Crossroads

I played in a home game Saturday. It's probably the first home game I've played in at least a month.

The poker was good. I booked a winning session. But it wasn't about the poker. And that's when it hit me.

It was the first time in quite a while I've had any fun at all playing poker.

It's not the extending losing streak I'm currently enjoying. I'm actually down less than the cost of a new video game. Sure, putting in your money when you're ahead and getting constantly sucked out on sucks (that must be why they call it sucking out). But the online game just doesn't excite me all that much any longer, and the opportunities to me to play live just aren't there very often. A training schedule, kids and weekends full of both will do that to you.

When I finally got the call from Pokerworks that my services were no longer needed because of cutbacks last week, I was grateful for the opportunity for the freelance work and not surprised at the same time. Times are tough everywhere. I was honestly surprised it lasted as long as it did.

I have no obligations to poker any longer. I'm not sure where that leaves me with the game. I may not play very much any longer.

Not only do I not have that much of an itch to play any longer, but the game may be passing me by. I'm probably old school despite the fact that I'm only 38. I learned the old way to play from the books, and I'm not aggressive by nature at the game. I don't know if I'll ever be too aggressive, and I don't know if I'm willing to put in the time to learn to play that way. You might think this is fine, I can just stick to the lower limits, but even the lower limits are filled with tough, aggressive players these days.

I may concentrate only on Omaha for a while, but I fear in a year or two the same thing may happen to me.

So what am I doing in those rare, spare times when I actually have some free time? Well, I'm reading, writing and raising my kids. And I'm playing Nintendo 64.

You remember that system, don't you? Yeah. I brought it back out, and it's amazing how good some of those games actually were. When you're raised on thinking blobs of light shooting at other blobs is fun, your standards are pretty low, so playing games that are 12 years old just doesn't bother you like it probably should. You tend to think those games are still pretty fucking cool. Which they are.

So where does that leave this blog? Well, this really hasn't been much of a poker blog for a couple years now. I'll still write here, and I suppose the dozen or so of you will still read it, as I doubt you had expectations about why AK in early position really fucking rocks.

I still watch poker on TV, I still read poker blogs and I still keep up with the game. But it's now only one of many activities I chose to spend my time on, and right now, it's probably in the back of the line.

Oh, Hanna, hey, Hanna Ho?

I'm - how do I put this - disappointed in Miley Cyrus' latest career move.

This is really no surprise. As you can probably guess, I haven't really liked anything Cyrus has put out (that's a pretty funny sentence once you get the context of this post further down). In fact, I thank my lucky stars, as I guess she would say, that my girls are too young to like "Hannah Montana." The amount of time she's spent on my TV screen is a tiny millifraction of the time, say, the Backyardigans have camped there.

In fact, to even say I'm disappointed implies that I expected anything other than crap. I really didn't.

Yet I am a little surprised by her new direction, and for this, I guess, I'm disappointed.

Hannah Montana is now a sexpot.

Maybe even a slut.

Someone who knows me - and that's probably all of you, or else there's really no reason to read this - could easily point out the many contradictions that will follow. Yes, I read SI's swimsuit issue. Yes, I've pointed out certain women who are hot. Yes, I've even defended a woman's right to choose her own path, and if that includes celebrating her sexuality, then so be it.

So why am I not standing up and cheering Miley Cyrus' transformation? She says she's "matured" as a songwriter. Shouldn't I celebrate that?

Well, no. I'm disappointed, and here's why.

She's still Hannah Montana.

She's still the girl with the blonde wig.

And she didn't need to Ho herself to become rich and famous.

Now believe me, I'm impressed with the way her handlers have managed to move her past her child-star status. That's mostly her father, who was known for a stupid novelty country hit before he was Hannah's Daddy. I once interviewed Billy Ray, and I thought he was very nice but dumb as a post. Apparently I didn't give him enough credit. He's managed a rare feat: He gave a child star a career beyond the teen years. Usually they not only fail, they fail miserably. Gary Coleman, God rest his soul, and his supporting cast in "Different Strokes" is a perfect example.

But her latest image is just so unoriginal. I had hopes for Cyrus. I honestly believed that because she was already huge, she wouldn't feel any pressure to prance around in her underwear in a video and sing about how she's so wild and slutty, as she does in "Can't Be Tamed."

A lot of female pop stars obviously DO feel that pressure to sell records or even get signed for the privilege of making one, and let's be honest, they probably do. Alicia Keys didn't really have to do that, but there aren't many who have her chops (and truth be told, she's not exactly innocent these days).

Now I know I look like a prude here. I'm hardly that. In fact if someone like Nancy Grace or Dr. Laura was ranting about this very topic or about Cyrus' video, I'd probably think she sounded screechy and all finger-pointy.

So why am I disappointed?

Well, the world hardly needs another Britney Spears. But my main fear is not unoriginality.

I have twin girls.

I have twin girls who just turned 3. They already like pretty dresses and necklaces and shoes, so they are well on their way to girlhood. It also means they are influenced by what they see, and that means I have to counteract what they see with good, sound advice.

It's quite possible that they will never really know Hannah Montana and only know Miley Cyrus, and they may see Cyrus as some weird pop diva who sings crappy songs. Man, I hope so.

But knowing Disney's unabashed preference for squeezing every last drop out of its most famous characters - just take a gander at the famous "Princess" line of toys and clothing, where Snow White, Cinderella and other "princesses" get recycled for proof - I have a feeling that one day they will stumble across some "Hannah Montana" product and think it's pretty cool. That might lead them to the TV show.

Eventually they will have to make the connection that Hannah Montana is, in fact, that weird pop diva who prances around in her underwear. They will see that Hannah Montana is now a sexpot.

And how hard will it be for them to make the connection that in order to be liked, or popular, or even just to get a little attention, you need to be ultra-sexy. If it worked for Hannah, a little girl with a blonde wig who was a huge star, it might work for them. After all, even Hannah had to be sexpot, and she was already popular!

So as much as I don't care about other pop stars flaunting what God gave them (or their plastic surgeons), I really wish Hannah Montana had decided on a different route.

I will have a big influence over my girls' lives. I'll encourage them to play sports, possibly play music and follow their hearts. But I don't want to choose their TV shows for them, and if they like "Hannah Montana" or her clone in 15 years, well, so be it.

I remember with a little longing at some of the stars of the 80s. Whitney Houston didn't really get naked, and neither did Tiffany or Debbie Gibson. Dads could rest a bit easy if their daughters liked them.

Then again, maybe it's only a matter of time. Houston got stoned. And both Gibson and Tiffany? They posed for Playboy.

Is it the sunshine or the new hemp necklace on our shoulders that makes us happy?

We're heading back tomorrow from a week in Maui. And while the trip was wonderful, once again, Hawaii wasn't what I expected.

It's funny how you see the pictures of waterfalls, beaches and people snorkeling when you see pictures of Hawaii. Maybe a few people with a lei. Maybe a volcano. Maybe people surfing.

You do not see what makes up a good portion of Hawaii, and that's people selling and buying crap.

The first time we went to Hawaii, four years ago, we stayed in Waikiki, and I was surprised at how unfulfilling it was. Everywhere we went, someone was trying to sell us something. I probably spent as much time looking at shirts and other souvenirs, and when I wasn't doing that, I was telling people I wasn't interested in what they were selling.

This is partly because my wife's mother loves to shop - she'd rather do that than anything, actually - and partly because the sales pitches, stores and people selling crap were unavoidable.

Oh, there were things to do that didn't involve money. They were just hard to find.

I find myself worrying about Jayden as I think about this. He's with us on this trip. The twins are with my mother back in Colorado. We figured, correctly, that Jayden was old enough to appreciate the trip. It''s been nice to have him here. We've had a good time.

Well, a good time, that is, when he isn't asking for toys or shirts or necklaces or all the other stuff he runs into when we run into a store for something. Sometimes his begging and pleading is embarrassing. Sometimes we don't listen. Other times, I'm sorry to say, we give in.

And so, when I think about this trip, I find myself worrying about how we consume. It seems our lives are geared around consumption. Our errands, our jobs, our daily lives and even our vacations. Especially our vacations. When we're supposed to be taking a break from many things, we're actually revving up our consumption of crap we don't need.

Before you start to get the idea that I'm pointing a finger at you, I'm guilty of this myself. Probably not as some, but I definitely do my part. I've bought a couple shirts, a hemp necklace and some new sunglasses on this trip. I went on a submarine ride and also took a snorkeling cruise with a private company when I got tired of waiting for the Pacific Whale Foundation, which supports the ocean when so many others aren't, to take my order (in fairness to me, I did wait a half hour).

I've also done my share of things you'd expect from me. I ran a rainforest trail through a beautiful misty wonderland, ran on a beach, ran 8 miles today along a coastline and went to a bird preserve. Yet as I've done these things lately, I get fulfilled, and yet I also get sad.

Have you seen "Planet Earth"? You should.

After watching it, and watching how all these animals interact with each other, with each species playing a role in a sensitive eco-chain, I'm struck by something. We are probably the only species that worries about obtaining things rather than just the stuff we need to survive. We do not worry just about food and water and shelter like all other animals.

No, we worry about and lust after T-shirts, and hemp necklaces, and cars, and jewelry and travel guides and paintings and new dresses and turtle earrings and iPods and swim shirts and shoes and running shoes and computers and digital cameras (both waterproof and regular) and cheap sunglasses and…and…do I need to go on?

And we start them so young. My girls are fixated on things. They sleep with their Made In China toys from McDonald's until they forget about them three days later and we put it in the drawers full of other crap.

I understand that probably 90 percent of all our livelihoods rely on this sort of thing. I know my job does. As much as we'd like to believe how sacred journalism is (and I still do believe that, at least the kind that runs in newspapers and maybe a few magazines and a couple blogs and maybe a TV program), we rely on advertising to survive. I wish it weren't so, but I can't think of another model that keeps us viable.

This all has a price, and we're seeing that price right now. It's all over the gulf and threatening Florida and the very things I love. BP's oil spill is just the beginning. As shocking and sad as it is, it was inevitable.

I believe one reason we're still using oil, other than their powerful lobbying efforts, is rather than focus on ways to find other sources of energy, we're too focused on consuming things, and so we're tapping into oil the way addicts shoot up their drugs of choice.

The new shit is what gets us high.

But I wonder.

The sub ride, and the snorkeling trip we took, was packed with people who wanted to see pretty fish. Whenever they saw something cool, an eel, a blowfish, hell, just something other than a guppy, goldfish, beta or anything else you can't buy in a pet store, you'd hear cries of joy.

"Oh my God, that's just so beautiful!" a woman said through tears after seeing a dolphin on our snorkeling cruise.

See?

As much as I would like to think I'm different because of my connection to nature and begin outdoors, as I see time and again, I'm really not that much different. I've just got the tools to experience it more than others. I'm fit and skilled and knowledgeable, and many aren't and don't have the time, desire and energy to reach the levels that I already have available to me.

But that doesn't mean they don't want to see nature. Most people not only love nature, they're willing to spend hundreds of dollars in one sitting to experience it. The sub ride took us to the bottom of a coral reef for less than an hour, and the only real cool thing about it was the opportunity to see different fish. Yet people paid almost $100 per person to go.

I get the idea that people are exactly like me. They just don't know it. They don't get the satisfaction they believe they should from stuff. They get their joy and satisfaction and life forces even from nature and being outside. We're still animals. We still play a place in the ecosystem.

We're at the top, thanks to our intelligence and force of will, even if we'd probably be somewhere in the middle if we didn't have those traits (and after seeing some of the fish thanks to that sub and the cruise, I wonder if we wouldn't be near the bottom).

Do we stomp on it all in our path in the quest for more stuff, or do we begin to tread lightly? I fear I already know the answer, but for now, I'll remain optimistic that more people will become self-aware of their need for a diverse, complex and fun world around us and do something about it.

My son, like me, is walking a thin line between those two choices. He adores nature and the outside world. And he loves stuff and wants more of it all the time.

I suppose I shouldn't worry too much about him after all. In our world, either way, he'll fit right in.

Tri-ing something new

I gazed around the hardbodies. Not in lust. In anxiousness.

But I was determined not to let it get to me. I was at the Greeley Triathlon Sunday morning. And this was supposed to be for fun.

I was determined to keep my competitive nature in check. That's easier said than done for me. But I had to this time out of necessity. A lot of these people were going to be better than me.

Many weren't going to be me on the 5K, even with the concessions I was making because I knew I'd be tired. I was hoping for 24 minutes. That's a decent 5K time in a triathlon, especially on a tough running course on a hot day.

But the swim?

Ha. Ah. The swim.

I do not swim. This is not a mantra. It's a fact. If you tossed me in a pool, I would survive, and I enjoy our neighborhood pool as well as any Dad who likes to see his kids burn their energy and maybe sneak glances of the college girls and their bikinis. But actual swimming? Well, I'm not Michael Phelps. 

Water is kind of scary, and open water is even more frightening. It's generally colder and much, much deeper, and there's something unnerving about swimming in something where you can't touch bottom.

But honestly Sunday, as I approached the mat, in my frogskin wetsuit (borrowed from someone who CAN swim), I reminded myself to have fun. 

And I did have fun.

I loved it.

Unfortunately, I did not have the strength to swim the full 500 yards like a real swimmer. I had to "backstroke" sometimes. But I did make it out. When I approached the transition area to get my bike, I was stuck with a new feeling: Nearly last place.

I hopped on my bike and started to burn. And then I got a little sick. Oops. So I had to back off and just rode a hard 12 miles.

The run was the run. I can do that. I passed at least 20 people on the run and ran a respectable 24 minutes. I'd hate that time for a normal 5K. But I usually don't bike and swim before them. 

I'm posting this now, and I don't even know my time. It wasn't recorded by my chip, so I had to get it by hand, and I won't know what that is until it's posted on the Web site.

And for the first time in a long time, I don't even care.

Struggling; Acceptance

We lined up for the Bolder/Boulder, and I savored the anticipation of the gun going off. I was ready, and I knew it.

Oh, it was going to be a tough race. It always is. It's one of the tougher 10Ks in the state, if not the country, and it was already warm, despite the 7 a.m. start.

But I love this race. It's the largest 10K in the country. It's a race that sparked my running, and this was my sixth. I could call myself a veteran. I knew the course. I was excited to run fast, and I was in a fast wave, the fifth-fastest, so I was with some damn good runners, most of them, I have to admit, better than me. I was probably really suited for a couple waves back. But that's not what you want to think about right before a race.

I told people it may not work out. That I may bomb out. That I may not be ready to run a tough race not even three weeks after a marathon. But I didn't believe it. I never do. I'm terrific at handing out advice about rest and tapering and accepting the fact that racing so close after a tough, long race may not work. I'm terrible at accepting that advice on my own.

So the gun went off, and sure enough, I was feeling good. I ran the first mile in 7:22, and I thought that was smart. I thought I was fine.

I started feeling it by mile 2. The troll was already at work. Slow down. Walk. It's OK. I still hit the mat at 15 minutes, and I thought a PR was possible.

That's when the bottom dropped. More realistically, that's when the hills began to wear on me.

The BB is a tough course, with hills, hills and more hills. They're gradual, but they're also constant, and I've yet to find a good way to tackle them.

Let's make it short. I ran 8:25 for the third mile, somehow managed to hit 8:20 on the fourth, but then I puked, and mile 5 was 8:45 or so, or the pace I ran the first 20 miles of my marathon.

I crossed the finish in 50 minutes, my worst time in four years.

My friends, who are all experienced runners (and all of whom turned out their usual great times), told me that it was too soon. This was, to be honest, the first week where I even remotely felt myself, and even last Monday that wasn't true. I'm still surprised how long it's really taking to recover from the marathon. As I said, I'm great at dishing out advice and not so good at accepting it for myself.

But there's another form of acceptance, and it's one I may have to face soon.

I'm just not an elite runner. I am not my friends. Not even close.

My running partner finished 9th in her age group, which is amazing, considering there are 50,000 runners. Another who met us at the start finished 15th, and she's 31. I have friends who have done Ironmans, qualified for the Boston Marathon (no small feat) and ran 100 miles in a race.

Me? Well, I guess when you compare me to the average person, I'm good, and the average runner, I"m not bad. But I have to admit something. I am famous for climbing mountains even when I'm not feeling my best. That's something I can do. I've done it hundreds of times, and that's how I finished all of Colorado's 54 14ers (I'm only one of 1,500 to do that). But I'm not an athlete. Not really. I feel like today, with more guts, and more oomph, I could get past the marathon blues and turn out a good time. I didn't do that. I can't do that.

I may just have to accept the fact that I'm not in their class. It should be fairly easy for me to accept. I never was an athlete. I played in the band in high school and in college. It's only recently that I transformed myself. And yet I put in the work, and I'm seeing mediocre results, at least compared to my friends.

Should I accept that? I'll know in a few weeks. That's when the marathon becomes a memory. And no longer an excuse.

Evil Thought of the Day

As the girls screamed, cried, kicked, refused to lay in their bed, threatened to break the world record for decibels excreted in a minute, threw their teddy bears across the room, lost their pacifiers, then found them, then lost them again, then found them again, then lost them again (all within the span of 30 seconds), hollered as we sang them a song and generally acted like hellspawns on wheels:

"Well, maybe I'll just concentrate on the boy."

Perspective

My wife texted me Wednesday night and asked if I could work from home Thursday morning because Andie was sick and we should probably keep Allie home too.

Normally, I'd groan at the prospect. I enjoy spending time with my girls, but I had a big story to write and sometimes I get caught up in my own self-importance.

Not this time.

Predictably, Andie and Allie put in their usual rate of two demands per minute. Juice. Potty. Juice again. Potty again. (See a pattern here?). Food. Candy. Cry when I say no to the candy. The movie "Up." Blocks despite the movie up playing. It makes it hard to do ANYTHING, let alone write a big story.

Normally I'd groan at this.

Not this time.

Predictably, as the morning wore on, Andie became fussy. She was cold. She was warm. She was not all-together. She was dramatic. She was "upset," as she put it. She wanted to see the computer. Even if it meant sitting on my chest so I couldn't write. Nothing would appease her. I was wishing good luck to her future boyfriend.

Normally I'd groan and roll my eyes at this and bemoan my bad luck.

Not this time.

Not that day.

Because that day, the body of Kayleah, a 12-year-old girl who lived in Greeley with her mother, was found Wednesday. Police hadn't officially announced that it was her yet, but everyone knew it was. Today they revealed that think she was murdered. Awful. Awful awful awful.

And my big story was a profile of the Greeley mother of a 23-year-old missing in Nepal since last month. Again, awful, even if there's still hope with this one.

When my daughters whined, I smiled. When they needed juice or milk or a thousand other things, I got it for them without complaint. And when they needed to snuggle, I put my computer aside and snuggled.

After all, they were with me. And I was damn lucky to have them there.

A trying trio

It's the girls' third birthday. This is supposed to be a time when I write heartfelt, loving prose about how much I love them, the kind you find the more serious Hallmark cards, the ones with lace and unfocused pictures of teddy bears and ballerina shoes.

But as I leave their room, I can still hear Allie screaming and banging on the door. Kate is pleading with her. Now she's just left. Tonight it's Allie's turn for a nighttime tantrum. Tomorrow it will be Andie's.

At times like these, I really have to wonder. I have to wonder why being a parent is the most rewarding thing I've ever done. Because, at times like these, it's not.

The girls' third birthday marks one of the harder years in my life, and the only ones that were tougher than their first and second year. The sacrifices I've made are numerous, uncompromising and, at times, unnatural. I have sacrificed many of the fun, relaxing things I used to enjoy. I have sacrificed most of my free time. I have sacrificed part of my sanity. All so I can replace all with tantrums, ear-splitting cries and moments that are so stressful that I don't even recognize myself. This is my life. This is every day.

And when I try to explain what it's like, usually to my friends who have older children, I get "just wait until they're teenagers." Which tells me they have no idea what I'm going through and probably don't care. All parents think they're stressed. All parents think they've got it the worst. All parents just seem to want to get through the stage they're in so things can get better.

I'm not sure they ever do.

And that is why I am happy for those three years. I admit that I really question that happiness. I wonder if I"m just telling myself that. I have done a lot soul-searching on my long runs. And I always reach the same conclusion.

Long runs are hard, just like a lot of things. And parenting may be the hardest thing I've done, but it is perhaps the most rewarding. It doesn't give me the same satisfaction that climbing a mountain or running a marathon does. Those give me energy, and the kids just take it away. But it's energy well spent, and nothing about climbing a mountain or running gives me the same warmth that those small, loving moments do.

They are fleeting. Just like a runner's high. But they're the reason to enjoy the journey, rather than try like hell to get through it.

RIP Nemo

One of my friends suggested I just put a new fish in the tank. He'd never know, he said. He's 4.

Yeah, but he's an old 4. Hell he'll be 5 next month. And so this afternoon I wrapped my arm around his neck in a sort of awkward father hug and told him it was time to say goodbye to Nemo.

He named the fish Nemo when Grandma Gail - my Mom - bought him the fish tank for his birthday more than a year ago. Nemo is probably the most popular fish name in history these days, just how everyone named their pet dolphin "Flipper" in the 1960s. Nemo was a good little beta. He was red, he swam around the tank and peered back at Jayden when he would drag his chair over to get a close look at his first pet.

Lately, though, he just sat in the bottom of the tank, looking like I do after a hard race (like a marathon, per se). Only he wouldn't eat. That's usually not a problem after one of my races. And I wondered how I was going to handle this.

I did consider a fish switch. But I only want to lie to my kid about fun stuff, like a bunny rabbit that carries eggs to good children. And, more importantly, I wanted him to get his first lesson about death.

"OK, let's go say good-bye," I told him. "I'll need to flush him away."

See, I was working on my eulogy.

"But I'll miss him," Jayden said.

I know, buddy. I miss Sparky. He was my dog for 15 years. I miss my uncle, and my grandparents, and I'll always miss them all.

I hope I'm long gone before I'd have to miss you. That would be a hole that would never be filled.

I hate that a 4-year-old boy has to learn that people, and yes, pets, go away and never come back. Whether you see them again is up to you. I'm not getting into that with a 4-year-old yet.

Right now the lesson is hard enough. I'm regretting, in a way, thinking that he needed to learn it right now. Really? Couldn't I have just switched the fish?

"I'm sad," Jayden said.

Me too.

A tale of two races

When I started running today's marathon, I honestly thought I was in heaven.

So this is what it's like, I thought, as I gazed over the Poudre River, swept through a rock tunnel and flew down the canyon, all without the pain I was so worried about these last two weeks.

Oh, sure, it was cold, but even that was pretty awesome, as you could gaze down a long line of runners and see everyone's breath, which is way cooler than it sounds. The sun was peeking through, but it hadn't shown itself yet, splashing a few orange rays on the rocks behind me. I had metal in my ears, pushing me to go harder, friendly competitors by my side, a river to my left, an awesome sunrise, perfect cold weather with no wind and a body that was asking for more.

Heaven.

It was like this for a long time. Far too long, in fact, because when things are going this well, this long, it seems like there's always hell to pay later. It's like going on a huge hot streak in poker. You go through it with mixed emotions because you know eventually variance will take its taste, usually in the form of brutal one-outers for monster pots. I ripped off a 1:52 half marathon. I realize that's not going to qualify me for the Olympics, but this was my first marathon, and that's an 8:37 pace, and not only that, it felt like I could keep that up the entire race.

Alas.

Alas, because around mile 18, my legs started to feel heavy. Only they weren't heavy. They hurt. Only I thought that was fine because, shit, we'd just ran downhill for 18 miles, and I'd ran it fast. I was well on my way to 3:45. And one of my friends met me to run with me for a couple miles just a mile and a half later, and I said to her that my legs were starting to hurt a bit.

And then I cramped up.

Now there are cramps, and there are cramps. I had experienced cramps like these maybe a couple times in my life. My right leg seized up, and it felt like my hamstring had turned into one of those Alien babies and was trying to burst out of my skin. When I stretched it out, my calf did the same thing. When I tried to stretch both, my quad bunched up.

This was not what we call a "win-win."

It was like this for the next seven miles.

Well, I was still able to run, but I'd run for a bit and then seize up again. I did what I could. Those same friendly competitors saw my agony and offered up bananas and pretzels. Folks, a marathon is war out there, and it warmed my heart to see so much generosity when it could mean their race only a couple miles later. I downed Gatorade. I ate sodium gels. Nothing worked.

I've had bad races - every runner has - when you feel as if you just want to walk. You're tired and down and sick. I didn't feel that way at all. I wanted to run hard. But it was impossible. I simply couldn't. I felt like a sports car with a good engine and a couple bad tires. I even had to stop twice to stretch out my calves close to the finish line. And I pulled in at 4:17, frustrated, happy, proud and pissed all at the same time.

Marathons are unpredictable. I trained well. I felt good. Yet my wheels gave out on me. I wonder if I didn't drink enough even when I thought I was. Or whether the downhill did me in (that's certainly possible, as we didn't run that far downhill during my training runs). I doubt running slower would have made much of a difference.

Here I am, barely able to move, and knowing I should feel proud. I ran a marathon. I suppose I will feel proud soon. But something nags at me knowing I could have done better.

And that is what will motivate me next year.

Time is short

I can't decide if I'm being a big baby about my upcoming marathon (next Sunday, in fact) or if my fears are justified.

I've always wondered just how football players get through an NFL season. They must always be in pain. You just can't play that game the way it's supposed to be played without being dinged up all the time. 

I've also always considered myself a tough person. I've prided myself on it actually. Mountaineers have to not only put up with discomfort. They have to sort of like it. We view it as a challenge. Oh, you've scraped up my leg? And thrown cold rain, wind, wet rocks, snow and a 55-degree hill at me? All on my three hours of sleep? Nah, I'm gonna climb you anyway.

And yet, here I am, worried about a pain in my foot.

Yet it is, sort of, justified.

I went to see the doctor about it Friday. He said, after a thorough examination, that I've got a stress reaction in a bone. This doesn't mean I have a stress fracture. But it means it's on the way if I keep pounding my foot by running so much.

So, OK. As a result, I didn't run hardly at all last week - and I know you're rolling your eyes at that, but really, I ran two miles all week - and I'll spend three days this week running maybe two miles at the most, all on soft surfaces, slow, so I don't hurt my eansy-weensy wuttle footsie.

But yeah, a marathon is kind of pounding my feet again, and that's what I'm facing this Sunday.

And it's my first one.

And I have no idea what's going to happen.

Doc even says he will inject my foot before the race if that's what I want. I know what you're all thinking - FTW is probably not far off - but I don't want to numb my foot and run 26 miles on it. I would, quite honestly, rather feel the pain. Think about it. You know how awful your mouth feels after the dentist, right? Would you want to run on that for 26 miles? No. Me either.

Still, my running partner is meeting me at mile 17, and she may - just may - have an injection with her. Maybe. Just to get me through it. Or, you know, if my foot does actually break.

It should be an interesting race. 

I ran today for three miles. It felt fine. But here's the real issue. Last week I ran 10. At every mile, the pain got worse, until, in the last mile, I was saying ow, ow, ow with each step. 

26 miles is a long way. I'm almost positive I can do it. 

But I'm still trying to decide if I'm just being a baby about all this or if all this worry is justified. And the scary thing is I won't know until the race is over.

Oops

When you're training for a race - and I am, in case you didn't know - whenever you feel pain, you are always wondering if you're in trouble or if you're just being a baby.

I wondered, at first, if I was just being a baby when I first felt the pain in my left foot. It started hurting after my last 20-mile run a week ago Saturday.

(On a side note, my knee tendonitis began hurting after my first 20-mile run. I guess running 20 miles is tough on your body).

Crap like this is always a part of training for a marathon, so I'm told. It makes sense. After that last 20, I ran 51 miles that week. I'd never really run more than 35, and barely hit that, before I began training for the big one. Aches and pains and even injuries are part of the deal.

But, man. It started really hurting Wednesday, after my intervals session, and then Friday I cut my run short by a mile (the weather made it easy to do that, as it's rained here since that Wednesday and it started raining hard enough as I was running Friday morning to get the Ark unhitched). 

Then Saturday on mile 10, it was kind of screaming at me.

I decided at that point I was no longer being a baby and that this was serious.

I can put up with a lot of pain. In fact my pain threshold is probably too high. There's probably injuries I could have avoided if I had just taken a few days off. But I worry, too, because I know a marathon is 26 miles, and a lot can happen over that distance. Something small can turn into an elephant by the time you cross the finish line. Or don't cross it.

I'm on steroids now, and I'm running twice this week and only twice. The good news is I'm tapering now and can basically take the two weeks off without it affecting me much (which still blows me away but I'm trusting the knowledge of my friends who have done many of these). 

The bad news is just two weeks before the race, I'm dealing with an injury.

I can see the end of the miles and miles

It's over.

Not really over. Not over over. And it's definitely not over over over.

But the minute I was done with my last 20-miler Saturday, I breathed in deep, with a calm, relaxing sense of relief. Of course I was relieved to be done with 20 miles. But it was more than that.

It's over.

The training is done. 

I'm tapering now.

In case you don't know what tapering is - and since many of you are gambling, boozing poker bloggers you may not - it is, to put it simply, much easier than the training I've done for the past four months.

I've still got plenty of runs to complete, but I'm only running for a half-hour tomorrow. I'm only running four miles on Friday (last Friday I ran 10). I'm only running 12 on Saturday (I know that sounds like a lot, but it's not 20), and it only gets better from there. I only run 8 that next Saturday, and in the last week before the May 9 marathon, I've got the running schedule of an overweight guy trying to get in shape for his softball team.

This means a lot more than a break, though, let's be honest, I need the break. I've been sick more this winter than I used to get in five years, and two of our kids, of course, have strep throat right now, so I need my immune system to be more Superman and less Clark Kent. 

((If I would have a nemesis villain, his name would be strep throat, an evil guy who scraps my throat sandpaper-raw and makes me want to lay on the couch and watch bad TV and can only be defeated by a trip to urgent care and a prescription for pills that have to be taken with food. I've had it, no shit, at least 50 times in my life and twice this year)).

I've always been active. I climbed mountains, ran half marathons and even played softball!!!111. But the training for this changed me. I went to bed before 10 p.m. most nights. I turned down poker games and left others early (I have missed far too many Mookies and will probably miss more despite the awesome offer of the BBT5; I'm not linking it because everyone else already did). I basically lived like a monk, and when one of my best friends asked me at a poker game Saturday what else was going on in my life "besides running," I had a hard time answering. There's nothing wrong with being healthy and working for a goal, but the training and being a Dad have left my life a little unbalanced. I'm ready to cut loose a bit. Maybe I'll stay up past 11 p.m. when this is over.

No, the last run means a lot because it means I made it through relatively unscathed. Sure, my knee hurts a bit, but it's already better, and it should be fine by race day. Yeah, I've been sick, but I didn't miss too many runs at all. I'm a bit tired too.

But that's what the tapering is for. It's to build you back up and get you strong again after you've torn yourself down. It's to help you get out there on race day and kick ass.

I'm ready.

Danger lurks in every footfall

Potential disaster is right under my feet.

Last week I:

• stepped into the shower and caught myself right before I skidded on a swath of soap.

• halted a full-on step on the stairs after my foot felt a poke from a toy from Burger King, preventing a tumble.

• caught my son inches from my groin after he leaped off the couch to "get me." He almost got me, all right.

I was mere moments from suffering some kind of injury that could have royally screwed my chances of running the marathon as I head into my last huge week of training.

The last huge week is a celebration. After I run 20 Saturday, I go into tapering. That means the hard training is over, and it's smooth sailing from there on out.

The marathon itself isn't really the hard part. It's surviving the training that prepares you for it. I've already said this, but the training basically ensures you'll be sick several times and that you've got a good chance of getting hurt.

I know five others preparing for a marathon with me this winter. Three of them got injured. Two of them to the point where they probably won't be able to do the race.

I've had my own issues with an old ACL injury I suffered in a mountain climbing accident 10 years ago. The heavy training has inflamed it. But ice and ibuprofen seems to be controlling it. Tapering will help with the rest.

Surviving all this, of course, makes you paranoid that something, surely, will fuck it up. As I am feeling great again - really great, after a month of illnesses and the sore knee - and the training winds down, that's where I am.

My house, of course, is a pitfall thanks to the kids. Yep. Pitfall. I won't be surprised if one morning I have to leap across the living room via the ceiling fan to get to the kitchen (and see crocs underneath and hear some encouraging music and get a shiny gold bar when I do make it).

I'll be celebrating Saturday.

If I don't trip over something plastic on the way in the door.

Spring has me...um, never mind

Today I slipped on shorts, a short-sleeved tech shirt and a long-sleeved tech-shirt for the first time in God knows how long ago.

When I began training for the marathon, I wore three layers, tights, a hat, gloves, a face warmer and a jacket to ward off -10 degrees.

It takes a tad less time to get ready for a run when all you have to do is wear shorts and a couple layers on top. A ball cap, some sunglasses, my iPod and I'm good.

The sun warmed my back. I stripped off the long-sleeved tech shirt even before I started.

My hands didn't go numb from frostnip halfway through the run.

My feet actually sweated a tiny bit.

I got a little color on my legs. That color was red, but that's OK.

I saw a hawk circling overhead at the park.

The trees had little green buds on them.

The grass wasn't all crispy and brown or covered in snow.

My body was kinda limber, not like I'd been buried in mummy bandages for a century.

Hey, Spring, where ya been, man?

I would like to rock, please.

On my way home from work, I was listening to Pretty Maids, and "We Came To Rock" came on.

Man, it'd been a while since I heard a song about rockin'.

Remember when they used to play those all the time?

Pretty Maids, in fact, was from that era. The group was one of those metal bands of the 1980s I tended to specialize in, a fairly unknown band that I discovered on Headbanger's Ball that was the last video of the night, something to fill time between the phone sex commercials.

(Getting to watch"Headbanger's Ball" was a special treat. My parents did not get cable until I was well into high school, which they probably did to prevent me from watching too much TV, but actually the result was I watched too many reruns of "WKRP in Cincinatti" and played more Atari 2600. I think I caught Pretty Maids at my grandmother's.)

The band actually had a major label deal, signed to the same company as Europe, and the first record was good enough for me to keep it when I did a clearinghouse of much of the crap I had accumulated through the 80s. "Future World," the band's only (minor) hit, is still a great song.

Wow, that was quite a tangent.

Anyway, bands exactly like Pretty Maids were not polished songwriters, and as a result, most every album that came out during that era had a song about rockin'. Because, really, when you're a metal band from the 80s, even if you weren't hair metal necessarily, you pretty much wrote about chicks, maybe a few drugs, expensive cars or the lifestyle and, when those reservoirs were tapped, you wrote about rockin'.

Even some of the best bands from that era well, you know, rocked. Twisted Sister wanted to rock. Def Leppard wrote about a rock of ages and wanted to get rocked. AC/DC said rock and roll was not noise pollution, saluted those who were about to rock and just last year sang about a rock and roll train (but that band gets a pass because AC/DC's sound never really has changed much, even with two different lead singers, and that's actually one of its charms).

Rockin' was not limited to hard rock or metal. Huey Lewis and the News was not that great of a band (no it wasn't), but Lewis did sing about the heart of rock and roll.

And if you think this was just an unfortunate 80s thing, like big bangs and T-shirts with overcoats and hunks named Corey, well, you're wrong. Led Zep, the seminal band of the 70s, said it was a long time before they rock and rolled.

So what the hell happened? Well, I've got a friend who likes to blame Nirvana for the decline of music. I don't agree. I liked Nirvana. But he's right about one thing. Music was no longer about rockin'.

Nirvana wrote about feeling stupid and rape and coming as you are (and even that wasn't as fun as it sounded). Soundgarden seems like a band that could write about rockin', and maybe it did, though I only remember tunes about black hole suns and black days and rusty cages. Stone Temple Pilots probably should have written about rockin' but wrote some good songs and a bunch of crappy songs, and both groups honestly made no sense at all.

Even today, rock and roll doesn't seem to be about rockin' any longer. Part of me honestly likes this. I'd rather a band try to address something intelligent. That's one of the reasons Iron Maiden will always be one of my favorite bands. You'd hear about historic battles with the Russians and the pilots of World War II and a strange song about Alexander The Great and topics like being afraid to shoot strangers.

I'm hardly a party animal. I'm pretty serious a good portion of the time. I never really watch popcorn flicks. I don't read trashy novels. I've even given up video games (which makes me sad, I have to admit).

But I do miss it. I miss the fun. I miss being able to rock out.

I'm gonna listen to AC/DC tonight.

In this moment

There are times I do not enjoy being a parent.

These times are pretty easy to break down:

1. When they are sick - No one likes seeing their kids suffer, and no one likes cleaning up their sheets after they puke all over them, and no one (especially me) enjoys getting sick after they are sick. I used to never get sick. I got sick maybe once in five years. This year, thanks to the little germ generators and the fact that marathon training wears down your immune system, I have been sick, I think, around 96 times this year. Last week I had strep throat. Right now, thanks to yet another little cold my kids brought home, I'm coughing like a coal miner.

2. When they are tired - There is NOTHING worse than a 2-year-old who can't function. I'd rather listen to a Britney Fox album than one of the girls' tantrums when they're overtired. It's usually about the most mind-numbing, stupidest stuff, too, like Allie got a pink cup instead of orange. Oh, the horror!

3. When they are in their Miss Independent stage (and Mr.) - This is when they don't listen, when they want "Mommy to do it," when they want to do it themselves (even complicated things like washing their hair, which NEVER works and they get soap in their eyes and then they scream at you for that), when they want food you have or a piece of candy or more cookies or a bite of the dog or a sip of your beer (don't tempt me kids) or when they don't want to go to bed despite the fact that they are overtired. They are in this stage approximately 97 percent of the time.

The other times are great.

Lately I'm a little fascinated at how alike parenting is to distance running. That's mostly because my LIFE is distance running. Seriously I have no good stories to tell in bars any longer, unless they want to hear about the time I got up at 5:30 a.m. Tuesday to run in a park and saw a fox (the actual animal, not the 1976 term for a pretty lady). Which, honestly, nobody sober wants to hear.

But it is, and the reason for it is when you're parenting, you sort of enjoy the bad moments, even if you're not enjoying them in the moment. Distance running (and mountain climbing too) is much the same way. I didn't necessarily ENJOY getting up at 4 a.m. and running through that same park in the dark on my way to a 19-mile run, but I look back on that time with a certain fondness.

You love running even when you don't at the time, and your kids are the same way. I smile now when I think about last night's tantrum, about how Allie's face turned a new shade of red - I think I'm going to call it Temperta - even though I wanted to flush her down the toilet at the time.

There are times I love being a parent in the moment as there are times I love running in the moment.

I can only hope as they get older, the two will begin to mesh more.

A crack in the armor

The first twinge of an ache hit me around 6:30 Monday night. When I felt it, I blew it off, as I always do, as if that would help it go away. Sometimes it works. Usually it doesn't.

"Um, what did you say you felt," I asked Kate, who was crumpled up on the carpet in a ball after suffering through a sick day laid up with strep throat. She told me. It matched what I was feeling.

Oh, shit.

By 8:45, I knew I was screwed. It's an awful, sinking feeling when you know you're getting sick. There aren't many feelings like it. Maybe waiting for an hour alone at the dinner table for a date and starting to realize you're getting stood up, or when that first flush card hits and you know you're about to get runner-runnered by a douchebag for a huge pot. 

A creeping sickness is probably the only time I tend to feel deeply sorry for myself. "Ah, man, why me?" I even squealed around 7:45 p.m. I went to bed an hour later and woke up at 7 a.m. feeling like I'd been hit by a truck.

Now I know that's a cliche, and a pretty bad one at that. But I really, honestly felt that way. Maybe not a tractor-trailer - there'd be nothing left of me if that was the case - but definitely an F-150. Every joint ached, my throat like a piece of barbed wire had lodged in it, and I had the energy of a hibernating grizzly.

"Tell the kids I loved them," I croaked to Kate.

Unfortunately there's a larger theme to this post. Remember what I said just a couple weeks ago about running good, like I was on a hot streak at poker, in training for my marathon? Almost, I worried, too good? It appears my Aces are now being cracked. The sickness was only part of it.

I ran 20 Saturday, and once again, it went well. Really well. I felt great and enjoyed being tired at the end. Again.

Only Sunday I woke up and went for a four-mile recovery run, and on my way up a hill, my right knee started to hurt.

Now I should say me and the knee (a good title for a novel, I think) have a history. Ten years ago, I tore the ACL in it ever-so-slightly in a mountain climbing accident. Doctors said it would be fine, but now I wonder if it's coming back to haunt me.

I've said this before - probably to the point where it sounds like crybaby whining - but marathon training is stretching me much more than I anticipated. It's lowered my immune system - obviously - and now it may be unearthing an old injury. 

I can take a lot of pain. Endurance athletes usually can and, in some ways, we enjoy it. But this is, I have to admit, scaring me a bit. This is not what I call "safe" pain, which is muscle soreness or a contusion or just general suffering. This is a possible injury that, if it gets worse, could, pardon my language, fuck the marathon.

I'm probably overreacting. I've been too lucky during my short running career. I've never really been hurt. Even the knee isn't that painful. I could certainly run 26.1 on it if knew it wasn't going to snap on me. My guess is my body is saying WTF to me running, say, 20 on Saturday. 

Still. I honestly loved training for the marathon because it was predictable. If you did the training, you handle the increasing distance, and it was true, so very true, almost too true. I like my life to be predictable and orderly. 

Yet I'm finding out that training for such a demanding event is, in fact, unpredictable. You don't know how your body will react to the increasing demands, and all you can do is hope - and I guess pray a bit - that it will hold up. That's what I'm hearing from all my friends who have done them. It's chaotic. It's exactly like raising twins, and the chaos was by far the most frustrating thing about having kids in the first place. 

Maybe I'm in denial, but maybe I'm still running well. Maybe I got sick at just the right time, when my body obviously needed rest. I'm feeling much better, so I ran for a couple miles today, something to get my body back into it. And the knee didn't hurt. Much. I didn't even feel the twinge as I ran down that slight hill today.

Denial works well. Right now it's all I got. 

Thoughts on a good but disappointing season

I will not lie right now. I'm pissed.
I know I shouldn't be too much. I even feel spoiled saying it. But yeah, I"m upset.
Part of me thinks of the incredible waste this is. We put together a wonderful team and worked hard to lose only one game in a terrific conference. And we're the overall #1 seed. And we're done.
What a waste.
Part of me wishes we could have somehow shaken the nerves that haunted us the entire game. It took us nearly the entire game to finally fight and play our game.
What a tragedy.
Part of me also honestly wonders why I bother. This is not rational thinking right now, or even logical, but why put all my energy into a team when it just ends in a wasteful heartache every year?
We've had our fair share of chokes as a #1 seed, haven't we? More than our fair share?
But then I have to pause and think why I'm a fan. Is it really for the end result? Do I watch Temple in December only to hope they play that well in March?
No. At the beginning of the season, I pledged to enjoy the journey and the ride. And I did. As hard as it is right now, I truly enjoyed this team. Right now it truly sucks - I mean this is the toughest loss I can remember since 1998 or maybe 1997 - but we're so lucky to be Kansas fans.
We'll be back next year.
And so will I.

P.S. I just hope Kentucky doesn't win.

How to Make a Mix

I consider myself a music aficionado, which is a tea-and-crumpets way of saying I think it's pretty awesome.

(I had to look up how to spell aficionado through Google).

And so I also consider myself a master Mixer. Not like Dre so much, of course, but still pretty damn good. And I've made myself that way by following a few guidelines along the way, both in how I make the mixes for others and how I make them for myself (which I continue to do, both for my iPod and for CDs). And I know it's March Madness and I'm doing my first 20-miler this weekend and I'm actually running good at Rush Poker finally, and I should post about those things, but you'll hear plenty about both of those, believe me, and so here's a fun break.

1. Start with a banger - Did Judas Priest ever start with a rumination on Cleopatra, complete with French Horns? No. Did Metallica ever lead an album with a noodling acoustic guitar feature? No. So why the hell are you putting the waterfalls and pipe flutes first? Start with a rocker or, if you're not making a rock mix, as up tempo as you can get.

2. Avoid the cliches - This is a great tip for writing as well, but cliches in mixes, as in writing, should be avoided like the plague (get it? LOL!). This means you do not put that goddam Patrick Swayze sung "She's Like The Wind" song on the first mix tape/CD you make for her. 

(By the way, I'll use "she" or "her" for the rest of this because I'm a guy. If you're a girl, you can substitute it for "he" or "him." Unless you're a lesbian.) You do not put "You Shook Me All Night Long" on there either to appear saucy. And putting "You Light Up My Life" is not nearly as clever as you think it is.

3. A band or obscure song is a good idea - Especially if it means a lot to you. There's nothing cooler than discovering a favorite song through a mix CD someone makes for you (I fell in love with "Under The Milky Way" because of this).

4. But don't overdo it - I generally save Testament, Flotsam and Jetsam and Shadows Fall for my own enjoyment. For some reason, not everyone loves heavy metal or enjoys hearing guys who sing like they're an extra in the torture-porn film "Hostel." I have yet to figure out why this is, but it's true.

5. If it's played on classic rock formula radio, leave it off - No one - and I really do mean no one - wants to hear "Sweet Home Alabama" on a CD mix. You don't either. If you discover, say, an Irish band covering that song, that's funny and therefore should make the mix. But otherwise leave off "Pour Some Sugar on Me" or "Slow Ride." The idea is to entertain you or someone else, not to encourage them to put a hot poker in their eyes.

6. Mix it up - Heh. I know. That's what a Mix CD IS, silly! (LOL!). But if you're making, say, a running mix for your iPod, you don't have to put hard, fast and loud all the time. I'm usually relieved to hear something slow and mellow after an hour of guitars and aggressive drums and vocals during a long run by myself. 

7. Bring on the quirky, funny shit - Offspring had an "Intermission" segment on its most famous album (yep, the one with "Come Out And Play" that you went nuts to at those sorority parties or school dances and congratulated yourself at how "edgy" you were). I used to put it on side B. It got lots of LOLs. Seriously.

8. Jazz is fine, too - I know you like to show how smart and sophisticated you are, and nothing seems to do that better than jazz. Classical music works, too, but those pieces are longer than you think (commercials only take the best snippet). I would suggest Miles Davis, John Coltrane or maybe some Duke Ellington. You can overdo this too. You don't need to put a 23-minute tone poem on there. That really won't make you look smarter. Just a bit snobby and obtuse. 

Enjoy!