When it comes to running and bicycling, my plan is not to have a plan.
But I do have one goal this year.
To beat Dave.
Actually, that's not quite right. The more specific goal is to Make Dave Hurt.
Actually, that's not quite right, but goals should be simple and straighforward, a mantra, if you will.
To be more specific, I would like to make two Daves hurt somehow this year.
The first Dave is Dave B., a dairy farmer from central Wisconsin. I ran cross country in high school with Dave, who is an easy-going, talkative, altogether likable person. He almost a year older than me, but 10 times the athlete and always was.
To him, pain is sweetness, and he pushes his body to the limit. He does things like mutter, "No hill, no hill" when riding up inclines and "No wind, no wind" when facing gale forces sweeping out of the west.
When Pete and I join him on rides, we basically get tucked in behind him and hang on for dear life. My main goal has been, when riding with Dave, is to not upchuck. All during this time, Dave chats as if he's sitting at a bar, drinking a beer, and not putting two of his fellow Hornets through a special kind of torture.
The other Dave is Dave P. He's young, lean and a natural runner. I got to know him years ago when we started to run together before our work at the Wausau Daily Herald. He was smoking, drinking, and doing everything a young man who is a journalist might be doing, and at first I was able to run with him. But soon he outpaced me in every way.
It would be nice to push him sometime, to make him breath hard, to hear his struggles as we charge up a hill. He lives on the East Coast now, but we get together at least once a year, often more, and we almost always run together.
I know these resolutions sound vague, and they are. But that's being done on purpose, because if I start to get specific, I start to fail to meet my goals early. And although I have not better than a 30 percent chance of success to Make Daves Hurt, I'd like to cling to the dream as long as possible.
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ReplyDeleteYou'll have tough time meeting at least half of your goal, says Dave P., as he types a blog comment while simultaneously sprinting up a milelong hill. Cowabunga, dude.
ReplyDeleteSo in re-reading the post, I can guess what Liz had to say. Shame on you, Liz.
ReplyDeleteDave P. -- Look out. Although I am eschewing "training", I am not above cheating, and I've been working with Scott Street Drug Cartel to order EPO, steroids and speed to make a tasty little performance-enhancing cocktail. I mix it with vodka.