Long Train Running: A Chicago Marathon Story | Chapter 6 — 16 Post-run Requirements
Running is as much a mental game as it is physical. My trick to placing well in races when I ran cross-country in high school was to tell myself, “The faster you run, the sooner it’s over.” That doesn’t work when there are 26.2 miles ahead of you. You have to take each mile on its own or group a few together. Make the marathon bite-sized. Savor it. Until that last mile. The faster you run, the sooner it’s over. But even when you’re done running, you’re not done quite yet.
Here are sixteen post-run requirements every distance runner must complete after each long run.
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of August 18, 2019
Wedding toasts that mention God or Jesus are fine. Wedding toasts that detail the speaker’s marital troubles are not. But they do make for some thoughtful laughs.
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of August 11, 2019
If I am to die shrouded in suspected criminal activity, promise me you’ll refer to me by my three names and only by my three names. “David Isaac Himmel, the alleged political assassin and box wine bootlegger, spent time as a teenager in the Ozark Mountains hunting squirrel and shooting old Pepsi cans with a .30-30 muzzleloader. He was also really good at driving stick shift in San Francisco.”
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of August 4, 2019
Perception is not reality. Something that’s unfun for one person does not make it unfun for everyone. It doesn’t take a village, it takes enough people in that village.
Even the good insurgencies, over time, become the establishment.
Feeling Low? Visit a Bookstore or Attend a Funeral
The bookstore is a perfect rescue vessel because it gets me out of the house, puts me face-to-face with the common unwashed I have managed to loathe almost as much as I’d been loathing myself, and doesn’t lead me to further self-destruction through vices of solitude like having a drink or seventeen at a corner tavern. Once there, my regret and hope squirt out of my pores like a well-hardened blackhead from my nose. And for me, when my regret and hope get together, that’s when solutions, inspiration, and energy are made.
Notes from the Post it Wall | Week of July 28, 2019
I can’t put my finger on exactly why, but driving to and/or through Chicago’s western suburbs is an emotional drive through the deepest and darkest pools of my depression.
People can’t Change but They can Evolve
Because we can evolve. We learn from the shit. We accept teachings. We welcome the ironic and contrary and we actually allow ourselves to truly trust those we tell ourselves we trust. We look at ourselves and reassess. We make the choice to go to bed one night determined to approach life differently when the new day hits. We climb out of the piles of our own make, the primordial ooze of dumb, hungry, angry and horny, and we remember that riches are nice but only if we can find simple joy in a bowl of Cocoa Puffs when the going is amazing as well as when it’s all fucked to shit.
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of July 21, 2019
At this point, everything that happens in Stranger Things’ Hawkins, Indiana is just a pretty typical oddity.
The High-Maintenance Problem with The Atlantic’s Revisiting "When Harry Met Sally"
High-maintenance doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Owning a boat requires high-maintenance and I love owning a boat. Being a parent to a toddler requires high-maintenance and I love being a parent to a toddler. Flying a plane, driving a race car, being a professional athlete at the top of your game… all things that are high-maintenance. There are those who don’t want to deal with that sort of stuff, and that’s perfectly okay. Driving a Honda Civic while wearing a baseball hat because you didn’t style your hair is pretty low-maintenance. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
The Wonder of the Moon Landing can Still Inspire Peace
We don’t need another moon landing moment. We don’t need to be blown away every single day. The moon landing is a part of our collective human history that will always be with us. It showed us that anything is possible. What we need to do is experience the wonderment of the landing and the journey to get Man there.
The Mysterious Crack House Tavern
This bar was not the disco party we expected. There was no music. There was no dance floor. There were no tables or chairs or barstools. There was a small bar at the back with a light machine resting on its corner. About a dozen-and-a-half people meandered the open floorplan or sat on the floor with their backs against the wall watching the lights. It was eerily quiet. The most prominent sound was the whirring of the light machine.
Long Train Running: A Chicago Marathon Story | Chapter 5 — Thoughts Per Mile
The decades that have passed. The experiences that came when I was tender and new. Experiences that have happened since and may happen again, but they’ll never feel quite like they did when they were the first time or when there was less to lose and far, far less scar tissue. As I clip past the miles, it becomes clear to me that life experience can have a way of dulling life’s experiences. Like running a marathon, it takes a lot of strength and self-awareness to overcome that mopey thought and figure out new ways to enjoy familiar wonder.
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of July 7, 2019
The wonder we experienced in our youth is not lightning in a bottle. It is, however, a very specific kind of wonder that is no longer sold in stores or available through Amazon.
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of June 30, 2019
Sesame Street needs a Hasidic Jew character. Could be a Muppet, could be a human. Yes, there’s Oscar the Grouch and Julia the Autistic, but to truly represent an individual who complains and struggles with a break from routine, a Hasidic Jew is the best you’ll get.
My Old Man and the Sea, and Me
A blackened city looms ahead
With foreboding consequences obvious in the darkness.
Behind us, a bright sky and calm waters and the time I feel we used wisely.
“We would have been home if you hadn’t been so anal,” my old man says.
“It’s better to fix and fully prep your vessel in port,” I reply. “Helps us avoid trouble at sea.”
The wind arrives in furious fashion.
The knots speed up — they tighten and strengthen.
We’re under motor but that don’t matter none.
The tiny and mighty storm has found our little vessel.
We might as well throw the wheel overboard
For all the good it’s doing.
Long Train Running: A Chicago Marathon Story | Chapter 4 — Why We Run
Jim Von Handorf ran marathons for the same reasons he climbed mountains: to escape and to conquer.
A career fireman in Nashua, New Hampshire, Jim was an outdoorsman to the fullest. He climbed mountains, bouldered, swam, bicycled and ran. His daughter, Amy explains that her dad could never really sit still. That he had a constant need to just go, go, go. He grew up in a small, Boston apartment with a lot of people. The bustling tightness of the city drove him to get out. It was always in his nature to escape. He was into Thoreau and Kerouac. He needed space. So he headed into the wild. His mountaineering expeditions he made with his buddies took him to peaks all over the country where he would test his mettle against the elements and his own limits.
He even showed esophageal cancer that he was not one to go down easy.
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of June 23, 2019
Phrases like “not to mention” and “ who needs no introduction” written or said leading into an introduction are completely false statements and make no sense in any context they’re used. They should be removed from our language patterns completely. It goes without saying that these phrases and others should not be used ever again.
The Sinking of Uncle Joe
And, Hey! Uncle Joe worked with Barack Obama!
He’s got black friends. He’s not a racist. Just ask him.
And he’s not a close-talker or a personal space-invader.
Just ask him.
He’ll put his hands on your shoulders and whisper:
“Hey, now… I’m your Uncle Joe. Remember Obama?”
Then, sadly, and unexpectedly, before you can answer or squirm away
He’ll say mostly to himself with disappointment, “Yeah… me, too.”
What We Learned from the First Democratic Presidential Debate
Initial media reports are naming Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) as the debate’s winner. More and more, Warren gains favorable ground in my eyes. I like her thoughtful, thorough plans. Yeah, they’re boring and require us to follow the bouncing ball as she walks us through them, but they’re tangible plans, even if she doesn’t repeat them in Spanish.
The biggest difference on the stage last night was not between any of the candidates but the color between Castro’s top and bottom teeth.
Long Train Running: A Chicago Marathon Story | Chapter 3 — Weather or Not
The changes in weather and running routes made for a cornucopia of uncertain and enjoyable scenery. Each run was an adventure and it challenged me to stay loose and attentive and fleet on my feet and to mind my body so as not to overheat or underhydrate or freeze off my skinny fingers.
How do you want to be defined? By one action? By some opinion that could evolve? By a mistake, regrettable only with hindsight? Or by the sum of your parts? Okay, do that for other people. Start the trend.