Trevor's doin' okay

I've spoken before about Trevor, my man in my hometown, the homeless guy who hangs out on a busy street corner and accepts donations from passing motorists. He doesn't solicit money, that would be panhandling and illegal, he merely takes what is offered to him.

His spot isn't far from the W&OD Trail where I often run, so I stop and speak with him occasionally when I'm out for a jog. He calls me "Lawyer."

He knows my car and we wave at each other whenever I drive by, which is often enough. Usually I give him two dollar coins when I see him.

All homeless people have a story, and often it is an interesting one, if not always fully coherent or believable. Trevor is doing well, and here is a recent picture of him.

Life in the District

Sometimes I'll exit the subway on my way to work and, as today, walk to work past the Central Union Mission, a homeless shelter. This morning I was leaving my morning coffee shop (not a Starbucks-type shop for sure) when I noticed an elderly African-American with a cane leaning over on the sidewalk.

I watched him closely as I passed by because I thought he might be sick. No, he was bent over emptying the contents from a small glass container of whiskey into an opened bottle of an energy drink that he'd placed on the sidewalk.

I felt so bad for this defeated man, and our system. A moment later I heard the breaking of glass and I saw that the homeless man had surreptitiously broken the whiskey flask under the iron grating of a small sidewalk sapling that will someday grow into a mature shade tree along that street.

By then I imagine this human being, whatever his lonely story, will be gone thanks to this great society's lack of an encompassing social safety net. Perhaps we'll all be departed by then as well, not having taken care of each other or our environment along the way.

And The Last Shall Be First

Everyone on board ducked instinctively as the plane roared in at rooftop level, so close that the shipboard gunners could see the facial features of the Japanese pilot as he tried to maneuver his disintegrating, burning aircraft into the ship’s superstructure. The plane narrowly missed and cartwheeled into the sea on the other side of the light cruiser Vincennes, throwing up a terrific geyser of water.

Another Japanese plane hurtled towards the ship as Marine and Navy personnel brought their guns to bear on it, while behind it two more Japanese planes streaked in low off the horizon. In 1945 my Uncle Harry, the officer in command of the Vincennes’ Marine-manned anti-aircraft batteries, received the bronze star for his resolute actions on this day of hellish combat filled with swarming enemy encounters similar to this. (Right: Me and my Uncle Harry, on the right, in 2010.)

Admiral Halsey’s Fast Carrier Attack Group had just conducted a devastating carrier-based bombing raid against Japan, and Uncle Harry’s light cruiser and another one were left behind by the departing task force to defend a damaged aircraft carrier as it limped away from the Japanese mainland at a speed of only a few knots an hour. All the subsequent day the lonely trio of ships fended off numerous enemy attacks before the Americans got safely out of range of Japanese land-based planes.

Uncle Harry passed away last night at age 87, the last of the many World War II veterans that I used to know. His daughter, my cousin, and her family were with him at the end just before he joined the rest of his family and his brothers in arms, to live on forever in our memory.

A Run in the Park

Cherry Blossom time in the District is such a beautiful time of the year. The cold, bitter winter is over and spring is breaking out all over in a soft splash of pinks, whites and reds.

I have gotten up to running four times a week, four miles each time. Late last month I ran through the tiny Japanese-American Memorial Park in the District because it is always so striking this time of the year.

The park, a beautifully compact memorial to the rugged American spirit of the wrongly interred Japanese-Americans living on the west coast at the outbreak of WW2, is a hushed, haunting yet uplifting space, where two intertwined cranes, bound by barbed wire, struggle to break free from their imprisonment. The names of the various internment camps created in the nation's interior, interspersed with inspirational slogans, line the walls.

Enjoy. I certainly enjoyed the run.

A Victory of Sorts

Yesterday afternoon, on a crisp cool Sunday, I jogged to the start line of the W&OD Trail 5K race, 1/2 mile from my house. The W&OD is a 40-mile long flat 8-foot wide asphalt trail extending from Arlington to beyond Leesburg, a paved-over railroad bed that cuts across my back property line at MP7.

Because I hadn't raced in a year and a half and I'd only been back to running for eight weeks, I was as nervous as any novice runner. My 5K time used to average about 24 minutes, but now I was worried I was confronting my new running paradigm of a 30-minute 5K race, unexplored territory for me.

I had hydrated all day, eaten a huge bowl of pasta for lunch and quaffed an energy drink before leaving my house. I punched my Garmin when the starter gun went off and moved out with the crowd.

The first quarter-mile went by at an 8:50 pace, which I knew was too fast. I slowed as I climbed the bicycle bridge over Leesburg Pike at the half-mile mark, my breathing ragged.

I hit the western turnaround at Shreve Road at the mile mark in 9:32. I was too tired already to do the math to see if that pace would be good enough for a sub-30 minute 5K. (I needed to maintain a 9:39 pace, which I should have calculated before I went to the race.)

We ran over the bicycle bridge again as I enviously looked at my house from its height, feeling like just packing it in and going home. I used the downhill off the bridge to pick up my pace and I passed the second mile marker in 9:15 (18:47).

A fog of fatigue enveloped me as we ran eastbound past the start/finish line and proceeded to the far turnaround at Little Falls Road. I felt like I was crawling as I retraced the half mile back to the finish line, passing the 3rd mile marker in 9:51 (28:36).

My time was 29:12 (9:24), a PW but still exhilarating since I achieved my goals of a) finishing b) running all the way and c) breaking 30 minutes. I was 89/183, tenth out of sixteen in my age group.

Yeesh

I did my tuneup for tomorrow evening's W&OD Trail 5K by running 4 miles this morning on the race course, which happens to go right by my back yard. I ran slowly, a maintenance run.

Slowly as in 43:45 for four miles (10:58), and I passed the 5K mark at 33:05. Yeesh.

I wasn't feelin' it today, but I finished the run. A lady passed me by and I caught up to her and chatted with her for a bit. Irina, she runs 3 miles two days a week every week (she had a German accent so I imagined she never misses a scheduled run) and because I could maintain her pace she was impressed with the fact a) I was doing four miles & b) I had only been running since January.

Irina was a steady runner but she actually wasn't that fast. But she pulled me along for a mile and then I let her go and turned around to come back, grateful to revert to a slow shuffle.

I love talking to unknown runners that I fall in with. Many are friendly and if they aren't, I pull away or drop back. Runners with headphones on I never bother with. I ignore them because I think it's a) selfish & b) dumb to run with headphones. Why not just pound out the mileage on a dreadmill for all the good being out in the open air does for these runners, enclosed in their own little cocoon of sound. These runners always display their annoyance if you try to talk with them by making a big show of yanking out their headphones to see what you want.

My walk-to-run training program spent all of January getting our walking up to 4 miles at our Saturday sessions but currently we're on a 3-minutes-running 2-minutes-walking gig. I don't tell them that I run the four miles the other three times I run each week, albeit at a slow pace.

I guess you could say that I have actually been back to running for about six weeks since my year-and-a-half layoff due to an injury which is still bothering me. I don't have any expectations for the 5K race tomorrow. It's late in the afternoon and I hate waiting around all day to run a race. I can leave my house and jog to the start line in six minutes though.

W&OD 5K.

I couldn't talk anybody at work into going for a 4-mile run yesterday at noon with me; perhaps I should change deodorant. So I ran on the National Mall alone, 4.2 miles in 41:42.

My first race since the Army 10-Miler 2009 (where I got injured) is upcoming this weekend. A 5K where I'm dreading I'll go over 30 minutes for the first time.

I'm in a Walk-To-Run 5K Program, which frankly is the only reason I've ramped up my weekly mileage, which was zero for all of 2010 because of my chronic injury, to 16. The program participants, all non-runners, suspect I'm an interloper and can actually run.

My coach e-mailed everyone to say, "Peter L. is running the W&OD 5K this weekend but he has lots of racing experience so I'm not worried about him." (No one will be there to "support" me.) Can I break 30 minutes?