Carly Simon is 68?

I was on the subway traveling to work reading one of the two free rag sheets handed out as you enter the system each morning.  I always take both offerings, the Express put out by the WaPo (this is the paper that brought RMN down and ensured the continuation of our democracy) and the the Chronicle (put out by the Washington Times, which I think is or was owned by the Reverend Moon).  I always like to know what the enemy is thinking.

The newsletter said Carly Simon's birthday was that day and she was 68.  Ouch.

I thought back to 1972, in the days of the turntable and LP (are they back?)  I bought her album, the one which showed her on the jacket picture as a luscious young woman who could belt out a song, and played her classic "You're So Vain" over and over again. 

At age 20, I was living at home, having dropped out of college to "find" myself and my folks were carefully keeping their comments about my life's orb to themselves.  I aspire to their approach (not that my kids communicate with me, whatever there're up to).  The song on the album I reallyliked was "Father, I'm Sorry."

A girl was telling her Dad she wouldn't be returning home that night because, well, she was in love.  You cannot try to stop love, it's like railing against the tide.

I heard the main song, You're So Vain, was about Mick Jagger because, well, when he enters, the entire room is focused on him.  But in fact Carly had vocals on the track from James Taylor and she married him afterwards.

She also divorced him afterwards.  I am shocked (I'm not a fan of the institution, people change and grow apart as the decades intercede)!

It was a bittersweet moment for me there jostling elbows with the suburban hordes on Metro, clouds in my coffee, as I had just passed 60 myself and become invisible to practically everyone and that this luscious girl in my memory who had confidently projected that she was totally independant and a hot catch now was calmy awaiting the end, alone I suppose (as we all are as we pass over).  Huh.

WTR, Week 7

Cycle Two of the MCC Walk-To-Run (WTR, or Couch to 5K) program is going well.  I am running Saturdays with John now so I only show up occasionally, like last Saturday when John was unavailable to run.

Five people total showed up, but that's five people enjoying exercise in the great outdoors that otherwise would just be zee-ing in their beds at that time.  As usual we went four miles, the northern route on the Mount Vernon Trail from the Mariners' statue to Roosevelt Island and back.

The rest of the group did a 1/4 run/walk ratio while I took star pupil S, a walker getting accustomed to running, out on a half on/half off ratio.  It was pleasant as it went fast enough (54 minutes) and S is interesting to talk with, a lawyer, liberal (I think--she's from Massachusetts) and an accountant. 

Whenever we were jogging I did all the talking but she hung in there and said she had felt challenged at the end.  And then as usual, at 9 am on Saturday the entire weekend stretched pleasurably out before me, my having already done my exercise for the day.

It's midday, 86 degrees, so let's go for a run!

Today was predicted, correctly, to be 86 degrees and humid, but the next four days are predicted to be in the mid-90s.  So I went out from work at noon with my two running buddies (both women half my age) for my 3d of four runs this week.  They went 5.1 miles in about 46 minutes; I went 5 miles even in 45:23 (9:05); you see I caved in to the hill (Capitol Hill, The Hill) at the end and walked up the last half of it, and L and R did not.

I blamed it on my blood donation on Friday.  Whatever.

But it's five miles in the books.  We're all getting acclimated to the coming heat and humidity of the summer (which I think starts tomorrow) and as I huffed and puffed with my hands on my knees and the sweat dripping off my cap's bill waiting at street crossings, I noticed L asking if everything was okay with me and R watching closely.

I used to be faster than L (I never ran with R before), substantially faster, but now she's faster and I'm slower.  I noticed in the last half mile that L was leading and R was trailing me, watching, but that's what running buddies do.

Virtual 4-mile race.

Pacers, a local running store/club, put on a 4-mile race for Dads yesterday morning from their store in Pentagon Row.  Rather than drive all the way down there, and spend $40 to register, I ran a virtual 4-mile Father's Day race yesterday morning on the W&OD Trail behind my house.

I ran the same route I did two weeks ago, described two posts ago, in 39:51 back then with the first mile at 10:20 and the second terrible uphill mile where the trail climbs over I-66 in 9:56.  By starting at a different spot yesterday, I put that uphill stretch in the 3d mile so I burned off the first mile on a level stretch in 8:40 this time around, even running down a couple who were two hundred yards ahead of me pushing a running stroller and running with a dog on a leash.

The time dropped swiftly as I hit the second milepost in 18:20 (9:10) and then hit the long uphill leading to Milepost 8, a slog every bit as tough as the run up Capitol Hill in the District.  Whatever my time was for the third mile was ugly but the fourth mile had a nice long downhill so perhaps I made some time back.

I hit the tape at 38:39 (9:40), better than two weeks ago but still far from satisfactory.  I remember three years ago, before I got hurt and took all that time off and gained all that weight, doing the same four-mile stretch with all four miles coming in at just under 8 minutes, including the uphill.

Father's Day 2012

My father passed on prematurely 26 years ago from lung cancer at age 61.  I was with him the moment he passed.  He was the greatest man I ever knew.

I am a father too.  My three children are all the victims of a form of child abuse known as Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS), a Western phenomenon where adults prey upon immature children and turn them for life to the adults' agenda by stripping a parent from them extra-judicially.  Sharon, Meg, Bill, Joe, and Victor, and your associated "professionals," intimates and underlings, j'accuse.

So Jimmy, Johnny and Danny, I'm sorry for the three of you.  I coudn't protect you from these murderers of your childhoods.  The system was stacked against me by judicial adherence to the driving force in domestic law which my lawyer termed, Mother Knows Best.

None of you has communicated with a single blood relative of mine in almost a decade, nor with me in about half a decade.  That's cold, men.

Four Miles, Negative Split

I'm going to attempt to build up my base like I did last fall when I got it up to nine miles by running increasing distances each Saturday with John on the hilly Custis Trail.  Then things intervened and we both lost our bases.

We started last week anew with a 3.5 mile spin around Lincoln from Iwo.  This week I'm going on my annual Bucket Trip so I can't run with John, but we're both still responsible for doing 4 miles as our "long run" this week.

I ran the four miles yesterday on the W&OD Trail where it passes by my back yard.  I went from milepost 7 to MP 9 and back, in spattering rain (I missed torrential downpours, both before my run and afterwards).

It was a good solo run.  I did the first mile in 10:20, then turned around at two miles at 20:16.  Going out westbound is uphill, especially where the trail climbs over I-66, so coming back I was working for a negative split, which I rarely do because when I get tired I slow down instead.

I don't recall what time I passed the 3d mile marker because I was watching the threatening skies then, worrying about rain and hearing thunder, but I found myself with my house in view with about a minute to get to it to break 40 (or ten-minute miles).  Picking up the pace I reached my starting point at 39:51, happy to put my fourth and last run for the week in the bank with17.9 miles logged.

Two Days, 12 Miles

After my Memorial Day 3K race, I took Tuesday off.  Wednesday and Thursday I ran with L on the Mall from Union Station to Lincoln and back again, about six miles each day.

Wednesday we did a mini-Memorial Day run, six miles at an 8:41 pace not counting walking and waiting breaks, stopping to walk through the WW2, WW1 and Vietnam memorials out of remembrances of past sacrifices of soldiers for us.  At WW2 I took L by the names of battles people close to me had fought at carved on the walls.

"Battle of the Bulge is where my friend's Dad fought, in a tank killer with Patton's Third Army.  Sicily is where my Uncle Bob flew over, he was a B-26 pilot.else I knew is over on the Pacific side.  Peleliu and Okinawa are where my Dad fought.  The Philippine Sea, Leyte Gulf and Tokyo are where his older brother, my Uncle Harry, fought.  He was a Marine Gunnery Officer on board a light cruiser and he also was offshore at Peleliu, Okinawa and Iwo Jima when the Marines went ashore, bombarding the islands.  Manila is where my Uncle Bill served with the Army."

L is a good sport and acted interested as I related these tales.  She professed when we walked by it that the Vietnam Wall is her favorite memorial.  I love it too but as I really don't know anyone who served there, and knew a lot of WW2 vets, I'm attracted to the WW2 and Iwo Jima memorials.

Thursday at noon we just did the out and back run, in 54:02 not counting wait breaks.  That seems to be a 9:00 pace to me.  I'm happy with where I'm at currently as I have dropped 15 of the 20 extra pounds I came back from Dallas with in December.