4th of July or Thanksgiving. I want everyone to lead active lives, and, to be blunt, I can't talk down to you anyway because there are runners out there who make me look like a squeaking mouse. 

Those races get harder, at least they do for me, because there's no reason to hold back in a 5K. It's three miles. That means running hard, really hard, in fact. Some people find this fun. I do. Now. But when I started, the intensity of running was the hardest adjustment for me. I'd climbed more than 150 peaks and repeated more than a few, but I'd never felt the lung-burning misery I do during a 5K. It took me years to banish the trolls, the ones constantly telling me to slow down, from my brain. One reason I've improved so much this year is because the trolls are quieter.

I'd mostly gotten over my secret hatred of intense races that made me miserable.

The mile was my last hurdle.

• • • 

I texted one of my running partners two hours before the race.

"I'm trying to look forward to this tonight," I said, "and not dread it. Failing!"

Dread will kill you before a race. If you already believe it will hurt, how can you banish the trolls when it's actually hurting? You can't. And yet I couldn't shake the dread. I KNEW how much the mile would hurt. 

The mile, as you've probably guessed, is as close to a sprint as you can manage for a mile. If 5Ks hurt, the mile REALLY hurts. In the last half mile, you can barely breathe, your legs turn to lead, and your heart booms like a bass drum. Your throat burns. I went to the doctor a few years ago and discovered I had a touch of exercise-induced asthma and acid reflux. I use an inhaler only before a tough race, and I take a mild form of medication for the reflux. Both have helped immensely. But the burn, the fire, really, still visits me for the mile. Only for the mile.

• • •

Positive, I told myself. Think positive. Smile during your run. Think positive. My goal was to go under 6 minutes. I'd only done it once, two years ago, and by the skin of my teeth, at 5:58. Still, I'd run well this year. If I didn't go under 6, it would be a disappointment. Positive. Positive. Positive! 

"30 seconds," our coach said.

Shit.

Go.

The first minute, when I would still be able to think clearly, was crucial this time, I thought. I told myself to stay with one of my running partners. She's smart and won't go out too fast.

I've gotten much better about gassing myself before the finish line. It's one reason why I enjoy the races more. But in the mile, it's hard not to go out too fast because it's balls out from the start, and seconds count. There's no room for a bad quarter. So I tried to hold back and run hard at the same time. It's harder than it sounds.

As we turned the first corner, a steep downhill awaited me, and I was already panting and fighting the trolls.

The trolls really come from deep inside your brain, and what your brain says to you is, "You sure?" You sure you want to do this? After all, it IS hard, and the risk for injury is pretty high, as even a slip would probably mean some serious road rash, and you are maxing your heart rate, which isn't good for you for long. I tried to think of excuses for me to quit. I couldn't think of any. So I relied on bargains to quiet the trolls.

I know this hurts, I said to myself. But this is downhill, so let your legs carry you and relax. I have long legs. It's my only athletic gift. I tried to use it as I ran downhill, but I started really breathing hard, and this is when the dread starts to settle in, because you know it's not getting any better, and probably it will get worse.

The third quarter is always the toughest. You aren't close to being done, and yet the furnace is really burning at this point. It was all I could do to breathe. It's actually kind of scary at this point because your heart feels like it might explode and the air scalds your lungs. I once got an EKG during a physical because I was worried about the pain I felt during the hardest runs. The inhaler helped with that. But that's also just the way it is. I also began to see tiny pink stars, which would be cool if I was at a Pink Floyd concert and not killing myself.

I slowed a bit on this quarter, I know I did, and so I started searching for people to pace me. Pretend you've got a rope attaching you to the person, I told myself. It's a neat trick because it works.

The third quarter ended, thankfully, and it was time for the stretch home. At this point I was so miserable that I made another bargain with myself. I told myself I would dog it if my time was just OK.

I glanced at my wrist. 4:15. 

Do NOT slow down, I told myself. You're going to PR if you keep it up. 

It helped, but I needed something more. I began to listen to the others around me.

• • •

The collective breathing sounded like the wind that rattled my windows the night during an angry thunderstorm, and I recalled a talk I had with others before the start.

Some runners close to me in ability asked me if I was going to run the first wave of faster runners or the wave of runners that were just over a 6-minute mile. I was going to run the first, I said, because I thought I could go under 6. 

And it was then that I was honest. I wanted to get it out of the way, I said. I didn't want to go second because I didn't want to dread it any longer.

Yeah, they said. Me too.

Others were going through exactly what I was going through, I told myself. They were hurting, barely able to breathe, even probably fighting their own trolls. Everyone was going through a period of discovery, about how much they could suffer and still fight to the end. That seems obvious, and yet, when you're suffering, you really do feel as if you're on an island. No one could possibly be as miserable as me right now, you think. It's not true. There are many out there. And that's why it's not an arrogant question to ask how much you really know of yourself if you've never been in a fight because those who DO fight are scared before it. We are nervous. We don't want to feel the pain and the misery and we don't relish the battle. In fact, as soon as it starts, we really just want it to be over.

I dug deep, way deep, even as I wished for it to end, and ran as hard as I could. It was not as fast as some. It was faster than others. At that point, it didn't matter. I heard my time, "5:48," as I approached the line. I knew something about myself. This was my own fight. And finally, I was winning.

Home

I started obsessing about the barbecue a good three weeks before I made the trip out to Kansas.
I don't think I'm alone in missing the little things when I think about home. Home, for me, is Kansas. It's where I grew up. It's where I went to school. It's where I worked my first job. It's where I said I would always stay, until I left.
I always come home for a week every year. My excuse is so my parents can see the grandkids. That is true. But the real reason is much simpler. I need my fix.
That means barbecue, Tippin's French Silk pie, running on a trail through the woods, catching lightning bugs and even sort of liking the strange stuff, like that film of humidity that stays on your skin at the end of the day.
Part of that comes from the fact that my parents are divorced. It is what it is. It was better for the both of them. I love seeing them, and they are great to my kids. That still leaves me visiting semi-strange neighborhoods rather than the one I lived in as a kid. I rarely get to see it anymore. I didn't this year.
I got lost, for instance, on one of my runs at Dad's. I took a wrong turn, and that turn forced me to run eight miles a day after a PR in a 10K.
(Quick brag: That 10K was a PR by two minutes. Sea level is really nice, but I think the stifling humidity cuts that advantage in half by the end of the race. The base training I've enjoying from the marathon just keeps paying off).
So, with my childhood home gone — something that isn't uncommon among us almost-40-year-olds — I have to hang onto the little things.
That means flying insects that flash like traffic lights when it gets dark.
Lightning bugs are fascinating to me, even if, really, all they are doing is saying LOOK AT MY BUTT! NO LOOK AT MY BUTT! I'LL DOUBLE BLINK YOUR BUTT TO THE GROUND! The kids had a ball snatching them up and putting them in a jar.
I watched them for hours in Kansas, but we don't have them in Colorado, at least not in Greeley. I miss the calls of the cicadas, but I miss the lightning bugs a lot more. I let them go once the kids went to bed. I can't keep beauty like that locked up.
I went to Kansas determined not to overeat. One thing that struck me on this trip was how easy it is to eat too much every day. I'm hardly overweight, and I'm not on a diet. But I have to watch what I eat every day, just like all of you.
It was a constant battle. And part of that reason is the French Silk.
When you order French Silk anywhere else, you get a mushy, pudding pie, which is sort of like comparing Schlitz to a Fat Tire. Tippin's French Silk is a buttery, milk chocolate masterpiece. There's nothing else like it. I don't really even like pie all that much.
Tippins was a restaurant with several locations, but it eventually went out of business, as the market for fancier versions of truck-stop food wasn't strong, and the pies were't enough to keep it going. Now Tippins sells pies out of a grocery store chain (or the chain bought it, I'm not really sure) for $12 a pop.
I had a piece of French Silk every night after dinner, and obviously, if I did that every night, I'd probably be at least ten pounds past my racing weight. I'd have a ponch, even with all the miles I run. And then I'd probably want a snack every night, like I had at my parents, and I'd eat more candied walnuts and much extra-large lunches and....
And I found myself having to really balance all that out with breakfasts of grapefruit and little else and other lunches of salads and fruits. It's SO easy to go overboard. I can see why this country is so fat. Calories are accessible, and most people don't run them off.
I don't think I overate on this trip, but I did gain a couple pounds, and I ran 30 miles that week in a sauna. So easy.
But then again, I may have gained all that weight Friday. Friday was Gates day. In my completely professional and totally unbiased opinion, Kansas City and the surrounding area serves the best barbecue in the world.
You have to pick your alliances early on. There are four or five major brands here. I used to be a KC Masterpiece guy, but in the last few years, I've turned to Gates. It's spicier than I want, but the meat is So Fucking Good. Smokey good. Imagine tender, smoked meat drenched in sugar, spice and molasses. You get the idea.
I ran 12 that day through that trail through the trees, and I ate a small bran muffin for breakfast and three servings of fruit for lunch, and then we went to a big pool all day. My body was ready for calories.
I ate most of a short end of ribs, probably 20oz of beans, most of an order of burnt ends, a serving of sausage, a few fries and probably something else. It's by far the most food I've eaten since, well, probably since the last time I had Gates, a year ago. If I could have injected it into my veins, I would have.
Alas, eventually, the meal has to end.
My body, or the stomach, anyway, seemed to realize how special this was, as I got away with this bender. No issues (I do not need to elaborate, I'm pretty sure) and just some mild heartburn that I extinguished with some Tums. Perhaps the humidity helped me sweat it through my pores.
Ah, the humidity. I said I may have missed it. I did miss it for a few minutes. Then my next thought was, "OMGOMGOMG HOW DO YOU STAND IT?" I felt like a hot dog dunked in water and then thrown into the Joey Chestnut furnace. At my race I dumped two cups of water over my head and ran through a sprinkler. On my "lost" run my shirt was soaked through. After I ran 12 through the trees I believe I lost five pounds in water weight. And every time it started before 7 a.m. Brutal.
On our last day, when we stayed at a cheap hotel in Goodland, KS, dark clouds loomed in the distance, and a kid at the hotel's pool from Minnesota kept staring at them in worry. They're nothing, I told him. Don't worry.
Oops.
A couple hours later, a thick mass of green-tinted, pissed-off vapor gathered over our hotel roof and spit out lightning like raindrops. Then the sirens went off.
I even miss the thunderstorms, the ragers that we just don't get back home. But the kids freaked on us, despite me telling them I'd been through dozens, if not hundreds, of tornado warnings with nary a scratch. This storm wasn't even that bad, with some driving rain, strong winds and a lot of thunder but no hail, really strong winds or, you know, a funnel. I'm not sure why the sirens went off. Maybe for old times' sake.
I stared out the window as the rain settled down, and, even if I miss it, I was grateful this was a fun event, an unusual thing, something we do once a year, like eat BBQ or catch lightning bugs.
The things you miss, I've found, seem to lead you back to the places we are lucky enough to now call home.

Did Pixar really make a bad movie?

I'll be honest. I was not looking forward to seeing "Cars II" as much as I had the last few Pixar movies. And it broke my heart.
As I grow into an increasingly cynical guy about to turn 40, Pixar was one of the few things that kept me believing. If you are cynical, or even struggling against it, like me, it's hard to like the movie business. There's Michael Bay, reboots, remakes, unoriginal ideas, Twilight movies, sequels and increasingly bad horror movies that believe buckets of blood can make up for a bag of twists.
But then there was Pixar, and in the summer, no less, when most of the sludge was served to us in a trough full of special effects and inane dialogue, we got brilliance. We got terrific storytelling, great characters and heartfelt, honest moments. I cried away my cynicism at the end of "Wall-E," "Up" and "Toy Story 3." In fact, I thought those three movies were some of the best movies I'd seen, and "Toy Story 3" was my favorite movie last year.
And what was even better was EVERYONE went to see them. Pixar is one of the few great success stories, a wonderful product that is actually endorsed by the public. That combination is rarer than you think. For every Adele, there's two Katy Perrys.
It got to the point where I believed Pixar was incapable of making a bad movie. It made me believe. Going to the new Pixar movie is a summer tradition, like running a 4th of July race. 
Alas. Brilliant white light eventually dims. Maybe that's the lesson of "Cars II."
I just got back from the theater, and I'm trying, really hard, not to bash the crap out of it. I mean, Rolling Stone's Peter Travers, who is not only my favorite movie writer but a guy I agree with more than anyone else, gave it three-and-a-half stars, and one thing I love about him is he always forms his own opinion, rather than jump on the back of other reviewers and reheat what everyone's saying. So he saw that same brilliance that we all saw in "Wall-E."
What Travers does is impressive because it's HARD not to let the buzz influence our opinions of something. Word of mouth is the most powerful advertising in the entertainment business. That's how movies like "Little Miss Sunshine" become smash hits. And I had not heard many good things about "Cars II."
I honestly wondered if reviewers were either falling for the new story, i.e. Pixar Made A Sucky Movie! or ready to knock Pixar off its perch. We love it when greatness falters because, well, it brings it back to our levels. When something is THAT great, all the time, well, you begin to wonder why YOU can't be great all the time, and let's face it, that's an uncomfortable feeling, and we Americans, more than anything else, like that comfortable feeling of feeling good about ourselves.
So I went in with an open mind. I'm still trying to keep it. I owe Pixar that much, at least.
(Actually, I have repaid Pixar for its greatness and inspiration in thousands spent on the company's annoying merchandise. It's inevitable when you have three small children and the characters are so very, cheek-pinching cute. Ironically, "Cars" was by far the most criminal at this. McQueen is printed on T-shirts, bedsheets, underwear, frosted cookies, a dumpyard of toys, swimsuits, floaties, kickboards, countless food items, watches, CDs, DVDs and I don't have all day to list the rest. And that's just in our house. I would not be stunned to find Cars on tampons).
So here's my quickie: The movie isn't really all that bad. It doesn't hold up to the past movies. It's probably the worst Pixar movie ever, save for "A Bugs Life," which I had wiped from my memory with one of them Total Recall machines. In fact it almost doesn't deserve to carry the label.
But it's not "Hop," not by a longshot. It's even better than some reasonably cute kids movies I've seen in the last six months, like "Rio" or "Megamind." Part of the problem of being Pixar is the movies are almost TOO good. People think "Led Zeppelin III" is a bad album for the same reason.
In fact, I walked out of the movie, and Jayden, my 6 year old son, was grinning ear to ear. Did you like it, we asked him, and he nodded.
OK then.
No, what worries me more is "Cars II" honestly seemed far more like a normal movie than I've ever seen from Pixar. In other words, it was a sequel, and it didn't seem all that imaginative or well-thought-out or even planned in any way. It seemed like a summer movie that featured friendly, well-known characters, lots of cool special effects (the movie does LOOK incredible), an easy, wild, plot and lots of explosions (!!!).
Sequels aren't always bad. Remember what I said about "Toy Story 3"? (And "Toy Story 2" was just as good). And neither are fun summer movies. Hey, I loved "Speed." I loved "The Dark Knight." I loved "Inception."
Instead, "Cars II" honestly was the kind of movie that made me so cynical about movies. And it didn't seem like a simple misstep. John Lasseter, the head of Pixar and one of my top three people I'd kill cute, fluffy bunnies to invite for dinner, co-directed it. Yikes. And what's even worse, before "Cars II," Pixar showed a "Toy Story" short. I love the shorts as much as the movies. They are when Pixar seems to stretch its considerable creative limits even further. They are imaginative and brilliant and everything the movie business is mostly not. But this movie was something Pixar can find in its office trashcans. I'd be surprised if it took more thought than a working lunch over Burger King.
The fact that Pixar made both scares me to death. I need magic in my life. I suppose I can't have it all the time. But I live in a world where it's drying up. If I can't count on Pixar once a year, well, maybe I'll just have to join the crowd who believes Katy Perry is actually good.



 

Like father, like son, like father

Jayden picked at his oatmeal early Saturday morning as usual, looking at food as he usually does, as a pain in the ass that kept him from Nick Jr. or the computer or, in this case, his first triathlon.
"I don't want this. I'm full," Jayden said.
This is the game we play every day. None of our kids want to eat. So we're used to it. We try different weapons against it all the time, and none of them work very well. We try time outs, threats (NO Nick Jr. until you eat) and the "just a couple more bites" plea. We've even used the starving kids in Africa line. Or maybe it's China, which, if Jayden knew what the economy was like over there, he'd also know I was full of crap.
But he's still 5, so sometimes he buys it, and usually, he doesn't. We usually sigh and save the food for later, knowing there will probably never be another later.
But Saturday, I tried a different tactic.
"You know, Jayden," I said. "Whenever I have a big race, I have to eat a good breakfast. I need my strength. I need the energy. I need to be strong. You'll need to be strong too."
He looked at me. He considered what I said. And then he ate the rest in big, heaping gulps.
• • •
I stared out into the open water a couple weeks ago just a couple hours after one of the fastest 10Ks of my life. I felt good about my Boulder/Bolder PR, really good, actually, considering how the marathon had sapped my speed for a month. But this was no time for pats on the back. Three of my friends were in the water, waiting for me.
"Come on, dear, you've got to get in," Sarah said. "Get your ass in here."
The water was cold. I knew it was cold. My running partner jumped in the lake and gasped involuntarily.
I am not a swimmer. I am a floater. But for the second year in a row, I would be entering the Greeley Triathlon, and part of the deal is, of course, a swim. And this swim's in open water, meaning you don't get the luxury of touching the bottom, let alone a friendly pool. It can be scary for anyone who isn't used to it.
I was not used to it.
My wetsuit - actually, a borrowed suit - was on tight. My cap was ready. I just needed to find the courage.
• • •
Jayden had a confession as we rode to the Greeley Kids Triathlon Saturday, the day before my own Greeley Triathlon (rated R, for adults only, for strong language).
"Daddy," he said. "I'm scared."
"It's OK to be scared," I said. "I was scared a couple weeks ago when I swam in the lake."
Jayden considered what I said. Then he strapped his goggles over his head and waited for his turn in the pool.
• • •
I jumped in the water, and the cold gut-punched me, numbing my toes and making me sputter. But I'll be honest, lest you think I'm being overdramatic. It felt good after a bit. After that last, miserable mile of the Bolder/Boulder, when the sun came out and hot air swirled around my cheeks and sweat ran into my eyes, a cold bath was exactly what I needed.
It always gets better, I said to myself, as Brenda stayed me to give me a few pointers and, uh, make sure I didn't drown.
I'm not a natural athlete. Yeah, I know, I do all this stuff, so shut up. But really I'm not. I may have more endurance and energy than most people, and I may even have some kind of VO2 advantage. But the skill sports flummox me. I can't really play football. I can't even dribble a basketball and run down a court. And swimming is a skill sport if I've ever seen one.
My left arm flopped around like Nemo's special fin. When I turned my head to breathe, I usually swallowed more water than air. And I'd start swimming by plopping my head in the water and kicking first, as if I was starting up a rusty fishing boat.
My goal was to make it to an island and back. That was maybe 300-400 yards.
I was out of breath after the first 25.
• • •
Jayden had to hurry to the start and jump in just after the race started. That was my fault. He can't stand still for more than a minute (show me a 5-year-old who can, in his defense), and so he was playing in a park 100 yards away when I noticed the tots were gathering for the mini-triathlon.
He jumped in the water, swam halfway and looked at me. I shouted at him to go, and he grinned and turned on his motor.
Jayden's already a pretty good swimmer. I think he has his mother's genes. He loves the water. And something surprised me about him. He climbed out of the pool and ran to the transition area.
He knew he was in a race.
In fact, he began yelling at me almost right away to dry him off and get his shoes on.
• • •
Today, Sunday if you're reading this at work, I lined up with 100 other guys, many who looked at home in their wetsuits. I fidgeted in my seal's skin, scratching at the zipper and trying to breathe through the tight fit. I joked about how much I sucked to hide my nerves and lower my expectations of the race. It's what I do.
One other thing I do, and this one is more serious, is I remind myself to race myself. That's the only way I survived going to all those track sessions at first with people who could place in their age groups at will in every race. I tried to PR every race and didn't worry about the applause showering over them when their race times were announced before we killed ourselves at intervals.
When I crossed the line faster than I had before, inside, I heard cheering.
So when I looked around, I saw most of those guys had obviously swam, possibly for years, and so of course they were better than me. I'd have to make it up on the run if I could. That, at least, thanks to a lot of hard work, I can do pretty well.
• • •
Jayden hopped on his bike and burned down the course, passing any kid he could, which, thanks to my terrible transition skills, wasn't very many (hell, I was yelling at myself at the end). Then he hopped off and sprinted the quarter-mile run. I ran with him and told him to chase down the kid in front of him. His face turned red, then purple, but he ran harder.
He finished, breathing hard, crispy air, and looked at me with a question in his eyes: Why did I just do that?
Then they draped a medal around his neck.
He wore the medal the rest of the day and showed it to his babysitter as soon as he ran out of our mini-van that night. He kept showing it to me, too.
I told him I was proud.
• • •
I remember my father taking me on hikes and getting me up my first few peaks. It was something we did together. Despite an background that favored music and band over athletics (something I'm still proud of, by the way), I eventually became only one of less than 2,000 people to climb all the 14ers. The mountaineering eventually led to the running because, hey, I could climb, couldn't I? And the running led to the triathlon and the swimming because, hey, I could run, couldn't I?
Dad opened the door by me watching him and wanting to do what he did.
I sputtered and panicked a couple times and thrashed around, but I eventually did get through the swim. My bike was pretty mediocre, which was better than my swim, and the 5K went well. But I knew it would. I finished in the middle of the pack, maybe even a little lower. I did not finish last in my age group, like I did last year. I knocked six minutes off last year's time.
Mostly, I did it.
I didn't wear my medal all day. But I really wanted to.

The battle of the birds, angry or otherwise

There's a disturbing, salacious temptation I've battled lately as a father.
Part of me wants to let my kids play video games all day.
That's not exactly true of the girls, though they are as quiet as mice, too, when they sit at the computer and play games from online sites like Nick Jr. and Disney Jr.
(The Jr. part strikes me as funny; is there an adult version of the Disney Channel? And does it involve Silvermist, one of Tinker Bell's buddies? Cause I totally have a crush on her.)
But there's no consequence when the girls are told to leave the computer. They go and play, like a 4-year-old should, with Barbies or some plastic crap they got at McDonald's.
Jayden unleashes fury.
Now Jayden is a force of nature anyway. He's a soon-to-be-6-year-old who wears his heart on the outside, usually stitched to a Lighting McQueen shirt. He reacts and overacts, so much so that he should have no problems getting his own news talk show when he's older.
And when I (finally) do put down Angry Birds or Words with Friends and yank him away from the screen, he fusses and fumes and starts hounding us to watch TV. My wife the other day said she wishes he had an off switch.
Only when I suggest that we, say, go for a walk, or go ride our bike on a nature trail outside of Greeley, he always agrees.
Jayden loves the outdoors and nature and animals. He would spend every day at the zoo. Whenever he sees a creek (or a 'crick' as some of you say), he inches forward despite my protests until he's deep in the mud. He's always asking me what kind of bird or bug that is, and when he sees a snake, whether it's at the zoo, in person or in a picture, he says, "Daddy I think you're gonna have to come see this. Look. Your favorite."
He is, in other words, exactly like me.
I struggle to maintain a balance between the electronic and the ethereal, which, in my case, means the outdoors. I love video games too. Technology is great because it's cheap entertainment (Angry Birds: 99 cents), portable and In The Comfort Of Your Own Home! Yet the outdoors renews me in a way that Angry Birds cannot. Those moments when all the pigs die as if I've dropped a hydrogen bomb on their asses are all too fleeting. There are no fleeting moments when I'm running or hiking or biking along the trail. It just IS.
The trouble, of course, is that getting out there takes energy, and that's not only true when you're running or hiking. It takes more energy than ever for two reasons.
The first is these places are harder and harder to find. It's already been written by several million that when I was a kid, we had creeks and woodsy areas within a bullfrog's jump of my backyard. But it's TRUE. It hits me. It hit me when I was reading a simple children's book to Jayden the other night, "Crawdad Creek." The book talks in clover-scented-Lysol language about a place behind a girl's house where wildlife was abundant, where crawdads paddled in creeks and deer frolicked in the meadows (dammit, now I'm doing it). Jayden constantly interrupts me whenever I read it to him, and I think it's because he's fascinated with a place like this. He's never really seen one. He's seen dozens of parks, even special neighborhood ones with neat places to see wildlife, but he's not seen a true, wild place close to his home, where he could go and explore anytime he wanted. They do not exist, at least where I live, and I fear that's not only because of Colorado's arid climate. They're getting swallowed up by us. They're getting fenced and plowed and purchased.
So I have to find these places, or at least places that are (currently) protected, and I have to gather him in a car and get him the right clothes and teach him AGAIN to tie his shoes and wrestle his bike in the back and get him some juice and have a snack ready and put on sunscreen and then watch him constantly (and that's just if it's him and not the girls). And then we have to drive there.
The second reason? Well, I have to initiate it, since he still really can't do a whole lot on his own. He can ride his bike like a champ, probably for 10 miles if I let him, but he can't go 100 yards without me having to remind him to watch where he's going before he runs into a fence post. He can say a river is beautiful, but I have to catch him from leaning too far over the rickety bridge so he doesn't fall in. He can walk 100 miles, but I have to walk 100 more to make sure he's safe.
It's easier to let him spend that time playing Angry Birds. It's fun for me too. I like Angry Birds. And raising the kids takes so much energy. The temptation is there to let him drown in video games. He would if I let him.

Saturday's ride along the trail near Greeley

But that's one world. He deserves both. So do the girls. So do I. And every day, it seems, I'm clawing my way out of the temptation to give in, exhausted but loving the sun when it finally falls on my face.

The Grind

Kate left for Vegas Friday, and as I'm sitting here, worn down to my bone marrow, I'm filled with regrets.
Mostly they involve the many times I raised my voice at my three kids today.
Or the times I tuned them out to play with my iPhone.
Or the missed opportunities to play with them.
The thing is, these happen every day. They're unavoidable as a parent with three small children. At least they are with me.
But the regrets are magnified when I'm flying solo with the kids, and especially over an extended period, like when my wife takes her nearly annual vacation to Vegas.
She's earned the trip. That's not what this is about. Any father should watch his kids alone for a few days, for the perspective, the time alone with them and the chance to play both roles of Mommy and Daddy. They're different roles, and you don't realize how important the other role is until it's gone.
I just wish I was better at both.
I was looking forward to this weekend. I really was. I had some activities planned to chew up most of the hours, and they were fun things, like going to the library, eating at Red Robin and going to a state park to see bald eagles. OK, it's not Vegas, but it wasn't like we were going to be cooped up in the house watching  "Wow Wow Wubzy."
But MAN. Holy Cow. Did you ever see "Jon and Kate Plus 8" before they both turned into attention-starved media whores? When they were actually ragged parents wishing they had three arms or maybe a clone (or two) of themselves? That's been me the last couple of days. When you don't have someone else here to cushion the demands, they not only pile up like cinder blocks, they swarm you like an angry cloud of buzzing mosquitoes. And that's appropriate, since my kids really do drain me like those little bloodsuckers. They drain my energy, my desire to keep my patience with them and my resolve to be a good Dad. It is not just the never-ending demands for juice, snacks and entertainment (especially my precious iPhone, my only real sanity from the cacophony), it is the constant pull for my time. I have almost pissed my pants three times in the last two days because I didn't have a moment to relieve myself. And when I'm not cleaning up their aftermaths from their wild adventures tearing up the house or soothing those demands to a dull roar, I'm answering inane questions about why I'm using a blue sponge (and millions others like it) to wipe up their apple juice.
I don't know. I wonder if my kids are wilder than most — I think they do have more energy than most, and they could very well get that from me — or if it's just that having the twins basically hosed us from any prayer for a pinch of peace. It's not so much the number of kids that makes it hard, although that's certainly part of it. It's the INTENSITY. The girls are 4, and Jayden is 5, and though they can do many more things on their own, it's utterly amazing what they still need done. I have to watch them constantly, and there's already been a few times when one's simply disappeared momentarily, leading me to believe that it will be no small feat just to have all three of them here when Kate returns. I don't have to dress them, but I do need to tie their shoes, wipe their asses and mouths and wash their hands. They can't get any food or drinks on their own, and, well, I suppose they COULD, but I'd just be wiping up after that disaster, or bringing in a power hose.
If it sounds exhausting, well, it is. I took them to a state park today to see those eagles, and we got home at 2:30 p.m. I was done. Done. I'd had a great time with them, spent time with them, read them books, showed them birds, challenged them to hike a half-mile each way, made sure they weren't dead and fed them lunch.
Only they aren't my grandkids. They're my kids. It doesn't stop at 2:30 p.m. no matter how bone-weary you are. So when Andie threw a huge-ass fit, I sent her to her room, and when she kept going out, I yelled at her to stay in or she would get a spanking. When Jayden came in and demanded snacks, by the third snack, when I was trying to sit down for a couple minutes, I snapped at him to wait for dinner, and when he started whining, I snarled at him not to test me. When Allie came in seeking comfort because she'd fallen, I briefly kissed her elbow and gave her a quick hug because the movie I was making for Kate, showing her what she'd missed while she was away, apparently was more important.
All of this leads me to believe two things. One, I'm going to be a really KICKASS grandfather.
And two, I'm not a good Dad because I think it affects me more than other parents. I'm an introvert, probably to an extreme level, and as a result, I find people tiring. Exhausting. The only thing that recharges me is time alone. That means I bury myself in my iPhone when my kids are inviting me to play, and it also means my patience is short when they are doing something to try it, which is nearly all of the time.
 I'll probably be on fumes tomorrow morning, too, since Jayden will most likely wake me up at 6 a.m. when he crawls into bed with me and starts thumping me in the ribs with his monster feet (another gift from my genes).
I do not hit my kids, spank my kids or even rarely grab them too hard. I do not scream at them. They are happy, well-adjusted, cute little shits who make me proud. I love them, obviously, because, well, I'm not killing myself like this everyday for a BFF.
But I also wish I wasn't this way. I really do. I wish playtime came naturally for me. I wish I drew energy from my kids the way they draw energy from me. I wish I cherished these times because I know they won't last forever.
They really won't. And I hope, I even pray, that when I look back on them, I remember the good times, without any regret.

Colorado Marathon

 It was 3:45 a.m. Sunday. My nose felt as if it had been stuffed with cotton after a fight. The air nipped at my bare legs. And my stomach had been tied into Boy Scout knots.
"I don't think I've ever been more nervous before a race," I said.
I"m always nervous before a race. I love the way the nerves crackle on my skin. It's delicious. The only thing I do not love is the uncertainty. And if there's one race defined by uncertainty, it's a marathon.
You can train well. You can eat carbs, avoid fatty or fried foods and even avoid sugar. You can sleep like RipVanWinkle. You can lose weight. You can save new shoes and then put just the right amount on them so they're broken in and fresh at the same time. You can taper and rest and avoid injuries.
I did all those things last year.
And it still ended badly.
Given the uncertainty of 26.2 miles, when I would run farther than a few days' worth of my commute to work, you don't want anything to potentially fuck things up. And yet, when you finally allow your body to rest, little tweaks here and there haunt you. Is my ankle hurt? Why does my knee feel that way? My (fill in the blank) never hurt before! And then you begin to notice that your son is sniffling. Is that a sniffle? It's definitely a sniffle. Wait. He's really sniffling now.
Fuck.
Sure enough, four days before the marathon, I came down with a cold.
• • •
When I finished last year's marathon, it was with a mixture of pride, anger and frustration.
I had no idea what to feel in the weeks that followed.
Last year was my first, and I was running a great race until severe cramps hit at mile 20. I had to walk the rest of the course and finished at 4:17.
I knew several things. I knew it was my first marathon and that I finished it. I knew that maybe 1 percent of the population ever finishes a marathon. I knew that I was lucky to be able to finish one, blessed, even, to have recovered in time to have at least finished and to have a body that allows me to do things like marathons in the first place. I even knew that 4:17 was not really that bad of a time, especially for a first.
And all I knew was all that made me feel like a spoiled brat for being disappointed.
I was disappointed. I was crushed, actually. I didn't feel good about the race. I felt stupid, like there was probably something I could have done about those cramps and didn't research enough or pay enough attention to all the advice my knowledgeable friends gave me. I felt embarrassed that everyone was so excited for my first marathon and I turned in such a weird result — a time that required a long explanation about what happened — that it tainted any joy someone would feel for me at a finish. I even felt screwed, yes screwed, that 20 weeks of the hardest training of my life, a body free from injury and a great race up until those 20 miles were being flushed away by some mysterious aliment like cramps.
There really was no one good answer as to why they happened.
And I'd have to wait a year to find out.
Kate wasn't happy, at least not initially, when I told her I was doing the marathon again. Why, she said. I had an answer. I wanted to see if I could do better. I would not chase the perfect marathon as so many runners do, especially those trying to qualify for Boston. But I wanted to try it at least one more time. I wanted to see if I could figure it out.
What I really wanted was another chance. I honestly thought I had a good race in me, that a race without cramps would be something I could be proud of. I knew this because of the utter frustration I felt at the end. When those cramps hit, I wanted to run. I was ready to run. I had the energy, the spirit and the drive. I just didn't have the legs. I hope this doesn't sound naive, or even idiotic, but I felt disabled. When I did run, my legs would seize on me within seconds. It wasn't that I wanted to walk. It was that I had no choice.
• • •
I tried not to think too much as the bus took us up the Poudre Canyon. Thinking, though, is all I do.
It seemed that the medicine was working. My nose felt roto-rootered. I felt like I had some energy. I ate my bagel with peanut butter. I drank my Gatorade. I choked down half a banana.
I joked with my friends. I froze with them as we got dumped off the bus. I waited in line with them for a chance at the port-a-potty. I wished them luck before the start of the race. I gave them all a hug and held them tight.
I told myself it was going to be OK.
I tried to believe it.
• • •
I came into this marathon determined to solve the uncertainty. Most of the plan was to bludgeon it into a mere speck of doubt. Did I cramp because I didn't get enough electrolytes? OK. I would carry a hand bottle, drink two 20oz bottles of Gatorade, take a salt pill once an hour and stop at EVERY aid station and drink at least a cup. I would down nearly another 32oz of water before the bus ride up. I would take two gels, and when I figured two wasn't enough, I searched the road for a third, knowing that a runner probably dropped one along the way. Yep. I snatched it up. Every man for himself. I gobbled a package of Sport Beans as well.
If I had to pee, and I did, three times, I found a tree. This marathon was down a canyon next to a river for 17 miles. It's not an urban race. Peeing in public behind a tree is okay. Even the chicks were doing it.
As the miles flew by — and they really do, it's amazing how time gets away from you when you run and there's a beautiful river gathering its muscle from snowmelt for the coming rafting season and a good metal song is pounding through your eardrums — I constantly evaluated myself.
Why are my legs tired? It's only been 12 miles. Well, you just ran 12 miles. Downhill. At an 8:35 pace. Oh, yeah, I guess that makes sense. And it was about this time, halfway through the marathon, that I began to gain some confidence. I went over the words Kate wrote in a card she left for me before the race. One foot in front of the other. Run hard. You've worked hard for this. You've got it!
Stop being such a PUSSY, Dan. And that's when I knew my old self, the mountaineer, was crawling back. You've got a cold? OK, blow a few snot rockets on the way (just make sure you look over your shoulder first). You're tired? Embrace it. You're hurting? What did you think would happen over 26 miles? A tickle?
We ran out of the canyon and, at mile 17, finally saw spectators. A gentleman popped out his headphones as I passed him and we were about a quarter-mile from the first cheers. Nice day, he said. I agreed. We talked a bit. Then I put in my headphones as we passed through the tunnel of people. Some friends were waiting for me. I refilled my bottle, dumped my gloves and arm warmers (ew, they said, gross) and put on my sunglasses. I was still wary. But I was confident too.
• • •
There's a hill at mile 19. It's a long bitch, a half-mile, and it inspires many runners to walk. I was ready for it. I loved it.
Hill climbing is one of my few strengths. I think it's the only gift mountaineering gave me for running. I look at a hill as an opportunity to pass people. But in this case, it was finally a chance to use a different muscle, and I flew up. I passed a blind runner who I'd been tracking since the race started. Before you think I'm an asshole, I treated him like a competitor. He was fast, just out of reach, and I wanted to see if I could catch him. I did, near the top of the hill. His guide was far away, and he was breathing hard, so I said to him, "this bitch is almost over," and he laughed and said thanks.
As I crested the hill, I looked down at my Garmin and had a decision to make.
My pace flashed 8:01.
I'd backed off the whole day, sticking to my planned pace of 8:30 miles. But I felt so good. It felt easy and natural. And I knew I'd put enough time in the bank that if I had to walk even a tiny bit or slow down at the end, I'd still get under 4 hours, which was my ultimate goal anyway. I'd stashed away a goal of 3:45, but that was on my best day, a perfect day.
The day I was having.
• • •
The next six miles, a 10K, will sound easy. It was not easy. It never is. But when I crossed the spot just before the road ends and the last, final six begins on a bike path, the spot where I cramped up last year, I was pretty sure it wasn't going to happen, and I told myself I would not hit the wall.
Runner's World had an article recently about the wall, and I found one piece of it fascinating. It stated that runners who were worried or thought they might hit the wall did, in fact, hit the wall. What does that tell you? It told me that the wall is a mental barrier, not a physical one, and that if I trained well, ate well and drank enough to pee all over the course, the wall would not exist.
I did not hit the wall as I ran the final six, cheering back at the spectators, running with a friend who met to pace me in. My legs hurt. They hurt today. My toe was purple. I'll probably lose the nail. My breathing was labored. I still sound like an old blues singer, as my throat was rubbed raw by the air.
I was smiling through it all. I was so happy to feel all of that, as I ran, not walked, on legs that wanted to move, baby, move.
I'm still smiling today. 3:43. I honestly don't know if I'll ever stop.

Tapering Madness

For weeks, maybe even months, I looked forward to this week.
Now I just need to get through it.
The marathon's Sunday, a week away as I'm writing this, and that means this week, I do practically nothing.
I run three easy miles Monday, three Tuesday, run four quarters Wednesday and rest until the day before, when I run a couple. That nothing might still be something for you, and if so, I'm not trying to offend. Trust me, after a marathon plan, it's nothing. At peak, I ran 50 miles a week, many of them hard, with a 10-miler and a 20 on back-to-back days.
Oh, there were so many days when I looked forward to this week. Most of the moments came in the morning, when my alarm buzzed and I rose my bitchy body out of bed to put on my running clothes in the dark. Up until mid-March, I put on several layers and looked forward to running in single digits, with frozen cheeks and frosty eyelashes. I had several days when the temperature couldn't even hit zero, and one day, it was, I shit you not, -25.
I had terrific training partners by my side, the routes were great and the training went surprisingly well. I was not only never hurt, I never even got a twinge or the normal aches and pains you can expect during a marathon training plan.
Still, it was a grind, and with any grind, after a while, you look forward to it ending.
Now I just need to get through the taper.
Yes, a taper is not only an excuse to take time off, it's a mandatory edict from your "coach" (halhigdon.com) to rest. It's wonderful. And yet, it's not. It's not at all.
If you're a thinker - and that would describe me to a hilt, and probably a fault - then something like a taper will drive you nuts.
I'm not as bad as some of my training partners, especially the ones who completed the Ironman back in November. One already sent me a plan that included another day of running. She just couldn't follow the plan, despite the common knowledge that the rest, the chance for your body to heal, does you more good than any run this week. Another follows the plan but goes certifiably batshit.
I enjoy the rest, and yet, I start to feel anxious, like cockroaches are crawling through my skin, by Wednesday. I honestly wonder if meth addicts feel this way when they're in search of a hit. Training is not only reassuring, since you're doing what you're supposed to be doing to get stronger, it's also soothing, as there's nothing like a good endorphins rush when you're in the shower after a cold run.
Finally, the wife just got through a cold, and my 6 year old son now has one. Now every time I blow my nose or feel a tickle in my throat I'm convinced I'm coming down with something. I've had to run races through sinus infections, the flu and cramps. I do not want to run 26 with any of those.
I got into this marathon because last year's didn't turn out the way I wanted. I wanted a better finish. One without cramps at the end. One strong, like I know I'm capable of.
The rest will help me get there. All I have to do is make it through it.

Why I care (and why I don't) that online poker is poofed

I have to admit something. This is no longer a poker blog. You've probably guessed that by now, if you still bother to read any longer. And, as you may have guessed, I haven't played online poker for months.
The reasons vary. The games got too tight even for my taste at the levels I preferred to play, and I found it harder and harder to find any fish at all. As a result, the margin of my profits slimmed considerably, and so it also became harder and harder to shake off the bad beats, as they were inevitably cutting into what little profit I could eke out.
As you all also know, I've got three kids, and my free time is valuable, and a huge chunk of that already is devoted to training. It just didn't seem worth it to spend time playing a game that made me irritable for the hourly rate of a factory worker in Cambodia, especially when I get more brain food from reading, writing and, ahem, playing Angry Birds.
But I'm still mourning the loss of online poker, at least for now. Here are some reasons why, along with some other reasons why I really don't.
Why I care
• I don't like the loss of any freedoms, and this strips me of my ability to find a poker game when I want to play.
• I'll miss you guys. I still look back on those old Mookie matches with the kind of glee I normally reserve for shows like "The Walking Dead." And along those lines, there are some really great writers, people I look up to, now out of work. That sucks. The world needs good writers.
• I still watch poker on TV. And let's be honest. It's probably gone. Maybe High Stakes Poker survives, as well as the World Series of Poker, but even those telecasts are in danger of at least being whittled down, I fear.
Why I don't
• It'll be back. The Vegas casinos are drooling, I'm sure, at the potential revenue, and it's entirely possible  those sites will be filled with the kind of fish we used to catch in 2005. Probably not. But a guy can dream. And I wouldn't mind using those player points for things like free rooms instead of a mouse pad or stress ball.
• There are better things to do. Like, you know, play Angry Birds. Lord help me. Poker was less frustrating at times.
• I prefer live play. I love the table, the cards, the surly douchebags — er, characters — that crowd the table. Plus the players are a lot worse.

The last 20

I ran down the steep hill near the country road and thought about turning right to head back home. But I looked at my GPS and wasn't sure I would have enough to get to 10 miles.
I needed the 10, according to the marathon plan, and I wanted all of it, given that this was the last big weekend before I would start to taper. You gain more in the last mile than you do in the first nine. So I didn't want to leave it, and yet, I also didn't want to run around the block twice to get whatever leftovers I'd need. Making up miles at the end of a run, when your route is finished, is like waiting until 6 a.m. to open Christmas presents, and then your parents walking in your room at 5:59 a.m. and telling you you'll have to wait until 7 a.m.
I wondered what to do.
Then I saw the tree and smiled.
The tree was a marker six or seven years ago. When I began running, I would park my car at the nearby Poudre Learning Center and take off down the Poudre Trail. At the tree, I'd stop and turn around.
The run was, maybe, 20 minutes.
It was enough back then.
It was almost more than enough.
This is not an inspirational story. I didn't have a disease. I wasn't overweight. I was even, by all accounts, in shape, a mountain climber. But I could barely run three miles. I was out of breath as soon as I began. I flopped around like a penguin. I didn't even enjoy it very much.
Yet I always made it out to the tree and back.
Today I got up with the wind blowing. I knew it would be cold and maybe even rainy as the ground was wet. I peeked out my window and wrinkled my nose. This was exactly the kind of day I used to skip. But I had 20 miles to do today. Again, it was my last big day. The 20s are more important than any other run in a marathon plan. They reassure you, more than anything, that it IS possible to cover 26 miles and run for four hours.
Running a marathon is not magic. It merely means doing the miles.
So Saturday I was putting in my last 10 before the 20 the next day. I like running these miles at race pace. It trains you to feel what the pace you want to run, so you're not staring at your stopwatch at the race. You're worried about your hydration, other runners, that spot between your thighs that is starting to chafe, your rumbling tummy (is it hungry, about to explode, or just distressed), your nipples falling off, the heat, the location of the next aid station and how far you've got to go before this fucking thing is over.  You don't need to worry about your pace.
Plus it makes you a bit tired for the next day's 20. That's what you want. That's the only way to try to mimic what the last six feels like during the marathon.
I'm paying for the weekend now. I'm tired. It hurts a bit to get up. My feet are pissed.
But I like that feeling. I'll sleep well tonight. Part of the reason was Saturday I did run out to the tree again. As it turns out, I didn't need it at all. I went over by a mile.
From that intersection, it was about a half-mile to the tree.
I didn't need that mile for my training
It may be crucial for the race.

Sleeping in Salina

Whenever Kate wanted to visit her grandmother, I would drive through Salina with only one thought on my mind.

"Thank GOD I'm out of this place."

It was a mean thought. I'll admit it. Especially for a Kansas boy, someone who grew up in the suburbs of Kansas City but understood that it was towns like Salina that pieced most of his beloved state together like a puzzle. Salina, in fact, was a corner piece, the largest city between the state capitol, Topeka, and Denver. You may have stopped for lunch there on a road trip.

But in my mind, mean was justified.

A dozen years ago, I lost my job at the Salina paper. It was a good job, or so I thought at the time, and it broke my heart to be forced from a job I enjoyed, even if it was my fault.

Salina was an adjustment at first, when I started there in 1994, with its small-town feel, population of only 40,000 and three or four females my age. The most popular restaurant in town was an Applebee's. Yet I found my way, making friends all kinds of ages, throwing myself into training for my summer mountain climbing trip and diving into Salina's surprisingly rich art scene, playing in the symphony and acting in Shakespeare plays that packed its downtown park. 

Well, I had to leave all that, plus a girl I truly cared for (I managed to find one of the three), and as with any breakup, there were some bad feelings. This time the breakup was with the town. A few years later, I came back to visit Kate's grandmother (in one of the many coincidences that somehow let you know you've found the right person, Kate's mom grew up in Salina), and I blamed Salina for the bad feelings.

I had moved on by then. I somehow landed on my feet and found an even better job, in a place that was made for me, a city, Greeley, that combined Kansas' small-town feel with an hour's drive from the mountains. I took full advantage, eventually climbing all 54 of the state's 14,000-foot peaks, snowshoeing and skiing with abandon. I was in heaven, and I wondered, of course, what the hell I'd ever seen in Salina in the first place. THIS was the place where I wanted to live the rest of my life? Ha. In a snobby, snooty sort of way, I dismissed Salina and quite frankly dreaded going back. One year I simply refused to go, disappointing Kate more than I realized, and on many others I selfishly treated it like a pit stop before I could visit my parents in the suburbs that I truly called my second home.

This time, however, I agreed to a four-day trip for Kate. I've tried not to be so selfish with my own time - it's a constant struggle that I'll always fight - and Kate's pretty patient about my running and climbing adventures, even if they've been reduced. So I agreed to go. Plus Kate's grandmother is 88. She's doing well. Really well, actually. But that age, right or wrong, is always associated with "you never know."

Maybe because of that open(er) mind, or maybe because I was so emotionally and mentally drained from working on that story about Delaney (see last post), I was not dreading the trip. I think, deep down, I knew it would be exactly what I needed.

We arrived at grandma's Friday afternoon, and I jumped out and threw on my running clothes with Kate's blessing. Nothing cures an 8-hour car ride with three little kids more than a run, and six miles was on the marathon plan anyway. I googled a map on where to run in Salina and found some parks. I mapped out my own route that would take me to two parks and was on my way.

One of the things I love most about running is it helps you get to know the places you live. Towns truly do all look alike these days, thanks to corporate chains. There's the McDonald's. There's the Starbucks (and the other and the other). There's the Conoco gas station. There's the Applebee's. It's hard to tell one town from the other, unless you visit the nooks, and many of those nooks are in their parks.

Parks CAN look the same, but those friendliest to running generally don't. Rather than dig up the land, throw some sand down around it and plunk down plastic playground equipment, most cities now leave a couple spots that embrace the cities' natural landscape features and, other than carving out a couple trails, simply let the land BE. There are a couple places like this in Greeley, and they are my favorite places to run.

My route on the first day took me to two of these places, and one of them immediately brought a smile. It was Indian Rock, and its scrubby, rocky trails that jutted up and screamed down gave me the perfect place to train for my summer mountain climbing trips when I lived in Salina. I'd throw on a backpack and speed walk the trails for a good hour almost every day. This time I ran them, twice, and loved every second.

The next day, for my 12 miles (it was, thank God, a down week in the plan), I found a flood control ditch and ran it as far as it would go. By the time it was there and back, I only had 10 miles on my GPS. One of the challenging things about training for a marathon is finding good places to give you all the damn miles you need for a long run. I didn't care. Good enough, I thought.

There are nooks in a town, and then there are the tourist spots. Tourist spots are, of course, almost always cheesy and meant to draw you in so you'll help the local economy, but they're also usually quaint and give the towns a uniqueness that not even another McDonald's can quash.

In this case, we visited a zoo, the Rolling Hills. We saw the mall's tank with monster fish inside (that's always a hit with the kids). We wished for fireflies - Colorado doesn't have them - but knew it was too early.

We also ate. Vacations, for me, are vacations from everything except my training plans, and that includes my somewhat strict diet. We hit up the local BBQ joint, got shakes from the local burger joint and ate at Brookville. Brookville is a museum, only you eat there. It's a place where they serve real, authentic fried chicken dinners, the kind they used to serve after church 80 years ago (the waitresses even wear out-time outfits). That's all they serve. You get mashed potatoes and gravy, creamed corn, biscuits, fried chicken, lemonade, cottage cheese, and….sorry. I'll stop. It's goooooooooood.

There is also the strong Kansas wind, which infected two of my four runs, including today's which was cold enough to sting my chest as I stubbornly ran into it. But no place is perfect.

Last night I visited a good friend for an hour, and after I left, I drove up the road and by my first apartment, the first place I lived by myself, with my first real job. I wasn't sorry to see it in my rear-view mirror, but I waved good-bye with a touch of nostalgia. 

I hopped into bed after, and Kate thanked me for coming back to Salina. 

"There's a lot of good memories here," she said.

"For me too," I said, and slept well.

Story I'll try to never forget

Thursday we went to see Princesses on Ice. It's exactly the kind of show that, even two months ago, would make me roll my eyes, slump in my seat, maybe even scowl a bit.

I was happy to take my kids. I'm the one who sought out the tickets. My girls, like an estimated 87.3 percent of 3-year-old girls in America, are into Disney's Princess factory now, and so I thought they would love it.

(My 5-year-old son wasn't so sure. I thought he would love it, but he asked me before we got in the car, "Are there going to be other boys there watching? I reassured him that there probably were going to be other boys there. I saw one of them about his age walking to the doors. I pointed him out. I'm glad I saw one early on. There WERE boys there, but let's just say at the break that the line for the boys' bathroom to the girls line was like comparing the New York Marathon's to Idaho's Potato Run).

(I really don't know if Idaho has a potato run, but it probably does, and if it does, you can probably assume it's less than the NY Marathon. Sorry, where was I?)

So sure, I'm always happy to take my kids to crap like this. But that's how I saw it. As events to endure, not necessarily to enjoy. We take hits like this all the time as parents. We have to watch Care Bears in the car and Wonder Pets at home, even though I'd rather be watching Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead or, this time of year, college basketball (Go Kansas!).  Occasionally you get lucky and a new Pixar movie comes out. Most of the time, you are sacrificing your own thirst for something enriching for your children's sake. 

And then I met Delaney Wadsworth.

• • • 

Delaney was a 3-year-old girl from a nearby town where I lived with a brain tumor. She was exceedingly popular. She would have been head cheerleader and homecoming queen for sure later in her life. Her Facebook page was followed by 35,000 people at last count, or twice the population of the town where she lived.

Yet I stayed away from any kind of a story, even though I'm usually the one at the Greeley Tribune who does them. The human interest beat, they call it, though I prefer to approach it as the kinds of challenges we all face and how normal people beat them or at least cope with them.

Journalism is full of what we call — rather cynically, I know — diseased kid stories. I did approach our photographer earlier in the year and ask if maybe we should be doing it. He said he didn't want to do yet another story on that and watch a kid die. I agreed with him and left it alone.

Only, after meeting the parents for another story, a friendship they struck up with another family who lost their 18-year-old girl to the same very rare brain tumor Delaney had, I was impressed with Jason and Brenna's approach. They had decided not to treat her illness. They weren't selfishly trying to pump her full of chemotherapy just to keep her around a little longer. They were choosing to fill her remaining days with activities, like raising baby goats and going to Disney World, instead of hospital visits.

I saw this as a story about life rather than death. I ignored it for a few days, then finally listened to my urging instincts and approached my editor, who initially had the same reaction I did until I told him about my angle. 

Granted, this kind of tumor, DIPG, leaves little hope that any treatment would work, anyway, so their decision was a little easier. A little. At least at first. Ironically, just as Jason and Brenna said they would welcome me into their lives, they got the news that Delaney had less than two months to live unless they did a round of radiation on her. That miserable treatment might give her another month.

I spent as much time as I could without ignoring my other duties at The Tribune, my family or wearing down their patience (which, to my amazement, was infinite, at least with me and our photographers). 

I am proud of the package as a whole, the photos, the video I made and the story. I think it's important.

It also killed me. When I would see Delaney, I would see the faces of my 3-year-old girls. I saw pain in Jason and Brenna's eyes that hit me like shots to the kidney every time I interviewed them. I knew in some way, at least much more than I used to, what they were feeling. I was there the day Delaney slipped into a coma. It was heartbreaking and traumatic not just for the parents but for me. I was a wreck the rest of the day.

I in no way pretended to believe that I was suffering anywhere close to what Jason and Brenna were feeling. But it did hurt me.

It changed me a bit too.

• • • 

The story, of course, is a sad one. Gut wrenching at times, in fact. But there's hope in it, I hope, as well. I won't give away too much. You'll just have to read it.

Still, what hurt me more than Delaney's death was the little moments. There was a day when Delaney wanted to go swimming. They took her, of course. I talked to Jason about it later. 

"For a while," he wrote me back, "it almost felt normal."

Everyday, little fun moments, the kind that parents, including me, especially me, not only take for granted but view as necessarily trials to kill the days and wear them out, were rare treasures to Jason and Brenna as Delaney weakened. They did their best to do those things every day, but eventually, those moments became less frequent, until they completely disappeared. 

It made me think that life is not only trips to Disney World or contained in fun things that we like to do as adults, like Vegas. It is, in fact, in trips to the pool, which I'm planning to do as soon as I finish this post. It is in the moments that we look on things to endure, like a Princesses on Ice night out with the girls and Jayden, when we walk past 75 souvenir booths (seriously) and lemonade stands and pizza spots all meant to make our kids beg and stay up too late and then wake up at 5 a.m. to run 10 miles and spend the rest of the day tired and yawning.

I am beginning to understand that a bit more thanks to Delaney. And during the performance, when Snow White came out to the pre-recorded dialogue and canned music, the smile on my face was almost as big as the girls'.

http://www.greeleytribune.com/article/20110326/NEWS/703279997/1051&ParentProfile=1001

Canyonlands Half Marathon

I felt a tickle inside my belly as I walked to the bus that would take us up the Canyonlands in Moab, Utah.
It is only a tickle I feel before a race. It's the buzz of anticipation, excitement and nerves all in one. I haven't been single in a long time, but I would imagine the only thing that would bring on that package would be a first date.
Saturday's race was, in a sense, a first date. I've wanted to do this race for three years, but it's so popular, you apply and hope. I applied with a group of five of my best friends. They run. But you probably guessed that.
Well, we got in, celebrated and took off Friday morning for Utah. I'd never been to Moab despite the fact that it's one of the outdoors destinations in the world. That's sort of like a poker player ignoring Las Vegas. That's why I wanted to do this course. It's down the Canyonlands.
I had been looking forward to this, in other words, for three years. The sights were some of the best I'd seen on a run, ever. I was with my running partners. I had never felt better in my life.
It should have been a classic run.
But early on, I knew I was in trouble.
• • •
Denial is a powerful drug. When you're running, it's a steroid.
Looking back on today's race, I didn't really feel good after mile one. I didn't have the bounce in my step. I didn't feel fresh. I felt winded almost the whole time, even after we slowed a touch from the 7:30 pace.
We hovered around there for the next few miles, and I kept telling myself that I felt great. Really great. Awesome. So good. I was fine. I could keep up with my two closest training partners. This pace was pretty damn aggressive, yes, given that my best pace for a half marathon in October - when I PRd, by the way - was 7:59. But I had never felt so good. My training was great.
I was fine.
Only I wasn't.
I don't like to make too many excuses. The weather is always a part of a run. But a gusty, brutal headwind kept us chilly before the race and slowed us down once it started.
I didn't want it to bother me. But after a while, it was like someone pushing me back. Or like trying to run through molasses. It definitely affected me.
I kept up with them until mile seven, which was far too long to be running at a pace that was may, honestly, be too fast for me even on the best days. I still think I can run that, and soon, but not this week.
Here's the thing. Training is good for you. But when you're training for, say, I dunno, a marathon, and you've run back-to-back 50-mile weeks, and those included 19-mile and 20-mile runs, well, you're tired.
That's just it. I felt tired.
When you do start too fast, the miles after that, even when you do back off, in a word, suck. You feel worn down, like you have the flu, and slow, like your shoes are in cement, and just pain miserable, like you hate running and all you want to be is done.
I tried, many times, to quiet the troll in my head that was telling me to walk or slow down, and I eventually bargained with it. I would slow down, a little, even from my usual 8-minute-mile pace for half marathons, as long as I didn't have to walk much, and we'd get through this together.
I tried to enjoy the race as much as I could. The scenery was still beautiful, even if, after a while, it was mocking me.
That beautiful scenery, however, makes me feel OK about today's race. I had fun. It was a great experience. I loved it.
Perhaps the next time, I'll try to enjoy it.

The crest of the hill

How can I be feeling this confident, this good, this cocky, even, about the marathon training?
Two 20-mile runs are still on the schedule, and the race is two months away. That's a lot of opportunity to get hurt.
But I still think the worst is over.
The worst was over Saturday, when I finished my first 20-miler.
This 20, after all, came after last week's 19 still on my legs. I ran 47 miles last week and ran 49 this week.
This won't mean as much to you, but I ran this week's 20 at a 9-minute pace, which is pretty aggressive, and yet, I felt good the whole time. Maybe it was the good company, staying hydrated or just the warmth of spring.
You tend to get used to being uncomfortable when you're training for a marathon in the dead of a Colorado winter. Stinging cheeks, frozen snot, frosty eyelashes, numb toes and bitter thighs are all common. Too common, really. So when I walked out Friday morning, for my 10-miler the day before the 20, in shorts, and though it felt good, I didn't feel joy. I felt dazed. It was probably what the bear feels after emerging from his den. My body felt light because it wasn't weighed down by heavy clothes. My body felt free and warm. It felt wonderful.
Ironically, Saturday's 20 was much easier than that 10. And that was encouraging and confusing at the same time.
Running can still be unpredictable, even when you prepare and train and know what to wear and how to sleep and, most of all, what to avoid. You can do everything right and feel like crap and do everything wrong and feel great.
So the worst is over. I feel great to be done with the toughest two weeks of the plan. But I know that there's no guarantees.
And no room to be cocky.

Angry Birds

Angry Birds

All A-Twitter

Well, we're a snarky bunch, aren't we?
Do you remember anything about Sunday's Oscars besides who won? Let me guess. You remember how much it sucked, right?
That's mostly what I remember too. But I don't remember the forgettable show. I remember the comments I made DURING the Oscars.
Here's a quick summary:
Anne Hathaway sucked. James Franco sucked. OMG THEY SUCK!
Only a lot snarkier and more clever and funny.
The thing is, looking back over those tweets, they weren't nearly as clever as I thought at the time.
This is the danger of social networking.
You can now release any random thought. And when you let them out of the cage, sometimes they bite back.
E-mail was the first to cause these problems. I tend to be a little, ahem, reactionary sometimes, and if I felt overworked, which is pretty common at a small newspaper and also for me cause I'm a bit of a stress bug, I'd spark off sometimes. I guarantee you if I had to say those things in person, I simply wouldn't. No email would have saved me a couple closed-door meetings.
Less serious, of course, is what twitter and Facebook are doing to us. It's turning us into a bunch of overtly clever, snarky, snippy smartasses.
Yes, Hathaway and Franco sucked Sunday. They were flippant, unfunny and unfocused.
Unfortunately I wasn't much better.