This weekend we’re heading up to Madison, Wisconsin to do the half-marathon. I’m simply hoping my tight old hips hold up all thirteen miles, but I’ll take what I can get.
On Saturday, both Sue and I are having swim stroke assessments done by her coach, Steve Brandes. I know there are plenty of things to improve in my technique. Those revelations won’t be a surprise. But I’m also betting he’ll have three words to say to me:
Kick, you fool!
My kick leaves so much to be desired it would take a quart of Viagra to overcome its impotence. When I use a kick board, I get about halfway across the pool and sort of stall, like a dying sunfish. You know that look, don’t you? It’s the look that says “I can’t go any further right now unless you push me.”
I should actually be much more inspired to kick after watching an entire hour of Olympic swimming the other night. The show featured clips from the 2012 Olympics. Michael Phelps and all his rivals tore through the pool like sharks attacking a freezer of Omaha Steaks dumped overboard by a yacht. And they kicked like crazy.
They kick so strong that when you see those swimmers from underwater they don’t even look like real human beings. I once owned a plastic wind-up diver toy much like the one in the photo at the top of this blog. He was a grey little object with legs that flipped up and down. That system propelled him along if you turned that little knob around enough to crank up his gears.
So I’m thinking of having a knob installed on my side so that before I go swimming, I can ask Sue to wind me up and set me in the water. kickkickkickkickkickkickkickkickkick
Coach Brandes shows how it’s done as he walks through the water at the Steelhead Half Ironman
Perhaps Coach Brandes will have a better idea how to improve my lax kicking technique. I know that I tend to kick in intervals, as if the power in my body were shutting on and off. I’m like a hybrid vehicle at a stop sign. Power down. Power back up.
Part of me wonders if my brain simply can’t handle all the instructions it’s being asked to follow. One of the challenges for people with certain types of hearing loss is to pick up conversations in a crowd. That’s how my brain feels when I tell my body to do all the things it takes to swim. Rotate, breath in, do a clean catch, breathe out through the nose, complete a long pull, lift the elbows and then kick all at the same time. My brain just takes what it wants from all those instructions and jettisons the rest like unwanted cargo on a pirate ship being chased by a Spanish galleon. You can see an oil slick of unheeded thoughts on the surface of every lane I swim. 
But hey, I’ve improved. So I’ll give myself credit for persistence in the face of hydro-resistance.
So I’ll be interested to see what Coach Steve can do for me. Perhaps it’s nothing much. Perhaps it will be Steve just standing by the pool repeating those three words, “Kick, you fool,” while possibly using a cattle prod to electrify the water and give me the motivation to make things happen.
After the big invitational win at St. Olaf, where our team rose to victory despite the continuing injury that had slowed our top man, it was time to regather. Now our goals were pointed toward qualifying for nationals and then seeking a win in the IIAC conference meet. For years we’d been a relative lock to win the conference, but in the back of our minds was the knowledge that our key rival Central College was a much-improved team and was now possibly capable of challenging us. 
Coach Finanger was simply not allowing us to crumble into an attitude of defeat. Not after the success that we’d already accomplished that season. Certainly, we’d suffered injuries to some of our top guys that took them out of their rhythm, but Coach Kent was standing by the “Wow! Fun! Wow!” philosophy that he always embraced, without exception, on belief that it was joy in the process that drove the best efforts of everyone. Thus he emphasized positivity. This was true for running and as a holistic perspective in life. 
Later in life, that lead distance runner and I would share a painful parallel. We had been roommates together our freshman year in college. I’d grown to love his sharp wit and often sardonic worldview. 
The next hurdle would be a lumpy one, for our conference meet was being held on a monstrously hilly course set on the Mississippi River bluffs of Dubuque, Iowa. I knew the layout would not suit my strengths. I typically ran best by getting into a groove and holding or building on the pace. As a taller runner, I’d needed to learn better how to run hills. That took place in all the training we did on the hilly terrain around Decorah. So I didn’t fear hills, but the Dubuque course was almost an absurd exercise in that respect. It had almost no flat surfaces at all. During the course tour, we all discussed strategy. I solemnly determined that it would be best for me to distribute the fitness I had across the entire span of the race rather than try to prove anything too big in the early going.
Sadly that was yet another example of a pattern that I’d already in my young life and would encounter many times more in the wider world. As a high school kid, I’d been accosted by a Campus Life counselor who warned me, “You’ll never be a Christian if you keep asking questions.” 
When it comes to Daylight Savings Time, better known as the “time change” here in the United States, it really sucks for those of us who run and ride when the sun sets at 4:30 in the afternoon. It’s pretty hard to get out of work at 5:00 and find the skies dark and the roads, even darker.
When we suddenly shift feeding times and potty break schedules by an hour, it can be rough on our four-legged friends. Many cats and dogs can adjust with little or no signs of stress, but for some, it could lead to accidents in the house or even an upset stomach.
It’s hard to get up really early and go swimming. There, I’ve said it. Now I’m done complaining.
To counter this dark ensemble of tasks, I resort to wearing really bright colors on mornings that we head to the pool. One of the swim coaches has long noticed my habit (it was hard to miss) of dressing like a human highlighter. He teases me whenever I’m not brightly dressed and color coordinated to boot. This is my coping mechanism. I may not have the hot body of an Australian swimmer like these bad boys, but no one wears a day-glo warmup like I do.
That’s what I did this morning and like magic a lane opened up the minute I walked into the pool. The water was a reasonable 79.2 degrees. I dangled my legs getting used to the wetness. It also takes a bit of stretching the old shoulders to get ready to swim. Then it’s a matter of just plunging in without pussyfooting around.
This morning I chose to do a set of 100 meter repeats. And on the first one I took off hard and set a new record for me: 1:44. Oh shut up. I can hear the laughter coming from as far away as Australia, where a few of my readers lurk, and where people all swim fast because there are reports of land sharks rising up from the billabong. And if those don’t get you, the giant crocs will swallow you in one bit.
Oh my gosh is Australia fun to write about! I never knew that! Can you imagine a dozen koalas doing kicking drills? A band of cockatoos crushing the IM medley? A collection of kookaburras killing the 100 meter fly?
See how easy that was? Now get your ass up even if you’re stuffed. And for the ladies, or the gents if you prefer, you get yourself a piece of stiffy snag from one of them Australian swimmer boys. You won’t regret it.
After a weekend in which I drove up to Northeast Iowa and back for visits with friends and former college professors, it was nice to have a little time to slow down this past weekend. Sue and I went to yoga on Saturday morning and class turned out to be laid back. The rest of the day I spent patiently cleaning our garage and mulching leaves with the mower as the wind was low and it was fairly easy to get the job done. Satisfying too.
Tramp Stamp reveal
As we moved south along the trail the canopy of trees was still thick with bright fall leaves. The trail itself had plenty of leaves covering it as well. Our path looked like the Yellow Brick Road from the Wizard of Oz.
We watched Mary Keitany split the pack and then followed Shalane Flanagan coming in for third and thrilled at the overall efforts of every woman on the course. I especially liked seeing Molly Huddle do so well. And Allie Kiefer as well. Strong women. Strong performances.
The first week of October brought the first rash of injuries for much of the team. But after a visit to the Mayo Clinic at which a Luther graduate doctor expressed shock at the volume and type of steroids the campus doctor had prescribed to treat my sore Achilles tendon, things settled back into training for me and the rest of the team. Up to that point, I’d covered mileage weeks of 70-82-91-82-90-99.
Part of the healing process was going on a walk with some close friends Bob and Kirsten. The woods and hills around Decorah, Iowa were always lovely beyond description. Every run we did held fascinating scenery of one kind or another. Even after the leaves fall, the shape of the landscape is intriguing and full of mystery.
This time of year, the day after Halloween, things seem to happen fast.
I have another measure of the changing seasons that I always trust. That is the migration of birds. Typically in our area of the country, the first and second week of November brings cool north to northwestern winds. That’s when sandhill cranes come thick and fast. They’re headed southeast to Florida for the most part.
The bird feeder is where one can most easily see the change of the seasons. The dark-eyed juncos have arrived along with the fall sparrows. They inhabit the feeder zone in rotating shifts it seems as each morning progresses. The sparrows might start, but then the blackbirds and grackles arrive and chase them out. When those leave the juncos swing into action.
These have been the measures of the seasons for me for more than five decades. I’m still running like I did in the early 70s, and I still get out birding now and then. Or else I’m taking photographs of birds because that’s a satisfying way to capture those experiences.
There have been times in my life when I’ve blamed myself for not taking enough initiative. That was particularly true back when I was dating in my teens and early 20s. My foibles with women were as comic as any Rom-Com romance flick.
So she was an intense character, that runner girl, with one brown eye and one blue. I always thought she was a bit binary in some respects. And I’m not sure she was entirely faithful to me, as she had quite a bit of drive in appetites and the means to indulge them. She made $90K a year back then.
From that point forward I broke off the downtown relationship and turned full attention to the woman that I’d marry a year later. But when I told the downtown sweetheart (and she was at that) we were breaking it off, she literally punched me in the arm as I confessed that I had another girlfriend. “I knew it,” she hissed.
The bulk of us aren’t naive to the fact that people make romantic, sexual and emotional choices that don’t always fit between the white lines on the road map of love. Affairs are the 
I texted the title of this blog to my wife this morning. It stemmed from the discovery of my main set of car keys in the pocket of a jacket I’d hung on the rack in the front room. I was a teeny bit concerned that I’d taken that set of keys with me on the trip to Iowa this weekend, then lost them somehow.
When you’re an active person, especially a triathlete, it seems have your life is spent gathering stuff for the next training session or event. Just a swim practice alone can call for a bag of swimming implements; float, fins and board. Then there are goggles, anti-fog juice, swimsuit and a towel to remember. There’s also soap to get the chlorine smell off your body, and deodorant when the workout’s all done.
Cycling’s a total pain when it comes to the amount of gear needed to hit the road. Helmet, sunglasses, shoes, Garmin, lights, bottles, nutrition and phones are on the short list of necessities it seems. Before all that one needs to choose the right clothing, which depends entirely on the weather, the wind, precipitation or sun.
Well, there’s one more sport to consider before we’re done discussing the importance of habits and preparation. That’s the sport of running. Supposed to be simple, right? A pair of running shoes and shorts and off you go!
Add in all the other things I do in life and the number of habits required to keep things in order nearly spins out of control.
It all reminds me of one of my favorite lines from the movies The Longest Yard starring Burt Reynolds, the 1970s version. Somewhere early in the plot line, he pauses to reflect on his wayward life and remarks:
This weekend I drove up to Decorah, Iowa to visit friends and conduct some business on art and writing with former professors at Luther College. The weather was pleasantly gray in that Decorah way, often threatening rain. That only gave the wonderful bluffs of the Upper Iowa river valley a craggy cast, which I love.
After the morning run I drove into the hills north of Decorah to take reference photos for a new round of paintings. This year I produced an art exhibition titled Road Trip that celebrates the collected memories gained from going on a road trip. I know the roads around Decorah pretty well from having run on them for so many miles and so many years. But for new content I trusted a phone app to show me new roads, and I wandered afield with no plan and camera in hand.
On the way back home Sunday morning, I left early when a spitting rainstorm was locked over the Mississippi Valley. The roads were shiny and the skies took forever to lighten. As the road turned south from Effigy Mounds National Monument, I stopped the car to pick up two giant chunks of sandstone that had fallen off the face of the bluffs lining the west side of the road. I’d seen them on my way up to Decorah and vowed to stop and pick them up on the way home.
Yet it feels somehow significant to stand in the murk of dawn at the base of a massive cliff towering hundreds of feet over your head. After forty years I’ll admit that I echo its craggy features in my own aging face. I have driven past those limestone bluffs in various states of confidence or anxiety all those years. I have also climbed on top of those hills trying to find significance in the valleys below. Such are the heights and depths of our years.
Yet these cycles, for all their ups and downs, have also always made me feel real and alive. Those are my rock-hard values, seeking to live each day with truth and solidity in the best way I can. Yet I also allow for the reality of sandstone, that far more fragile substance that was also laid down by ancient seas. It has never really changed much in actual substance, yet it is the most temporal of all substances. It was sand then, and it is sandy now. It is the dust-to-dust evidence that the Bible draws truth from the earth, and that even things that seem eternal are forever capable of change.
This also applies to the notion that we’ll get an all-new material world when Jesus comes back. That belief entirely misses the foundational truth of scripture. For example, when Jesus told the religious authorities that he would 
We Run and Ride 