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!

Looking over my shoulder

There are times, probably too many times, when it's not a good thing to be a poker player.

The game is so beautiful, with the intoxicating allure of money, the rush and more fun than anyone really deserves, that you put up with all the crap that goes with it. Losing streaks that make you constantly cranky, the douchebags who always seem to infect your table and just the goddamn unfairness of it at times (and I'm not just talking about suckouts) can always make you wonder why you play.

And there's another reason too.

You're constantly wondering when you'll stop running so good.

Running so good is the best grammatically incorrect feeling in the world, and right now, I'm running really good.

No, not in poker, though that hasn't been too bad either, thanks to Rush Poker. No, I'm talking about my marathon training.

I ran 19.5 Friday. I had to get up at 4 a.m. to do it. I ran 9 the day before in a nasty wind that felt as if I was being thumped in the chest by a demon. Friday was the longest I've ever run in my life. By the end, by all rights, I should have been dragging. But I wasn't. I was stronger by mile 14 than I was in mile 12. I pushed the tempo again. It was, dare I say it, fairly easy.

Every time, in fact, I've run the longest I've run, I've felt stronger at the end.

I feel great right now, perhaps the best I've felt in my life.

So really, what's the problem?

Well, I've got three 20-milers waiting for me, but even that isn't really the issue.

The issue is I'm wondering when the good run will end.

That's what you always think as a poker player, and that's not what I need right now. I've been an endurance athlete most of my life - in fact I've been one longer than I haven't - and most of that was mountain climbing. Even so, I've never considered myself a good athlete, and my track record growing up will back that up. I'm not being modest here. I'm proud of what I've done. But there are always doubts, warranted or not. Doubts, if you really think about it, usually aren't warranted.

The game's still going. It ends May 9 when I cross the finish line. I just need to keep the rush going, so that when doesn't turn into an if.

Down with the sickness

I'm having a hard time believing exercise can make you feel younger.

Training for a marathon is aging me.

These days I'm in bed by 10 p.m. and at up at 6 a.m., even on the weekends. I still drink coffee but I prefer green tea. I don't drink much alcohol, am trying to watch my diet more and get a little cranky when those damn kids drive by the house squealing their tires.

But I don't like to compare it to getting older. I think it's more like a sickness.

Following the training plan for a marathon involves six days of running, and all of those days are at least 3 miles. You don't have to, but I do speed work, meaning intervals, hill repeats or hard tempo runs (running at 10K pace for a specific amount of time) twice a week. There's also a marathon pace run the day before the long run. So if you're running, say, 16 that weekend, you run 8 the day before at your planned race pace. For me that's 8:45 per mile.

This week I've got perhaps the toughest one of all my plans. I've got a 19-mile run that I'll have to start at 4 a.m. so I can head to Winter Park with my Dad and a 9-mile pace run the day before. I've got hill repeats, a tempo run and two 4-mile runs ahead, plus two lifting and core workout sessions. That's my week. 

Halfway through my 18-week training plan, all this is taking its toll, as you would expect, even as I've felt far better than I thought I would. Just so you don't think this is whining, in some ways, the training is easier, not harder, than it was a month ago. That became apparent to me during my last two long runs. Two weeks ago, I ran 17, the longest I've ever run, yet I felt so good, I was running the last four faster than the first four. And last Saturday my long run was only 12 miles in what we call a fallback week (a week that lets you recover from the tough two weeks that preceded it and gets you ready for the next two tough weeks), and it felt like it was "only" 12 miles. 

Just a few months ago, 12 was a lot. Hey, it IS a lot. It's practically a half marathon. Now it's easy. 

Yet the margin of error is much, much thinner than it's ever been. If I don't get eight hours a night - hell, if I only get 7 one night - it kicks my ass. I've been sick three times since I started training, and I think that's only partly thanks to my three little petri dishes. And though my body feels good, I have to be careful about doing anything else. I thought it was crazy that bikers training for the Tour de France refuse to walk up even one flight of stairs. Now I understand.

It's shocked me how much of a toll the training takes. I mean, I've been active my whole life. Before I started running, I climbed about 20 peaks a year, and last year I ran six half marathons. But it feels like I've constantly got the flu, only without the nausea. I've got to go to bed early, don't do anything crazy and avoid the hard living. 

When I tell my friends about the toll I'm paying - all of them marathoners or Ironman finishers - they just nod. Yep, that's the way it is. The goal is to get through it all without getting hurt. The race, they say, isn't nearly as big a deal as the training leading up to it.

Still, it's been a fun journey so far. The weariness isn't just a reminder that I need to go to bed early. It's a way to remind myself that I've worked hard. I'm halfway through the goal, and after these two weeks, when I run 20 next week for the first time, I've got to start thinking that it's really gonna happen. 

Plus there's been a lot of little rewards along the way. 17 miles isn't a lot when you think about the fact that a marathon is 9 miles more, but I felt like a badass the whole day, and I've already said that's probably the biggest reason for doing this.

And there's a certain magic to being outside for hours at a time, in the early morning hours, when your neighbors are just starting to brew their coffee.

Today the first light cast a glow over the sky. I was near the start third hill repeat, gasping for breath, lost in my weariness. And I looked to my right and saw a golden eagle. It's a rare sight to see one this time of year, in a suburban neighborhood, albeit one on the edge of town. It's as if nature was encouraging me.

I stared at the eagle. And then my watch beeped, and I started to fly like one.

Let the sun shine

I slipped on the shorts the way a retired skier slips on his suit for the first time. 

It felt like ages. 

My legs looked it, too. Despite my love for the outdoors, I have pale skin, the kind worn by couch potatoes who squint at 10 a.m. and prefer to play Dungeons and Dragons in dank, dark, basements and other settings worthy of dungeons (and, apparently, dragons). 

My skin gets copious amounts of Vitamin D every year and millions of minutes of sunshine, yet by the end of the summer, I still only have as much color as a 1982 newspaper. 

Sure enough, my legs looked more like an X-ray than actual flesh. 

It had been a long, cold winter, and I had worn tights since early October.

One thing runners have always loved about the sport is its simplicity. In that sense it's the complete opposite of mountain climbing. It used to take me hours, if not days, to pack for a trip, even if I was only planning to climb for a few hours. You need to pack food, water, energy gels, sunscreen, emergency equipment, extra clothing, shoelaces, a hat, gloves, a trash bag and...do you really want me to go on? 

But the winter makes you plan your runs, too. When I'd run, I'd have to slip on tights, put on running crampons, a hat, gloves, wear two or three layers, a jacket, a face protector and...do you really want me to go on?  By last Saturday I was so sick of dressing for 15 minutes just to go for a damn run that I grumbled to my wife, "It feels like I'm going mountain climbing."

Ah, but Wednesday came, and with it the threat of a day over 55 degrees. I paused before throwing in just a pair of shorts and a shirt for my intervals track workout later that afternoon. It felt so LIGHT. 

When I did throw on my shorts and my shirt, it did feel light. And I began my run around the track. My legs almost stung from the bright sunlight. I actually sweated in my minimal clothing. I needed a lot of water when I was done.

It was warm. It was almost like spring. And it was wonderful. 

The long-ago death of the album - and what we're missing as a result

So I was driving down to Denver Saturday to pick up some awards from the Colorado Press Association listening to Judas Priest's "Screaming for Vengeance." (I mean, duh, metal is pretty much AWESOME stuffy award ceremony music.) And I was thinking, "Wow, this really is a great album."

And it hit me. I rarely listen to those anymore.

(By the way, did you like how I subtly snuck in the bragging? Pretty sneaky, huh?)

We download singles if we like it. We don't buy the album any longer. And if we do, we chop it up and shuffle it on our iPod.

I don't know if this really is a bad thing or not. I'm not here to rant against the death of the album. That's been done a lot, and quite frankly, I'm as responsible for that as anyone. I bought five albums in the last two years. I love singles. I love my iPod. I love making my own mixes. And more than half  of the albums I've bought in my lifetime - and that probably numbers into a thousand - mostly sucked, save for the one or two good songs I heard on the radio.

But I am here to mourn what we're missing.

• The opening track - Metallica's "Death Magnetic," my last favorite album, features a classic, "That Was Just Your Life." There's a great lead-in to the song, a slow heartbeat, followed by the opening chords, followed by a message that this is going to take you back to the good, old, fast days. You could always count on Metallica to open with a blister, and you could always count on the first song always being one of the best on the record. It's the tone setter. It's the fun joke or random thought before the boring speech. And sometimes it's not the best song, but if not, it usually is the perfect setup to it, i.e. Ozzy's "I Don't Know" bringing you into "Crazy Train" on "Blizzard of Oz" or "So What" carrying you to "All Blues" on Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue."

• The opening of the B side - This was more of an issue when we weren't buying CDs. Yes, kids, there were things called albums and cassette tapes (my choice), and there was a B side, or the side you'd listen to after that kick-ass first couple of tracks. And almost without fail, that first track on the B side was usually awesome. "Modern Day Cowboy?" "Screaming for Vengeance?" "Hot For Teacher?" "Blind in Texas?" Those all were B-side openers, not opening tracks.

• The surprise second-sider - On even some of the best albums, the B side was generally littered with fillers, experimental (i.e. usually crappy) tracks or just plain awful stuff. "Feel Your Love Tonight," for instance, is a B sider on the undeniably great "Van Halen I." But as you waded through them, occasionally, you'd find gold (Olympics analogy alert!). "The Last Command" by W.A.S.P. "Ice Cream Man" on that same "Van Halen I." "I'll Wait" on VH's "1984." These tracks were the best simply because you looked forward to them. You could get through a guitarist noodling a bit too much, for instance (or playing yet another ripoff solo of "Eruption") because the magic was coming.

• The closer - "Damage Inc." is the closing track on "Master of Puppets." 'Nuff said.

• The desert island debate - Hardly anyone debates the SONGS they would take if they were stranded on an desert island. They debate the books, the movies and the dessert (yep, I know how to spell the two words). And they debate the albums. (Personally, I would take a cell phone so I could get off the damn island). And yet you don't hear those fun debates as much any longer. 

I really kinda miss these things. 

Then again, maybe it's up to me to follow these rules on my own CDs.

Icy milestone

My alarm threatened to go off at 6 a.m. It was 5:57 a.m. I turned off the alarm and peeked outside under the warmth of my covers.

It looked kinda nasty.

Saturday was what my veteran marathon friends call "the breakthrough day." It would be the day that I would run farther than I've ever run in my life. In this case, that was 16 miles. I hadn't run more than 13 in three years. A big day.

Of course, a fresh blanket of snow awaited me. Friday, a day I ran 8, I ran through snow, but it was nice. As I debated about what to wear, Saturday's snow did not look nice. It looked awful, in fact.

The sleety, sticky stuff stuck to my windshield like Superglue and seemed to giggle at my defroster as I tried to peek through the small hole the warm air created. I had a 15 minute drive to the start of my run. I played W.A.S.P., thinking it would help. It didn't.

The treadmill was not an option. If I wanted to run in place, I would come back in my second life as a hamster. I've run more than 3 miles on a treadmill once in my running career. The wind was 40 mph, the snow was sideways, and the temperature was -18. Even then, I considered it - in fact I was heading out the door - when one of my friends saw me and suggested I wear an avalanche beacon so they could find my body on the trail.

We met inside, ready for action. We debated how many layers to wear. It honestly didn't seem too bad. It's all relative.

Sometimes I pick the route, and other times, I'm just a lab being pulled along for the ride. This was one of those days. Saturday's route included a long, long hill - "Heartbreaker's Hill" in the Boston Marathon looks like a gopher's mound in comparison - and by mile 8, facing a stiff, cold wind that cuts into my face, I'm a little cranky. 

"This sucks!" I yell, and two of my running mates turn around. It's really not like me to complain too much. They see I'm not injured, grin and turn around.

Around mile 13, my jacket is coated in ice, and my legs start to feel wooden. I somehow catch a second wind - it must be the Cliff Bar chew Blocs, which taste like gummy bears - and pick it up a notch. I've got to get used to running hard tired. 

At 15.1, I can see my car, only we've already passed it. We're tacking on a small road so I can get my 16. It sounds anal, but you won't increase your long miles by more than two in one week, so it's actually fairly important to get that last mile in, as I think you earn more in that mile than any other.

My legs are tired, wooden and even a little painful as we approach the driveway. 16.2. I feel good. I'm in good spirits. But I don't want to go another mile. I'm really cold, I'm slathered in ice and my body's barking at me a bit.

I'm proud, really proud, actually, and this is the unspoken joy of a marathon. It's not just the event itself. There are a lot of milestones along the way as you train for it. 

Still. Two thoughts. The first is obvious. Please, God, let it be a nice day on that day. And second? Hmm. 16 miles. I'm really supposed to run 10 more?

Fire and Ice

I'm sitting here watching the women's downhill skiing, rooting my ass off for Lindsey Vonn, knowing how much pain she'll be in, and the last two women have crashed.

Their bodies looked like rags attached to spandex as they slammed down the crusty surface. I would imagine rolling out of a car at 30 mph wouldn't look much worse.

They walked away, but I watched each run a little bit harder after seeing those.

If the Summer Olympics is about power, speed and maybe a little grace, it seems to me the Winter Olympics is about danger.

Power, speed and grace, too, but definitely far more danger than the summer games. And that's part of their allure too.

That was apparent even before this year's opening ceremonies, when Nodar Kumaritashvili died on a juiced Luge track. I hate to admit this, but it made me watch Luge a bit more, too.

One of my favorite events is the short track skating. I love the speed, the passes and the elbow-throwing, but I also love the fact that they're racing on blades that could be used by Jason to hack up teenagers during one of the Friday the 13ths. American JR Celski won the bronze just months after one of his blades slashed his leg in a crash. It took 60 stitches to close it, and an inch or two deeper, and the cut kills him.

Holy Cow. Another ski crash. This one by one of the top skiers (so I'm told), and she just destroyed one of the gates after flying a football field down the hill.

She walked away too, though that one had to hurt.

(Man, they're tough. Are they all like Vonn? And I think distance runners are tough? I'll have to remember them Saturday, when I run 16, farther than I've ever run before.)

I know what they're feeling. I've done a few climbs with knife edges and long miles and a more than a couple moments where my heart was in my throat. I will probably not do a few of them again. People love danger, and yeah, I do too, in some ways. One of those climbs was Capitol Peak, one I did this summer for the second and probably last time, and my article on it got more hits and reads than any other story I've done on my climbs.

But then again, I don't know the intensity of a downhill, a luge or even a short-track race, and that's a big reason why we watch, I think, even if we don't want to admit that. What is it like to stare a scare like that and dominate it? We'll never know. But we can't turn away, even when the course wins. Because the course may win.

I'm watching as Vonn just let out a scream as she tore up the course and crossed the finish line. It was not of pain. It was of joy, and maybe, a little bit of relief.

Yeah, I hear you, girl, and I'm with you.

Mr. Mom's live blog. The Saturday edition, 2010 version

Friday is my first day with the kids. Kate flies off for a four-day Vegas vacation (well earned, by the way). It goes smooth. I almost get cocky about it. Hey, maybe this won't be as bad as last year, I think to myself.

And then Saturday comes around.

2:03 a.m. - Jayden sneaks into the bed. The 4-year-old still loves to climb into bed with us, but he's usually good about waiting until 5:30 a.m. or so to do it. Sometimes I can even sleep when he does it, though half the time I think sleeping with a pile of ferrets would be easier. I honestly wonder if that kid ever holds still. Actually, I really don't wonder. The answer is no.

2:05 a.m. - Jayden plasters himself against me. It's nice that Jayden likes to cuddle, except when you're trying to sleep.

2:33 a.m. - Jayden is, no joke, sleeping on my head. Is he part housecat?

3:25 a.m. - I peel him off me - he has a lot of room, after all - and push him over into that space.

3:33 a.m. - He plasters against me again. This goes on all night. At 7:05 a.m., I sigh and get up.

8:15 a.m. - After a quick shower, it's time for a trip to the zoo. We should be out of here by, say, 8:25 a.m.

8:55 a.m. - Um, yeah. Well, OK, at least I didn't forget anything.

8:57 a.m. - We're filling up at the gas station, and I realize the kids have not hit the potty. The zoo is an hour away.

That math won't work with two 2-year-olds. We go by the house again.

9:05 a.m. - OK now we're on our way.

9:07 a.m. - Forgot juice boxes.

9:35 a.m. - I answer, for the 55th time, that yes, we are, in fact, going to the zoo.

This is one of the hardest things about having this many small kids, and yet it's almost never talked about. Not only do you never really get a break, but when you ARE somewhat at rest, like you're driving, your MIND never, ever rests because it's constantly bombarded with inane questions that you answer over and over and over and over and...get the idea?

10:30 a.m. - We make it to the zoo. I strap on the girls' leashes. Yes, leashes. You try corralling toddler twins and a 4-year-old.

Most of the day is me telling me not climb up on something, for Jayden to come here, not to try to pet the Tiger, please keep their jackets on, quit climbing up on something, please don't get out of the wagon, eat your french fries and to stop climbing on something.

I honestly wish I had more moments where I was just holding their hand or hugging them or laughing at the funny things they say and a lot less moments where I'm being stern. But at their age, and at their numbers, I can either be stern or I can probably leave the zoo with one or maybe two less kids. They prove the law of physics that states a body in motion must remain in motion. Right now honestly it's hard to enjoy them on days like these.

12:05 p.m. - We're eating lunch, and Andie tells me she needs to go potty. The clock is ticking at this point. About three months ago I made the mistake of thinking Andie could wait a few minutes when she told me she had to go at Target, and that few minutes later I was cleaning up a puddle on the floor with some paper towels.

We just went potty, so I've got a little time, but not much. I tell the kids to hurry and eat, and I start to gobble my chicken fingers. Andie grimaces a couple minutes later. I can tell she really needs to go.

We wrap it up, practically sprint to the building next door and hit the bathrooms. Andie makes it. Good girl!

Whew.

4:10 p.m. - We're home. Time for dinner. They start to play and scream and run around.

5:05 p.m. - We're eating a simple dinner. About three-fourths of the way through, Allie tells me she just pooped (in the potty, at least). This is the third time this weekend I'm getting a meal interrupted for a chance to wipe someone's bottom. This is probably the best example of what it's like to be a parent of three young kids. When I go in the bathroom, the seat is smeared with poop. I'm not sure what Allie was doing. I don't think I want to know.

Here's the other example of what it's like to be a parent of three young kids: It doesn't even bother me. I clean up the poop and wash my hands. Hey, most of it was in the potty. FTW!

6:30 p.m. - After their baths I'm utterly exhausted, both physically and emotionally. This is, ironically, my "rest" day in my marathon training schedule. Long runs are much easier than this. I've still got an hour to go. I have to constantly remind myself not to yell at them or treat them harshly. We're all tired at this point.

8:05 p.m. - Olympics. Rush Poker. And I'm recharging for tomorrow, when I get to do it all again.

Old/Young Man

The world seems to spin a little faster these days.

Subjects from stories I wrote five years ago wave at me, and they look older. My running coach is 57 and beats men half his age, including me, but he doesn't have much hair anymore. I went to get a haircut today, and I think this was the first time I saw more gray hairs than brown or black. 

Most NFL players are considered graybeards at my age (38) or have long since retired with a limp. Most baseball players not on steroids are in severe decline. Playboy won't even consider a playmate my age.

Yet my obsession with age comes at a time when I haven't felt older. I've felt younger. In some ways, I've never felt younger.

Now don't get me wrong. I've noticed the training. The biggest change I've noticed is I can't do anything else that's even remotely taxing to my system. I went to the KU game Wednesday at CU's campus in Boulder, and I got home at 11:30 p.m. I know, right? LATE.

The next morning I was shattered. I could barely function for two hours before lunch. I felt as if I was hungover. Sad to say, I've been to bed before 10 p.m. both Friday and Saturday lately. 

This marathon training is turning me into a senior citizen.

Yet I went 8 miles Friday and for 14 Saturday. I've run more than 13.1 once in my life. I did not go for 8 the day before. But today, Sunday, I not only felt great, I ran a 5K. My legs felt tired in the first mile, and I took it slow - my time was 24:57 - but that was, I have to say, easy. I remember just a few years ago when 24:57 would leave me gasping and wrung out for three days. I wasn't even remotely sore.

It only gets harder from here. I've got a fallback week - in runner speak that means I only have to run 10 for my long run - but this is also the week Kate leaves for Vegas starting Friday, and I'll be raging solo until Monday afternoon. That will be sure to wear me out. I'm also battling a bit of a chest cold that my wife swears might be swine flu (I ain't buying it).

Then I'll be running 16 for my long run the next week, and the miles will only go up from there. I can only hope I stay healthy.

But Monday morning, around 6 a.m., I'll head out the front door to start another training week. I'll start it with a tempo run, though it's really a race, trying to do my part to outrun Father Time.

Something to ponder

Saw my Jayhawks last night at CU's basketball arena. After I sweated out an OT win for the Hawks, I saw members of the basketball band walk away dejected, and it reminded me of my time in KU's basketball band.

Wow. Did I really look that young and geeky then? 

More pain, please

My son jumped on the bed at 7:15 a.m. today and looked me over. 

"Daddy," he said. "Why are you just laying there?"

"Well," I answered, "because I don't want to get up."

That's always true. I hate getting up in the morning, even if I almost always rise before 7 a.m. Sunday it was even more true. Sunday, more and more, is becoming The Day After.

In this case, it means the day after my increasingly long runs in training for my marathon. And though the training has gone well, almost too well (making me wonder if I'm doing enough), the miles are adding up. Sunday was the first time I really felt them.

Not only did I run a half marathon Saturday - not a race, just the distance - I ran a hard six Friday evening at marathon race pace. I'm just following the plan, but sometimes the plan hurts, especially when I didn't give myself even 12 hours between those workouts.

When I got up Sunday, I felt as if someone had given the bolts on my joints an extra turn. I'm not a young man anymore. I'm 38. Most athletes not named Favre have long since passed their glory days at my age.

Now understand that I loved those 13 miles Saturday, even if they did wear me out. I have always loved that feeling of sheer exhaustion. It means you've pushed yourself beyond mere discomfort. I was smiling at the end. 

But a marathon plan will humble you at times. Usually those times are the Day After.

Still, I started putting on my running gear Sunday. The plan also calls for a short run the day after you abuse yourself. 

The plan seems to understand that the best way to feel better after something destroys you is to get right back to it.

By mile 3, as I walked in the house, loose, sweaty and with less pain than before, the plan, once again, was right.

Whew

Dodged the sickness. It was bad. Boy had to hit the hospital for an IV, or, in his case, "They put water in me." He was a LOT braver about the needle than most adults I know.

And just to answer a question no one asked, why, yes, I probably would buy a Guitar Hero Kiss edition. Or at least I know someone who would. I'd play it for sure.

Catching the crud

We don't have death hanging over our house. We're not dramatic. But we do have something almost as bad.

The Sick.

We all know what Death looks like. Hooded, skinny figure (I think he's a runner). Black robe. Carries a sharp thing used by farmers to cut wheat or by movie psychos to cut teens.

But Sick? I dunno. Maybe he's sloppy, with man boobs, and he probably coughs a lot and doesn't smell very good, like he hasn't showered for four days. He's probably got a few bedsores and an unshaven face. And pink eye. And gout. And he wears a shirt with grape jelly on it.

He's already nailed the twins. It's been at least two weeks since they were last sick, so it's apparently time again. I'm home now with Jayden, who has not spilled his cookies just yet (something Andie and Allie already did) but has a fever and just isn't himself. I've worked most of the morning but there's only so much you can do from home. Now I'm watching "Up" with him, which isn't a bad thing at all.

I don't mind nursing the kids through their bugs. What I don't like is getting squashed by the bug myself. That's what I mean by the Sick hanging over our house. I'm believe I"m next. 

And I hate it.

I don't like being sick. Who really does? But I can take it. I honestly hate missing my training a lot more. It always seems to take a couple weeks to get your mojo back, and I need that mojo. Mojo is good for marathon training.

Still. Being a parent pretty much means you're going to share just about everything little crap bug your kids pick up.

"I'd rather it just get it over with," Kate said last night, already resigned to catching the pest.

The waiting is, as always, the hardest part. 

These three words

There are worse things than either one of my girls looking at me, saying "I pooped" and not seeing a toilet anywhere nearby.

Mostly it's just three words.

"Mooommmmy do it!"

In the last few months, I've struggled with those three words more than anything, to the point where it came to a head the other night, when I tossed a toothbrush Kate's way - though to be honest I threw it - when Andie was screaming for Mommy to, you know, do it.

It seems like a Dad's dream. Mommy does everything. Hey, I can't help it, I can say with a shrug of the shoulders, and let her wipe their bottoms.

In fact it's exactly the opposite. They're twins, for one, and that means I've had to be Mom as well as Dad. And I get frustrated with that because I believe, right or wrong, that I've put in a good amount of work. My fair share, at the very least. And I don't like being rewarded by hearing, all the time, that I suck.

Kate's frustrated too, of course, because it puts a burden on her.

Finally, there's a certain joy in helping your little ones put on their pjs, clipping them in their car seats and picking them up when they need a little love. I take pleasure in that. I don't mind feeling needed. I doubt anyone truly minds that. And I'm feeling a bit robbed. Eventually they won't want either one of us to do those things. There are only so many pj days left.

Because of my nature, I tend to take it personally, and I really shouldn't. Toddlers want their mommies, and it's worse with twins because they compete for Kate's attention.

Lately, though, I've taken a couple steps to help curb it.

When the girls at night are in their pjs and on the living room carpet playing with them, I get on the floor, too. I've got the Dad's knack for roughhousing. I'm also giving out more dinosaur rides.

And Friday I took the girls and spent the morning with them. It wasn't much. We went to Target, got some fingerpaint, and I did their nails.

It's hard work. When I put them down for a nap, I was far more tired than I was today after my 8-mile run. But it was good, hard work, much like the run.

Today when Kate told the girls it was Jayden's day to go to church with her, they paused. Then said, "We get special time with Daddy?"

Those are words I want to hear.

The early bird gets an early bedtime and that's about it

Sunday I broke an unwelcome streak: Number of days in a row I got up before 7 a.m.

I slept in until 7:30 a.m.

This, I think, is by far the biggest change I've made in having kids, and it's also the most disturbing. Before Children (B.C.), 6 a.m. was the unholy hour (it's no coincidence that there's a 6 in the time). I got up before then only to climb mountains, which was fun, or when I had to go to an assignment, which was usually not fun (Easter Sunrise Service, for instance). And I was always in a horrible mood either way.

Even when Jayden was born, I'd escape the witching hour more often than not. Kate, a morning person, usually got up early with the boy. I'm actually not proud of that, but that's the way it was.

But now? I'm usually up by 6:45 a.m., and now that I'm training for the marathon, I've strapped on a head lamp and began a run at 6 a.m.*

*I swear, seriously swear and hope to die and stick a needle and all that, that this will not become a marathon blog. I'm sure you're sick of hearing about it. It's basically most of what I've got going on in my life right now, so that's why I'm writing about it. I apologize.

I have to admit, I've enjoy the morning these days. There are sunrises, which turn the sky pink, and there is a certain chill in Colorado that you can only find in the morning, and this chill is annoying and special at the same time. Plus I've seen a few more animals on the run, like a few crazy foxes, and that's pretty cool.

But it's also disturbing to be awake, up and bright-eyed and sorta bushy-tailed because, well, it's another sign that I'm becoming my parents. And I usually go to bed by 10:30 p.m. That's kinda lame. I used to stay up playing video games or with my nose in a book until 2 a.m. sometimes. Now at 2 a.m. I'm dreaming about my flushes getting there in huge, multi-way pots (which is proof that it's really a dream, I don't even get excited in my dreams any longer because I know they're just virtual chips that will disappear the moment the roar of Kate's shower jabs me awake). 

I love running in the morning now. I've got a run scheduled for Saturday with a group at 7:30 a.m.

But I'm not a morning person. I'm just a person who gets up early all the time.

 

Bit by bit

Lately I'm finding my favorite reward for the end of a run isn't a bowl of ice cream (as it was in the past). 

It's the X.

The "X" marks off another day on my marathon schedule.

When I looked at the schedule, I admit I felt a little nervous about it. I mean, it looked like a lot. Every day, there was a task, from "easy" 3-mile runs to more punishing runs in the double-digits (yep, even early in the training; this Sunday I'll run a dozen).

But I'm also surprised at how easy it's gone. I feel good, and I haven't been walloped by any aches and pains, despite the fact that I'm already running as many miles in a week as I did when I was in my training peak for my half marathons last summer.

I'm sure the aches and pains will come - the schedule gets considerably tougher as it goes on, and three 20-mile runs lie in wait - but so far I'm relieved that my only-somewhat athletic body is taking the punishment.

The lesson is I have a tendency to look at a large project as a whole, and when I do that, the monster lurks over my shoulder and stresses me out. Professionally this was never a problem - I've completed stories that took me a year to report and write - but privately I'd always manage to raise my blood pressure with something as simple as, say, getting carpet installed in the basement.

I'm keeping the plan after I've Xed out all the squares and, I hope, completed the marathon. It'll be a nice reminder that huge tasks are tackled a day at a time. As we wonder what we can do to help not only our own hurting country but a devastated Haiti, it's a lesson we'll need to repeat to ourselves a lot these next few months.

If it were easy....

Nature and/or God, depending on your beliefs, have banded together to send me a simple message this week.

Training for a marathon ain't gonna be easy, boy.

Temperatures this week have been low enough to freeze Mercury (both the planet and the element), the roads look like a Zamboni drove over them, and yesterday yet another storm brought more snow, only this time it was lofted by 30 mph winds.

We've already had more snow by this time than we usually get for an ENTIRE YEAR. I haven't seen grass since Thanksgiving, and my new running style looks like I'm constantly running the three-legged race in the county fair, as I'm trying to make sure I don't slip on the 378 patches of ice per mile.

Any lingering thoughts of running in the winter being a romantic, peaceful, thoughtful activity are being crushed under a cold, icy boot, then flash frozen and stored in a meat locker. The pretty sights of smoky rivers, huddling geese and crystalized trees are lost when your sunglasses have frozen over by the first half-mile and you're desperately shaking out your fingers so they don't get frostbite.

I've even turned to my most hated enemy, the treadmill. I loathe treadmills. Running is a chance for me to get outside, to see things I've never seen before and to get some fresh air. It ain't so I can stare at reruns of Oprah on the TV while a machine beeps at me to run faster like a nagging wife. And fresh air is in low supply in a gym, no matter how clean it is. A treadmill turns a run into a workout, something to be endured rather than enjoyed. But I've already used it twice this week.

This will be a lot of work. Just this week, my first week of the plan, I've run more miles than I run when I'm peaking in training for my half marathons. They've mostly been easy miles. But still. Even on my two easy running days, I'm lifting, too. 

Still, I have hope. January is the coldest month, and the plan doesn't get too hard until this month is over. I'll survive it until then. The sun came out today. It makes things seem warmer, even if the cold continues to crack tiny fractures in my will.

A new goal for a new year

I'm tired of answering why I would rather climb a mountain or run a nice, long race than do just about anything else in the world.

Especially because I can't really tell them perhaps the biggest reason without a long explanation.

Why would I rather push myself to the limit rather than sit on the couch and enjoy the cushions?

Yes, the sights, especially in the peaks, are breathtaking, and the connection with the outdoors is life-affirming. A large part of it is the evenin' breeze touchin' your skin, the gentle sweet singin' of leaves in the wind, the whisper that calls after you in the night and kisses your ear in the early moonlight (thanks Heart). 

But there's something else, there, too, and I'm afraid it's more of a reason than it should be.

I like to feel like a badass.

That sounds so arrogant. In fact, it's the opposite.

Now you can see the need an explanation.

Here goes.

When I was a kid, I was picked on ruthlessly. I still can't tell you why. They picked me last in kickball. It peaked in junior high school. And though it shouldn't, that shit sticks with you.

I remember staring in amazement the first time I hit a ball over the centerfielder's head for a home run. Yes, it was a softball, but me doing anything athletic at all flabbergasted me. As it turns out, I ran the mile in 6:15 in P.E. near the end of my time in junior high hell. It silenced a few, and I began to lift weights, which silenced a few more, and that's probably why high school was actually fun.

Regardless, the shit still sticks, and I scarcely believe in myself when it comes to sports. 

So I have to prove it to myself.

Over and over.

Many times, when I'd climb the toughest peaks, I'd summit and take in the sights, and then I'd smirk a bit. I actually liked it when I scraped myself up. We called those wounds souvenirs. You know, like a badass.

Most of the time, when I cross the finish line, I smirk a bit as well. Pretty good, I'll think, and I feel like a badass.

A couple months ago, I made a decision after years of putting it off. I talked to my closest friends, who are, of course, all badasses. My running partner sent me a schedule. 

Today was the first day of following it. 

Now my life is a series of numbers. Two-a-days. May 9. 26.2.

My first.

I feel like a badass just writing that. 

Maybe, finally, that feeling will last beyond the finish line.

Is this terrorism?

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab didn't succeed in blowing up an airliner. 

He was caught, and if he is guilty, he'll go behind bars.

Meanwhile, the rest of us millions are now screwed even more when we go to the airport.

Already the song and dance with security is a pain in the ass. Remove your shoes. Get scanned 20 times. When I went to Vegas a couple weeks ago, I had to undergo what was, in effect, an interrogation, answering questions about why I was there, what I blogged about, what my complete agenda was, all while a line of passengers rolled their eyes and shoved my laptop out of the way, nearly breaking it, so they could grab their bags.

I suppose these measures are necessary, though they didn't seem that effective, did they? Abdulmutallah still got enough explosives on the plane to do some serious damage, if not make it crash, though all he managed to do was light a few firecrackers and burn a hand or two.

Thanks, man. Now we can't leave our seats during our flights, get anything from the overhead bins or carry any pillows or blankets on board. We're closer than ever to being treated like cows heading for slaughter. Though at least we get peanuts.

As I said, I seem to understand the need for such measures, and yet, well, the last two "attacks" on airplanes that seem to have affected security the most came from lonely, disturbed guys acting alone. When I heard about this attack, my first thought was there was no way this was planned by Al-Qaeda. It seemed too, well, unprofessional. I hate to put it that way but that was my first thought. 

After 9/11, a well-conceived, horrific attack that took years to plan, security measures tightened, and I was all for it. They were looking at bags more, enacting rules that quite frankly should have been enacted years ago (no knives in carry-on bags) and being more careful about liquids on a plane.

But since then, a guy tries to blow up a plane with a poorly made shoe bomb, and now we're not only taking our shoes off but dealing with antsy security officers. 

And now this. Now even stricter standards, and we're spending far more time in airports than we will on the plane itself, and no one trusts anyone, and everyone's a suspect, and traveling to see our loved ones almost really isn't worth it any longer.

I don't think, really, that either one was working for Al-Qaeda, but maybe they should sign those guys up.

Those nutbags may not have succeeded in their goals, whatever they were, but I can't help but think they're winning.

Inglorious bastards

I risk telling you this because you will most likely make fun of me. 

But I'm afraid of the dark. 

More specifically, things that go bump in the night.

Like ghosts and demons.

OK, OK, I'll give you time to stop laughing.

Look, it's a phobia. That's how I excuse myself. Yes, I know how stupid it is. Yes, it's completely illogical to hear the house squeak at 3:30 a.m. and believe that some shadowy horned thing is disrupting your sleep. Yes, I know. Hey, stop laughing!

But phobias are not logical. Not at all. Kate is deathly afraid of snakes. Like Indiana Jones afraid. Only worse. She's refused to go into the reptile house at the zoo. She won't pick up Jayden's stuffed snake. And it probably doesn't help that her husband LOVES snakes. Seriously. They're my favorite animal. I'd own one if I could, but owning one would mean instant divorce. And she used to think that I liked them just to irritate her, but Mom confirmed that, yes, I read about a dozen snake books as a kid.

It's a phobia. It's not logical.

I saw "Poltergeist" as a kid, and that's still the scariest movie I've ever seen (and I've seen scary). As a kid, I used to yell in my room, "If there's a ghost in there, please communicate my moving the pen I've set on the ground."

I saw "Paranormal Activity" just a month ago, and I thought I was over my little quirk. Oh, no. I saw it more than a month ago, and I'm just now getting over it.

And why am I getting over it?

Well, we returned from a weekend in Winter Park to find our front door open. We generally remember to do things such as close the door before we leave for three days, so we knew something was wrong. And something was wrong. Our plasma TV was gone. Kate's jewelry box was gone.

Kate found our back sliding door open. I had forgotten to lock it or the gate. We even had three days' worth of papers in the yard. Stupid, I know. I'm still kicking myself.

They were thoughtful thieves. They set our ceramic snowmen gently on the floor. They didn't trash the place. They even left $1,000 in cash I had from my Vegas trip in the basement. Suckers! They only took the TV. And Kate's almost worthless jewelry.

How nice of them.

We're hearing from our neighbors that we think they were over there Friday night. And that makes us wonder if it's not someone we knew who knew we were leaving. I'll never post a vacation on Facebook again. That was stupid as well. But could it be a co-worker? A student of Kate's? We'll probably never know. 

The thieves did me one favor. I don't think I'm afraid of the dark any longer. Thoughts of ghosts and demons haven't kept me awake the last couple of nights.

Why would I worry about those when I need to take a hard look at humans?

Hello, my old friend

At the end of my week off from running - a week that included all kinds of drinking, staying up hours past my bedtime and lots of Vegas time with 80 of my closest friends - I honestly began to question why it is such a part of my life.

I was relatively pain free. I had more time to do stuff that was, well, fun. Despite a lot of my running friends telling me it would drive me crazy to take so much time off, I honestly didn't miss it.

Still, I had worked too hard to throw it all away because a week off felt good, and I started throwing on my running gear last Tuesday, two days after my Vegas trip, more out of habit than actual desire.

I expected my body to protest a bit more than usual as I started up the same old hill from my driveway and into my tempo-run route, even if I'd be taking it easier than normal. But it was more like a handshake with a buddy, something I didn't have to think about too much, and as I began to breathe hard, the machine started pumping again with only a few hiccups.

Still, that day was not about breathing hard. It was about getting back into a groove, and so I eased off a bit. Whoa, Tiger, I thought to myself (and won't that phrase take on an entirely different meaning now, given the headlines these days?).

In fact, the mechanics were so familiar to me, I found myself thinking about the past weekend, Christmas, a few stories I needed to write at work and, yes, even a couple world affairs, albeit briefly. I thought about poker and whether I really did play well at those live sessions or whether I just got the cards to do so, and how often the cards really can make us believe how well or how poorly we played when the opposite might be true. I solved a sticky point in a story I'm writing for New Year's Day about a family who battled cancer and a car crash in one year. I felt refreshed after the run, and for the first time in more than a week, my mind was clear.

The next day, our running group held its annual Christmas lights run. It's exactly how it sounds: We run around Greeley and look at holiday lighting displays. We got to one of those houses where you wonder if the owner really is a Christmas vampire (which is about the only Vampire plot I can think of that hasn't been covered this year) who doesn't sleep and instead works on his house. He even sets his house to music via a computer program, and we begged a guy to roll down the window so we could hear the music on the radio and watch the lights.

About a dozen of us went on the run, and there was laughing through the snow, as we went o'er the hills and our spirits were bright. Some of my best friends, who I hadn't seen in more than a week, were there with me.

It was wonderful.

Today, on our last day in Winter Park, Colorado, my alarm beeped me awake at 6 a.m., and I snuck out of our condo (where we're staying, it's not OUR condo) for a getaway weekend.

It was a hilly start, and we're kinda high up here (I believe around 9,000 feet), so it was cold and I was breathing hard right away. Yet the best part about going up for two miles is you get to go back down, and after a slow climb, I found myself running free and easy.

The snow crunched under my shoes, smoke seemed to curl from my mouth as I panted and the trees were coated in winter's beauty as the sun rose, spilling pink light over millions of flakes.

I'm a touch tired and sore as I finish this, but running is much more than a way to work my body.

It's a time to reflect, a time to restore relationships and a time to rejoice.

God how I missed it so.

Let it ride - WPBT Trip Report December 2009

3 a.m. hasn't been a particularly good time for me lately. It's either a time when I let the ethos of "Paranormal Activity" continue to haunt me with every creek or groan or our wooden floor downstairs, or it's an opportunity to fret.

The day before the annual WPBT gathering, I was, of course, back to my usual indecisions, two hours before my alarm would go off and I would drive to the airport on frozen asphalt and through a cold that could crack steel. And of course it was my early arrival in Vegas that would cause me such consternation.

Do I rage solo and play in a poker room I haven't played? Or do I call some blogger friends, namely Bad Blood and StB, and see what they were doing?

Really, I hear you saying. This is what you were crunching in your cerebral cortex. You're right, of course. But yes.

I am type A. I actually like this about myself. It is why I'm successful at work: I never, ever miss a deadline. It is why I'm reasonably successful with my friends: I never, ever show up late or forget gatherings. It is why I can train for races, even half marathons: I never, ever blow the chunks of time it requires to do that and raise the wild animals that are our young children and keep the wife reasonably content.

But with the benefits come the issues, and anxiety can be a shadow of mine. 3 a.m. is the price I pay for that. It's though it's my biggest asset at work (besides my, um, creativity), it's also my biggest flaw: The news breaks when it wants, not at 9 a.m. when you've got three hours in your planner to handle it. When an editor approaches me with a story, I'm not always as, um, flexible as I should be. But I am creative!!!111

So planning out every detail of a weekend is not only smart, it's soothing. A place for everything and everything in its place, even the seconds of the day. Ahh.

Of course, one of the main reasons I come to the WPBT - the other is all the wonderful people - is the fact that I can live a weekend completely the opposite of my life back home. I can drink, stay up really late, wake up at 10 a.m., eat bad food, leave my running shoes at home and, most importantly, I can Let It Ride.

If you're truly going to enjoy a WBPT event, you can't plan it out. You really can't. Yes, you can have an agenda, but you also have to understand it may not be followed. It's an ethereal event, and the best moments are in the spur.

I always have a requirement to play in a poker room I haven't played before when I come to Vegas. I like the $1 chip that comes from that. All I have to do is look at the chip in my Man Room downstairs, and that triggers a rush of memories.

Of course, knowing how WBPT events work (you have to grab moments to EAT, let alone play in a poker room that probably won't interest anyone else since I've covered the big ones), I was worried I wouldn't get to that. So do I do that first, or see what the day brings Thursday?

(Yes, this is what Type A people worry about. At least I fret over things I can control, like my weekend, instead of how many women Tiger holed-in-one).

I'm not a "see what the day brings" kind of guy. I prefer to read the directions to the puzzle rather than just dumping the pieces on the floor and going with it.

But, like George in "Seinfeld" discovered, sometimes doing the opposite of what you would normally do can be a wonderful thing. And so I texted StB as soon as I got in my room.

"Hey," I said. "I'm here. Whatcha doing?"

• • •

Thursday after lunch, Stb asked me what I wanted to do. This is always a test. Do I push the poker room, even knowing that there would be plenty of poker that weekend, or do I Let It Ride? I took a deep breath.

"I don't care," I said. "What's going on?"

I was not only relaxing, I was BREAKING plans I had already made with Bad Blood and the G-Vegas crew to meet them at the Venetian poker room to play. But I'd get there. Stb wanted to head to the IP. Pauly and Speaker and Derek and AlCan'tHang were already there. Some guys, and more importantly writers, I truly admire, in other words. Sold!

I headed over to the Venetian buzzed after a couple hours of intoxicating conversation with some truly brilliant scribes. Or maybe it was just the boobies. The first sighting of Vegas itself is like that first hard shot. You have to just let it smack you and then you can shake your head and start to enjoy the buzz.

I've struggled this year online, as I said a couple of posts before (I refuse to link myself, sorry JJOK), but the Venetian gave me exactly the jolt I needed, like a gel in the middle of a half marathon. My table was as soft as my girls' cheeks. I knew exactly where I was almost all of the time and never, ever worried about getting pushed off a hand. I finished up $100 after two hours and realized online is much tougher than I remembered. I also found myself wishing I could play live more.

I think Thursday might be my favorite night of a WPBT gathering. There is a certain, addicting joy from seeing someone you haven't in a year and watching their eyes light up when they recognize you and beckon you over for a hug (even the guys, though that, of course, is mostly shoulder to shoulder, coughcoughcough). And there were SO MANY moments like that Thursday. Really, it's like being a kid at Christmas, only a really, really spoiled kid who gets like five presents to unwrap just from his uncle.

My tree held a small mountain of presents, and unwrapping them slowly, going from person to person, was so delicious.

And then the fun begins, and the alcohol flows and the stories start.

As you all know, I'm a runner, so I was determined to pace myself. A WPBT weekend is a half marathon (I would say a full but I don't know what that's like), a 14er, a backpacking trip, and you can't blow it in the first mile. At least I can't. By the second beer a slow buzz started to creep behind my skull, and I stopped, knowing that I'd be out in an hour if I continued.

Didn't stop me from going to bed at 3:30 a.m. tho. Which, from what I hear, was early.

• • •

Friday I got up at 8:30 a.m. - damn body clock - and ran 10 miles. Hah! Just kidding!!!1111. No, as I was still fully enjoying my week off from running, I jerked around on Facebook and then prepared for the day.

Friday is always a rager. I mean, it's Steel Panther day. That says it all, doesn't it?

It started with a good, long lunch with The Wife. As much as I love everyone at the WPBT, I still get a little edgy in large crowds and find myself preferring the small, sweet company with a few select, treasured friends. Jordan is one, and The Wife is another.

I didn't have dessert. I didn't need to.

I was, however, pleasantly surprised at how often so many others could fit that bill at any given moment. I felt far more comfortable this year than any other, and the reason is they are all friends now and seemed as genuinely happy to see me as I was to see them. Maybe I'm just a wide receiver. I need a third year.

The day sort of melted into traveling back and forth and gazing at all the mind candy until Jordan and I headed to the Hard Rock to play and wait for Pokerati' s 1/2 Pot Limit Omaha/NLHE game. What a wonderful present. Free food, good conversation and Omaha (!) live. It was dead when we got there - which is too bad, it really is a nice room - but our No Limit table eventually filled, and Jordan and I sat down to a bunch of tight players again. Jordan's antics eventually loosened them up, and I finished $50 up after three hours and the Omaha game began.

It was tighter than I thought it would be but a blast. I got involved in one huge hand with Jordan when I held top set and an open-ended straight draw and he flopped the straight. I got it all-in on the turn (which was a mistake, I should have done so on the flop, as CK pointed out) but we ran it twice and we split the pot. I got there on the first and didn't on the second.

And then....Steel Panther. What can I say that would truly capture the genius of that band? I can't. So I won't.

Plans formed out of thin air after the show - I think I was getting the hang of that - and we played 2/4 Limit with a full table of bloggers. As proof that I was fully embracing Let It Ride, the inevitable three-outer suckouts that cost me monster pots didn't even phase me.

Damn you, Doc and Drizz.

• • •

I sensed an early exit was coming in Saturday's blogger tournament. I had too much good fortune last year and finished 6th, and finished strong the year before as well, and sure enough, I was out way early, after only two hours. Eh. I thought so.

The Wife and I headed to the MGM poker room after a bite to eat, and occasionally I would ask her what was going on. There was this, there was that, and she constantly reassured me we could check it out if I wanted.

But I kept finding myself feeling...content. It was really fun, the table was easy and relatively douchebag free, and the lady sitting on my right was a good player and friendly. I could tell exactly where her narcolepsy uppers were in her bloodstream by the way she either chattered my cortex off or sat silently like a wax museum display. People stopped by. I told myself I should probably go back to the IP and take full advantage of the people I rarely get to see, but I finally decided that was not Letting It Ride. That was me being a planner.

I was having fun watching The Wife through her first 1-2 NL game, texting Doc to give him shit for sitting across from her and playing good poker. Plus I was winning again, and that always helps. Two big hands - my AK versus an older lady's KK dressed in a red sweatshirt with a Royal Flush embroidered on the left breast (she glared at me three hours later when she got KK again, but my Ace didn't hit that time) and my set of 6s against another set and two-pair - won me $500.

I went to bed Saturday night at 3 a.m. and set my alarm for 8:30 a.m.

• • •

I said my good-byes Sunday at the extremely hollerballa sports lounge CJ/Luckbox set up and went back to the airport to reflect and type this out. I wanted to finish this now because when I get home, it would be all kids, all the time (something I was looking forward to this time, I miss my little gals and the force that is my 4-year-old).

And so here I am.

It might be a bit of an eye-roller to call these trips life-changing. Really, I'm leaving my family and going to Vegas to see a bunch of gambling, drinking, hard-living degenerates. That's a bit irresponsible and maybe even childish.

But nah. Because not only are they insanely fun, I always learn so much about myself on these trips. And I always learn that perhaps a change or two is in order.

In 2007, my first time out, I learned to try new things, even doing something as crazy as flying to Vegas to meet a bunch of people I had only talked to online a few times. I knew them by their blogs, and that was it. Since then I've tried trail runs, races in the dirt and done things I would not have done before that trip.

In 2008, I learned to talk to anyone, not just those I believe will talk to me or, on the flip side, I believed I should talk to. Since then I've formed solid friendships with people in Colorado that I did not, and would not, have before that trip. I've even got what I consider a crew now, a group of people who meet every week to run for a couple hours, something I'll lean on even more starting in January (and more on that in a future post).

This year? Well, I've learned that my Type A personality is OK. It's served me well. But occasionally, it needs to be put to bed.

When you plan out every hour of your life, you're blocking and whacking away the little opportunities and moments that might otherwise slip through those creases. And those little opportunities and moments form some pretty damn good memories, and it's those memories that get me through traffic, or a high-decible tantrum, or the last mile of a tough race when I all I want to do is collapse.

Sometimes you just need to Let It Ride. And Monday, when my life returns to normal, I'll get up early, maybe get back on my running plan, and then I'll shower, smile and, after my 10 a.m. interview in my planner, go back and write the story.

And then I'll see what the day brings.

Ah, the good 'ole days

Moments in 60s Rankin/Bass claymation specials that probably wouldn't fly today (we are currently watching them with our little ones, who love them):

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer - Narrator: "Well, they were very sad at the loss of their friend, but they knew the best thing would be to get the women back to Christmas town."

Santa Claus is Comin' To Town - Santa (he's not really even Santa yet, just some stranger who wants to give cute little children toys): "If you sit on my lap today, a kiss a toy is the price you'll pay." (They even show scenes where he looks to the sky in apparent ecstasy when the kids kiss him). 

Frosty the Snowman - Is that girl wearing any pants at all in the dead of winter?

Why I play

Many times this year, I have questioned why I play poker.

A bad streak started with the coming of the new year and, save for one or two good months, has hammered away at me throughout 2009. When I finally posted a great month in September and a decent month in October, I thought it was over - I mean, really, I've suffered enough - but November and now December crushed any of those hopes. Not even a healthy chunk I got from my e-mail being selected to win 500,000 euros helped.

I play at fairly low stakes and only a few hours a week, so it's not like my bankroll is in any danger of disappearing. In fact, I've still lost less than four figures this year. I know some players who lose that much in a day. But after posting wins into the thousands every year since 2006, it's hard not to look at all the time I've spent playing this year as a wasted opportunity. It's not just the losses. It's the money I should be making per hour that isn't there. At least in my mind.

I won't lie. The losses have hurt. They've drained most of the joy I had for a game I truly loved. Most of the time, most sessions are winning ones, or at least break-even, until one or two inevitable hands ruin it for me. That's how most sessions go, I realize, but the countless times it's happened to me this year, especially recently, make me wonder about the point of this game. For instance, if I spent weeks training for an event, and then, on my last run before the race, I got hurt, I'd have a hard time not mourning all that training time. And if this happened over and over and over, I'd probably give up running.

I've tried not to obsess over all the bad beats, the multitudes of draws my opponents have hit against me this year or the lack of draws or hands I've hit this year. That does me no good. Bad luck and bad beats are a part of poker, and it's your job as a player to overcome them.

Sometimes, though, it's hard. Opponents, for instance, have flopped sets against my A-A the last seven times I've played them. I've either stacked off, or when I've correctly folded them, my opponents have flashed their sets to me.

And two nights ago was a perfect example of the way this year's gone. I hadn't flopped a set in a week. 0-60, which was my longest streak ever. I played 4-4 to a single raise and finally hit on a board of 8-4-K. I sarcastically grabbed my heart. When my opponent shoved on me, I happily called. My opponent showed 8-8.

Seriously?

I also realize that I'm not playing especially well. I've always played too tight, and that was fine three years ago, when opponents continued to make mistakes and all I had to do was wait for them. Now they're three-betting at .10/.25 pre-flop, and I still haven't found a way to completely deal with it. Sometimes I push back too hard, other times I play way too many hands to appear unpredictable, and other times I fold way too much because I still lack the indifference you need to have toward money to be a better player.

So why do I continue to play? Well, the answer came Friday night. I haven't lost touch with my two best friends in Greeley, but I haven't seen them nearly as much as I would like lately. 

Friday we played poker. We all enjoy the game. I suffered a couple horrible suckouts, of course, but after some initial bitching, I laughed them off. Mostly we drank beer and ate queso and caught up. 

Poker allows good friends to catch up. That's worth the money it might cost me if this streak continues.

I look forward to catching up with more starting Thursday.

See you in Vegas.

Santa for sale

My Thanksgiving probably went as yours did, meaning you ate some, ignored Black Friday and went to the city aquarium, ate some more, spent a couple days at the in-laws, then went home and spent six hours putting up Christmas decorations.

And told by Santa to put away the camera.

No?

Well, that's what we did. It was a pretty standard holiday for parents with twins and a 4-year-old, which means nothing is really standard. But it was peaceful, sorta, until Kate decided we needed to go visit Santa at the mall during the Kansas-Missouri game. I'll fight battles if I have to - that's why I have somewhat of a running and mountain climbing half-life - but I knew I wasn't going to win that one, so I set the TV (thanks DVR!) and tromped off to the mall. 

This would be the first time my kids would get to see Santa, so I did what any respectable parent would do and brought a video camera. I had the camera out until the nice, older, bitter lady, the kind with stringy long hair, skin like a raisin's and a three-packs-a-day voice, told me to put it away.

"They're not allowing cameras at all this year," she said.

I didn't say much, but it pissed me off. They are stealing a childhood memory, and why?

• Santa's a popular dude and could be tired of all the paparazzi.

• Santa is wary of random shots of him with his fly down or fondling children showing up on the TMZ blog.

• Homeland security. That seems to be a good excuse for any random tromping of freedoms.

• Child exploitation.

• Older, bitter lady worried about random shots showing up on the Playboy site. Or PeopleofWalmart.com.

All of these would be acceptable reasons, but really, the real reason is much plainer.  They don't want you recording your own children on video or film because they want to do it instead and charge you $39.99 for the prints.

Now I don't mind the moxie required for such a stunt - I almost admire it - and also understand the need to make a buck, any kind of buck, in this economy. But it disappointed me. I thought the mall was hosting Santa because it was a nice thing to do, maybe give the kids a chance to see God (or as close as you can get this holiday season besides, you know, Jesus) and spread a little holiday cheer.

Gestures just don't really exist anymore.

Later, after dropping our fair share of money on crappy food and some mechanical rides, which is what the mall had in mind all along, I looked at the tape I was able to record without them knowing (Fight The Power!) and sighed. But the kids still enjoy Santa. They didn't know he was for a price.

They've still got a good, sanitized version of him in their heads. The non-corporate kind.

 

Soup

So I'm eating my soup last Saturday. It's not a hall-of-fame lunch, but it is vegetable, and it is Chunky, a good brand, and I'm hungry after a 10-mile run. Most of all, it is quiet. Quiet, in our house, is a luxury on the same level of hot tubs, Japanese steakhouses or cars that cost more than 10 years of my salary (and no, smart ass, that is not a Ford Taurus. A Honda Accord? Maybe).

I hear the girls thumping around upstairs. Now Kate is gone with Jayden to the store, so I can't do what I normally do, which is to yell at her to go get them (ha, just kidding, honeypie). I look at the clock. It's 1:15 p.m. This inspires some profanity from me. Now granted most everything the kids do these days inspires that, but in this case, 1:15 p.m. sucks, cause that means they haven't even napped a half hour.

Naps are for them, but mostly they're for parents, and not only so you're not dealing with little Linda Blairs by that afternoon, but for an hour or two when you're not being hounded for juice or snacks or TV or saying things like OMGCRIPESWILLYOUPLEASESTOPJUMPINGONTHECOUCHIVETOLDYOUTHAT50TIMES.

So, when that's taken away from you, well, that sucks. So I made the decision NOT to let that be taken away from me. As long as the girls aren't screaming, I would enjoy my soup in peace.

I would, of course, regret that decision.

(This is a literary device we call "foreshadowing." It means something bad is about to happen. Very bad. Historically bad. If you want to you can skip down to that part now. Ready? Here it comes).

I finished my soup - yummy - and went upstairs to see what all the noise was about. Unfortunately I smelled something bad before I even opened the door. This is never a good sign when you're a parent of three kids under 5. When I did, in fact, open the door, I didn't see the girls. Instead, I saw hell!!!!1111

(No really. I know that sounds cheesy but read on).

There was poop.

Everywhere.

It really looked like all the toddlers in our city decided to dump the contents of their diapers on the carpet. I quickly closed the door, took three quick breaths, and starting calling the girls, hoping that a demon didn't cast a spell that turned them into poop. Sorta. At this point maybe that wouldn't be so bad.

When I did find them walking down the stairs - how the hell did they get by me? - I glanced down at Allie's hands and saw brown. I knew what it was, but in the state of shock, my mind sort of hoped that they were playing with Play-Doh. It wasn't Play Doh.

"OK, Ok, ok," I said. "It's going to be OK."

In the tub with you both.

"Um, Kate," I said as she brought in groceries. "I'll take the girls if you take the room."

"What?" she said.

"Oh, just wait," I said.

After washing off both of the girls while fighting a strong urge to hurl my soup into the tub, I managed to get them both clean and smelling like apples and not the death that surrounded them.

Jayden, who once puked at one of the girl's diapers, came upstairs despite my warning, looked in their room, said, "ew" and dashed downstairs. 

Yeah, I know, buddy.

So Sunday, as I put diapers on the girls for their nap again, I explained to them that IF they did poop to yell "Daaaaaaaaady" and I would come clean them up before they took care of it themselves.

I turned out the light.

Five minutes later, I heard "Daaaaaaaady," and tore a hole in the time-space continuum, bowling over the dog and almost breaking four bones along the way. I rushed upstairs, breathing hard, and opened the door.

They were both in their beds.

"Ha ha, he he he," Andie said and looked at me, grinning.

NOT funny, girls. Not funny.

Questions raised by hair metal songs

• If you're already hot and sticky sweet, do you really want someone to pour some sugar on you? Isn't that ENOUGH sugar already, man? Do you have a problem with your sweet tooth or something?

• If you're man is working hard, I think he's worth a LOT more than a "Deuce," which to me means something that ain't exactly a reward, if you get my drift.

• How do you get "Naughty Naughty" as opposed to just naughty? And, no, I don't think "down and dirty" is enough of an answer.

• If a guy whines like a toddler for you to "Wait" throughout the song, are you really gonna be attracted to him at the end?

• How do you live on the edge of a broken heart? Did you get a bad note between sixth and seventh hour, but you don't know if you're actually broken up until the bell rings?

• If a girl tells you "she's only 17," isn't that a sign you should probably move on?

• If your heart needs to be kickstarted, shouldn't you be, like, dead?

• Can a girl have a love machine?

• If you're shouting it, isn't it already out loud?

• What exactly are they burning up there in Heaven for it be on fire? Aren't there just like a bunch of clouds and stuff?

• Do you REALLY need bad medicine? I prefer the good kind.

• What exactly is "motorin'?"

• How effective would shouting at the devil really be? I mean, it's the DEVIL. Can't he just spear you with his pitchfork or take your soul or something?

• If you really wanna rock, can't you just, you know, do it?

• Where, exactly, should I jump? Do you mean in place?

• When he said I really wanted to lay it down, was he trash talking in a poker match?

Can you name all these songs and the artists?

Flimsy final table

If this was a final table, it was made with rickety metal legs, a thin coat of astroturf and gaudy markings showing you where the cards should be placed.

Granted, the Main Event of the WSOP is, ultimately, like any other tournament, and so you're going to have a mix. You're going to have the luckboxes and the pros, the skill players and the ones who give an "aw, shucks" when they outdraw yet again, the bad calls and the fantastic bluffs.

But that's not what I saw Tuesday.

I just saw horrible poker.

That could have been ESPN's coverage. In fairness, it's nearly impossible to whittle down that much poker to two+ hours with the understanding that you have to show the bustouts. But I'm going to judge this final table by what ESPN shows us, as that's what the general public will watch. They won't go to PokerNews or PokerWorks or the countless other poker sites to follow every hand. That's what we do.

The whole November Nine was made for the average television viewer in an effort to make it more of a sporting event. It worked last year. Ratings were up. I think I still hope they do it every year. I like the final table being a spectacle. 

But not if that's the poker we'll see.

The final table, at least what ESPN showed, did nothing to showcase poker as a skill game. The massive chip leader, Mr. Moon, played like he was in outer space. I don't think I've seen that horrible a performance at a final table. This is our biggest event of the year, and the guy who had most of the chips looked to the average viewer like he was a lucky logger and nothing else.

Now granted, I didn't see the heads up match, mainly because my DVR thought the show was only two hours long (and I wonder how many other viewers had that trouble), and he supposedly redeemed himself there. But Moon seemed like a country boy who got lucky, not a skilled poker player.

And how many times did Cada, our champion make reckless, foolish pushes, only to suck out with a two-outer? This is supposedly the best player in the world, the one who beat all the others, including the Man, Phil Ivey? I can't imagine what the average viewer, one who really doesn't have much understanding of how poker tournaments work, thinks.

It worries me. We want average viewers to watch this show. Again, that's why the November Nine was created, to put poker more into the mainstream. And then we bill the winner of this tournament as the World Champion. The average viewer, therefore, must think these are the best players in the world. That's what I think when I see the Yankees celebrating.

I saw all-in calls with mediocre hands like K-Q, no regard for stack sizes, gutless folds, even when the story made no sense, stupid, all-in bluffs and suckouts galore. In fact I can't think of a time when the best hand held up at a crucial moment. 

I would imagine the average television viewer probably can't either. And while we carp about how poker really is a skill game, seriously, no really it is, and hope that they overturn the stupid federal law that says it's gambling, I have to wonder what the everyman thinks.

Because if I'm everyman, after seeing the final table, I'm really wondering what's so hard about this supposed skill game, wondering why people scream about some law that says it is, and scraping together $10,000 through roulette, blackjack and craps, all so I can get my gamble on next year and hit it big, baby, just one time.

Edit: Oh, the heads up match is TONIGHT? Sweet. OK. Maybe that will help. :)

Race retch

There aren't many true adages that exist in running, much like there aren't many in poker, either. 

But there is one: You never know how you're going to feel until you start running.

Twice I've felt like total crap, once with a sinus infection, once with a horrible cold, both times bad enough to leave me wimpering like a kitten. Both times I PRd in races, the first in a 10K, when I broke 47 minutes for the first time, and the second this spring, in a half marathon.

Saturday was, unfortunately, quite the opposite.

I felt great as I lined up for my last half marathon of the year (probably until August of next year, actually). I was worried. I was doing my third half marathon in five weeks, and I ran good, hard times for the first two. I had no idea how my body would react to that. It's a lot. I knew it. I just wanted to see if I could do it.

I continued to feel good as I ran the first mile in 7:30. In fact, I usually gage my pace by how I'm breathing and how hard I'm flowing, and I flowed easy and wasn't breathing hard. I was stunned, in fact, to see my pace floating around 7:15 most of the time and found it hard to slow down. Well, shit, today is going to be a good day, I thought.

I was so, so wrong.

By mile 3, I reconsidered, as I gagged for the first time. For the next three miles, I managed to keep my pace above 8-minute-miles, but I almost tossed my cookies another three times. What the hell? I'd never felt that way, even during my 5Ks. 

By the time mile 7 came up, I was hurting, bad, and knew I wasn't going to PR. In fact, part of wondered if I was going to finish. And I couldn't do anything about it. It was 80 degrees, super hot for November in Colorado, and yet I couldn't take any water or Gatorade or a gel because I was afraid I'd puke it back up.

By mile 11, predictably, my pace slowed to a crawl, and I had to walk occasionally. 

I did finish - I wasn't NOT going to finish - but did horribly. I didn't even bother to see where I finished. I ran 1:54, or at a 8:47 pace. I ran 1:45 three weeks ago at the Denver Half.

But I was proud. I had a horrible day and pushed through it. I finished. And I wonder if it was just too much. That's what I'm thinking. 

If you see me in Vegas, I'll be on a running hiatus for a week or so. I'll start training as soon as I get back. I'll leave this race behind me, call it a good year and eagerly await the Thanksgiving run.

That's only 3.1 miles. I'm already looking forward to it.

Kids these days...

They got it so easy. SO easy. I was pondering how much easier my life would be if I were 14 today instead of back in 1985.

Why?

Read on.

(Disclaimer: Yes, this is a "when I was young, we didn't have..." post. I know the idea isn't original. Deal with it.)

• If I were 14 today, I wouldn't have had to watch a football game for 25 minutes to find out the score. Or if I wanted another score, I wouldn't have had to watch until halftime. The score's already there, in the corner, along with the scores of every other game. I wouldn't even have to watch the game at all. I could check ESPN or a billion other sites, along with stats and who had the ball and where they were on the field. I can even check the stats of my fantasy players at the click of a button.

Kids these days don't need to watch a game. They can get the score whenever they want.

• Fantasy players, you ask? If I were 14 today, if the Chiefs sucked (as they most certainly did back then, almost as much as they do today), I wouldn't have to pretend to like another team to drum up some interest in the NFL (Go Redskins!). I would have a fantasy team. Fantasy these days is the only reason I watch the NFL.

Kids these days can like sports even if their teams suck. They have fantasy teams.

• And if I were 14 today, I wouldn't have to wait for the beer commercial with the bikini babe ever year to prep my overactive imagination with a little, um, "me" time. I wouldn't have to trade Sports Illustrated Swimsuit pages with my overactive friends for fresh material or wait for the Sears catalog to come every year or root around in the 7/11 dumpsters for discarded Playboys or make a red-faced purchase of a swimwear catalog. I wouldn't have to rent "10" or "Revenge of the Nerds" and wait for my parents to go upstairs before I could watch it at 12:30 a.m. I'd have Internet porn. 

Kids these days don't even have to leave the house for "me" time.

• If I were 4 today, I wouldn't have had to rely on Saturday Morning Cartoons and watch those gay two-hour "preview" shows that revealed all the new SMCs that were coming to suck up soccer time (yay! A 'Pac-Man' cartoon!). Or Bugs Bunny, Woody Woodpecker or violent and semi-racist Tom and Jerry cartoons on a local channel that featured bad furniture commercials through a snowy screen that didn't come in when it rained outside. 

Kids these days have channels that show nothing but cartoons all the time. They're not as good as Bugs Bunny, but they kick Chilly Willy's ass.

• If I were 14, I wouldn't have to think that the blobs of light that were shooting at other blobs of light were the most kick-ass thing ever because I could play VIDEO GAMES AT HOME!!!!!1111111. I wouldn't have had to beg my Dad to take me to Malibu Grand Prix to spend my $5 bag of 25 tokens. True, they only cost a quarter back then, but they weren't worth much more than that, either. 

Kids these days have video game systems that totally kick ass. No blobs of light allowed.

• If I were 14 today, I wouldn't have had to wait by the radio for hours, listening to the same Flock of Seagulls song over and over, in the hopes of tape recording "Mr. Roboto," and when I did, it usually sounded like a whisper-thin song with an ocean crashing over the guitars and drums. If I wanted to see videos of the song, I wouldn't have to stay up until 3 a.m., my eyes like boulders, to see ZZ Top's "Sharp Dressed Man" on "Friday Night Videos." 

Kids these days can just download any song they want, anytime, and watch those same videos for free on YouTube. I even remember saying once to a friend, "Don't you wish you could just make any radio play any song you wanted at any time." And I wasn't even thinking of getting a perfect copy of the song and playing it on my crappy Walkman that skipped whenever I, say, breathed. I just wanted to record it off the radio whenever I wanted.

• If I were 14 today, I wouldn't have to pine over a yearbook photo of the girl I was crushing over and fantasizing over the way she signed my yearbook ("Have a cool summer! Hmmm"). I could just go to her Facebook page and stare at the thousands of shots at her in a bikini during her parents' trip to the lake. 

Kids these days have all kinds of ways to lurk.

If I were 14 today, I could buy something to drink at my school rather than sneaking out to down a 12-ounce can of pop over lunch or being forced to count to 3 at the water fountain. I could eat Taco Bell at my school. I could chat online with my girlfriend or just call her cell phone or even just text her rather than having to ask her father if she were there and then having to go to the basement just to talk for a few minutes alone on the phone.

If I were 14 today, life would be so much easier.

But I don't know if it would be as much fun.