Buried Treasures

The earth yielded up its treasures readily on Father's Day, for some reason. I was weeding a long-neglected garden in my yard on Sunday, yanking out unwanted growth by the fistfuls, when I saw the first object lying half-buried.

Glittering in the freshly-exposed dirt like fool's gold was a medium-sized yellow Leggo block. I pulled it out and set it aside, a relic from the days long ago when my yard rang with the happy cries of three boys at play, long before the divorce wars started and the permanent estrangement from them all ensued.

Next to be encountered was a toy soldier lying on his back embedded in the earth. This would be the playground of my middle son, I smilingly mused, the only one of my three sons that used to actively set up battle lines with opposing armies of toy soldiers.

Last up was a pint-sized green plastic toy grenade that I could easily enclose in my hand. I imagined Johnny's chubby little boy's fist holding it, looking for the best spot to toss it into the enemy camp.

Memories. Treasures.

Four Miles in Forty Minutes

A local running store, Pacers, puts on a series of road races throughout the DC region, and they were sponsoring a 4-mile Dad's Day race in South Arlington this morning. It started and ended at the old Gotta Run store I used to use as the home base for the training programs I formerly conducted for my former running club. I love running down there, by the Pentagon.

I wanted to run the race, although I knew I wouldn't have a good time given my overweight condition and lack of a base. An hour before the start it was threatening to rain and since nobody I knew was going to be there, I decided to run a virtual 4-miler on the W&OD Trail behind my house instead and save the entry fee.

The trail is mostly flat and has half-mile markers, so it's easy to keep track of your time. I walked out my door and within a minute and a half was at mile marker 7.

I punched my Timex Ironman and ran east to mile marker 6 in 9:36. The morning was overcast and deceptively humid. Turning around and running westbound, I was passed by a runner and I passed another runner. Just like a race! my mind enthused to my tiring body.

I passed mile marker 7 at 19:45, halfway through the "race." I seriously considered making this a 2-mile race instead as I looked longingly at the back of my house when I passed it (coffee inside! food! McDonald coupons!)

However I soldiered on, slowing considerably. I arrived at mile marker 8 and turned around at 31:58, an ugly mile but now three quarters done. It had started raining and I was drenched.

As I shuffled my way back eastbound, I mused about my coaching days. Oftentimes when I encountered a runner plodding along in a fatigued rut, I would suggest varying the pace to break the painful mental monotony the runner's tiredness had induced. Speed it up a little, in other words, because it's rejuvenating plus you "get there" sooner.

I picked it up and felt better. The last mile was my best mile except for the first mile.

I diverted from the trail half a mile from mile marker 7, onto residential streets so I could finish the "race" right at my house. My watch showed 38 minutes and change with three blocks to go. I ran faster. Turnover! my mind told my body.

Silly delineations matter to runners. I certainly wanted to break 40 minutes for the "race."

I was closely monitoring my watch as my house came into view. I stepped onto the sidewalk of the block my house is on and punched my Ironman. 39:59:51. Made it!

Who could say that just because I hadn't reached my driveway yet that the 4-mile point wasn't somewhere on that block. I'm putting this sub-40 virtual 4-miler into the books.

Dad's Day

Tomorrow is Father's Day. Although I have three sons, it's not much of a day for me since they are all estranged from me due to their Mother's active overbearing of their wills (Parental Alienation Syndrome or PAS) when they were minors during a nuclear divorce and they haven't spoken with me in years.

Those four took every cent in court-ordered child support though, even as they were active scofflaws in ignoring the visitation and joint-custody orders for years. Court orders only applied to me, see.

I have moved on and put them out of my heart, although not out of my mind, through forgiveness, which I actively work on through my faith as practiced at the Falls Church--Episcopal congregation. It's been a return to church for me after decades of absence, even as I leave my fatherhood behind due to being deprived of my children through the actions of the alienating parent (some people consider PAS to be a form of child abuse).

Nobody knows or cares about this scourge upon Western society except those to whom it has happened (mostly fathers), and then it is like your children died and you are thereby grievously deprived of the rest of your normal, humdrum life. Research indicates that the afflicted children (victims) tend to develop a lifelong inability to form close relationships and are frequently emotionally unstable.

You Can Start Next Week

A Memorial Day twenty-minute 3K race time while in recovery mode after surgery is fine, but I want to get back to running! I laid off any further running til the following Monday when I ran 2 1/2 miles around the Capitol at noon with a co-worker L, at a sedentary 12-minute pace. Still in recovery mode, you know?

Tuesday we went 3 miles around Capitol Hill at a 10-minute pace with a brief pause to listen to comments Senator Barbara Boxer made to a professional nursing association assembled in a nearby park, about keeping the government's hands off our Medicare as we know it (think Paul Ryan's impoverishing Vouchercare). Only in DC can a casual noontime jog be so elucidating.

Oppressive heat enveloped DC on Wednesday when 99 degree heat settled in accompanied by humidity. I just had to run in such a challenging environment so at noon I ran 2 1/2 miles around the Capitol at a 9-minute pace before I left work early to keep a 2-week post-op appointment with the operating surgeon. That run felt great!

The doc examined the incision on my stomach, said it was healing nicely and gave me the okay to start running again in another week. I celebrated my imminent return to running by running 5K in 102 degree heat with L the next day and 3.2 miles in 99 degree humidity at lunchtime today. I gotta be honest though, I had to walk in the last mile each day because, apparently, I'm not enough used to such brutal running conditions yet. But I hope I'll get there real soon.

The Falls Church Memorial Day 3K Fun Run.

My second race of the year is in the books. My city has a Memorial Day 3K Fun Run which I run every year.

It's flat, and fast for reasons which I'll disclose later. I walked to the race's starting point, about a mile from my house, and settled into the back half of the pack because I wasn't intending to run very fast out of deference to my umbilical hernia repair operation five days earlier.

I couldn't even break into a trot for the first five minutes of the race due to the congestion caused by thousands of participants and dozens of running strollers crowding onto the two-lane roadway which comprised the first half-mile of the course. The hundreds of walkers and many walking stroller pushers who had lined up in the first half of the pack made it impossible to penetrate into the race course for several blocks.

The roadway broadened after the first turn and sideways darting movement from curb to curb finally made running possible. I moved very slowly and settled into a slow plod.

Ten minutes into the race I was running unencumbered and I jogged along, focusing on my body. I could feel a dull pain where the incision on my stomach was but so long as I ran very slowly and didn't get too out of breath, I felt fine except for the tenderness and some general fatigue.

It was hot though, with the temperature in in the eighties and the humidity high. As sweat started to soak my shirt, I could see the finish line a couple of blocks away.

My watch had just rolled past 19 minutes but I resisted the urge to pick up my pace and dash to it. Although I wanted to break twenty, I didn't want to hurt myself.

My watch read 20:36 when I passed the finish clock of this self-timed fun run. The race clock, however, read 19:47.

I decided to record the sub-twenty time in my personal race ledger, as that was the "official" time. I felt good about completing this twenty minute jog, and used the run to show myself that I shall shortly be back to running after last week's surgery.

Now for the reasons why this 3K race is so fast. I have always known that the course is about a tenth of a mile short, but now I also think that the race clock isn't even turned on until about a minute into the race.

A race with a course that is flat, short and which has favorable time mismanagement. How sweet is that?

Trevor's OK

On this day before Memorial Day, the priest of my congregation mentioned in her sermon that we should consider the homeless around us as many of them are veterans who have come home to difficult circumstances, whether it is because of PTS Disorder or suffering from Agent Orange exposure or being wrongly discharged from the Army due to a mental illness designation after suffering from Traumatic Brain Disorder due to a close-by powerful IED explosion. You see them everywhere in our warlike society if you look, often on street corners begging for dollars.

At church today I gave thanks for the successful passage out of six hours of spinal surgery on Monday by a former running buddy of mine, the strength I found to deal with two hours of successful stomach surgery on Wednesday, the sacrifices of my father and three uncles who all answered the call in WW2, the ultimate sacrifice in Afghanistan last fall of a former running acquaintance and the sacrifices of all those nameless service members who keep us safe. I thought of Trevor, about whom I have posted before, on his traffic corner wearing his sign, "Combat Veteran, Always Faithful."

I parked nearby and walked up upon him after church, noting that he was watching me closely as I approached. He knows me and calls me "Lawyer."

After giving him five dollar coins, I spent about twenty minutes with him on his street corner as he spoke animatedly. He is a powerful man who has a habit of emphasizing his points by flicking out backhand taps to your body.

I was gratified to listen to him explain that he has reduced his prescribed narcotic pain medication intake from his service-related disability from over a hundred a month to about thirty. "You know I also take mood medication," he added, which apparently in conjunction with his powerful pain medication gives him unpredictable emotional swings.

Keeping my hands discretely in front of my four-day old surgery incision in position to ward off any inadvertent taps to my stomach, I discussed his health, rehabilitation and future with him. Rolling Thunder is in town per usual this Memorial Day weekend, and he apparently took his buddies from the 82d Airborne Division out on the town last night.

Then he tired of chatting with me and chased me away by saying he had to "make some money" from passing motorists on his street corner before the day was done. In fact, beyond my five dollars, he had collected only a single dollar in all the time I was speaking with him.

We shook hands repeatedly as I took my leave from him. I wish him continued wellness, this representative of America's huge and faceless homeless population.

Everthing's A-OK.

My umbilical hernia repair went well and I am on the mend. I have been walking every day since the surgery, and I still think I could have walked home after it.

I don't know whether they merely stitched the hole in my abdomen or inserted a mesh. There is an incision below my belly button that looks like the grin on a smiley face.

I talk to the doctor in two weeks and hopefully he will clear me for a rapid return to running. In the meantime, I've been grabbing plenty of bed rest which means reading.

I read Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson. What a fabulous little book, so rich with fascinating dialogue.

It had a passage in it depicting David Balfour being washed overboard in a raging sea that reminded me of my involuntary swim down the rapids in the Dolores River in Utah a year ago.

I went down, and drank my fill, and then came up and got a blink of the moon, and then down again. They say a man sinks the third time for good. I cannot be made like other folk, then; for I would not like to write how often I went down, or how often I came up again. All the while I was being hurled along, and beaten upon and choked, and then swallowed whole; and the thing was so distracting to my wits, that I was neither sorry nor afraid. ... And then all of a sudden I was in quiet water and began to come to myself.

That's pretty much how it went for me, too.