The easy day

Hey guys,

I think this new formula will work well. It seems to be flexible enough, but rigorous enough, to allow me to meet my goals. I'm hoping to gradually increase weekly mileage from the mid-20s, which my 12 miles for every three days will do, to low- to mid-30s. I think from that platform, I'll be able to step up into marathon training, if I so choose, or hone in on speed for 5k and 10k distances.

To do this, I hope to gradually expand at the five-mile runs, or incorporate speed work into them.

But I'm thinking I'll keep the easy runs as they are, anywhere from 2 to 3 miles (I did 2.5 miles today), with walking breaks allowed.

My run this morning is what I call the Buddy Run. It involved jogging down to Memorial Park, and doing one slow loop around the island, where Bud is allowed to run off leash. These are fun and easy for me and him.

He's doing well so far. He never moves beyond a trot anymore, but he can trot fairly consistently. Yesterday on the five miler, I would get out ahead of him, which never happened before he got sick. At that point, I'll stop and walk for a bit. He seems to catch his breath, then he'll start pulling on the leash.

It's as if he's saying, "OK, I'm good. Let's go."

Running with him keeps me from running too hard, which I think is good as I try to build this foundation of fitness. All too often, I get to impetuous, and tend to run too hard, too much, I think.

Later...

Reframing the numbers

Guys,

I think I've come up with a new running-mileage formula, this one created around the rule of three.

My goal will be to run three days, then take a day off. I'm starting out this week with a 5-2-5 concept, that is, run 5 miles the first day, a 2 mile easy jog the second and another 5 miles the third day. I'm sure that I will fiddle with this formula as I go along, but this is at least a starting point.

I've been frustrated with the weekly schedule for some time, especially with a schedule that has me working frequent weekends. Take last week, for example. I was hoping to run more than 22 miles, at least two more than I had run the week before.

My early week workouts put me on pace. I had a 7-miler on Tuesday, but that seemed to snuff out all energy for later. I ran 2 miles on Wednesday (I was approaching that as a recovery jog), 2.5 miles on Thursday (ditto). The goal was to run long sometime over the weekend, but I was working and my energy and will drained. I ran nothing on Friday, 3 on Saturday and nothing on Sunday. Weekly total: A disappointing 17.5.

The problem was, I think, that I stacked too much early in the week with that 7 miler.

With my new Three Day Formula, there will be more frequent rests, and hopefully over the long term, more weekly miles.

My goal is to build a consistent base, then start tweaking with longer runs, faster runs, hill runs, etc.

My second vexing problem

My second vexing problem is no secret. It's an inability to write.

This inability works -- or doesn't work -- at two levels. First off, I struggle with writing coherent sentences and paragraphs. Which is odd, because I make my living writing. I have good editors. So while I do write a lot, I don't really consider myself a Writer in the capital letter sense. But that's coming. That's not really the main problem.

The main problem is my lack of discipline when it comes to writing even the incoherent stuff. For some reason, it's just very, very difficult to get started. It as if my writing mind is stuck in quicksand. Once I get started, and actually "moving" so to speak, it comes easier.

So my main goal lately has been developing the discipline to just write, good or bad, pretty or ugly. I was doing OK for a while, a week and a half or so. I was doing some journaling, a handwritten page each day. Then I got busy, we had visitors, and I got out of the habit.

Back where I started.

When I was a kid, I had an engine of an old two-man chainsaw. My intention was to build a go cart. I tinkered with the thing. Dad taught me the trick of spraying a little gas in the spark plug hole. The machine would start up full bore, run about 10 seconds, then quit.

What you are witnessing here is the attempts to get the two-man chainsaw engine of my literary goals running smoothly.

Chug, bang, rrrrr. Ptt.

My vexing problems

Two vexing problems are plaguing me, and they have done so most of my life.

The Number One Vexing Problem is my seemingly inability to lose weight, which I attribute to my rabid sugar consumption.

I've never believed that one actually could be addicted to sugar, like one can be addicted to cocaine or heroin. But according to a story titled "Sugar Love -- A Not So Sweet Story" in the Aug. 2013 edition of National Geographic, "an injection of sugar into the bloodstream stimulates the same pleasure center of the brain that respond to heroin and cocaine."

Oh my.

It seems to me that one way to kick the sugar addiction is to replace it with something else that might stimulate that pleasure center of the brain. It also seems that it might be counterproductive to replace chocolate chip cookies with crack, so I've decided to look for something else.

The problem? There doesn't seem to be much in my life at the moment that gives me the same kind of pleasure as eating a bowl of ice cream.

I love to run and bicycle, but you can only do that so much. I've given up cable television, and even when I had it, triggered the anger center of my brain much more than the pleasure center. ("Why is this crap on?! This is just another indication that our society is crumbling at the seams!")

I love reading, but when I sit down with a book or magazine, I almost always crave a graham cracker with Nutella. So reading triggers some kind of pleasure center, just not that one. I like music, but not that much. I like the feeling of accomplishment when I finish a chore, but only after it's completed, and I often reward myself with a cup of hot chocolate.

I also like to buy bicycling equipment and other outdoor sporting goods; but my personal finances cannot tolerate that swap. Plus, we only have so much space to store bikes.

For now, I'm just going to work on lowering my pleasure threshold. Maybe I can tweak the old brain center with two scoops of ice cream instead of two, three cookies instead, oh, say 12.

It'll never work.

Coming up: Vexing Problem Number Two: Why can't I write that novel?

Saying goodbye to Squirt

Squirt slipped away so peacefully a the end that I couldn't tell she was gone.

That disturbed me some at first, but I've decided that she used up all of her spurt, her energy, and isn't that the way to go?

Eighteen years is a long time, and I still find myself going to her bed to pet her; her presence has been such an ingrained part of our lives.

 She taught us some valuable lessons in those years. Like all dogs, Squirt had an innate sense of fun, and it was mixed with, in her case, a quiet kind of stubborn determination that wasn't evident unless you got to know her will.

She underscored the power of exercise. We're convinced that her longevity is due to the fact that we took her regularly on long walks, plenty of runs and lots of trips to the dog park. We pushed her her hip sockets began to erode, and that kept her as mobile as long as possible.

For me, that means I need to keep running until I can't run anymore, then walk until I need to stroll, then shuffle behind a walker. Don't quit.

Her time at the end got me thinking plenty about the existence of God and the joy and sadness of the nature's system of life. I'm not sure I can accept a God of the Bible, particularly as he is in the New Testament, the one who cruelly tests people, sets some rather harsh, weird rules and is prone to fits of murderous anger.

I mean, when he created us, an All-Knowing, All-Powerful God would have known we would be prone to screw up and make allowances for that.

But something is underneath it all, maybe not a grand puppeteer, but something. Squirt fought for life in her in own Zen way, and if it were purely an existence predicated on survival of the fittest, I think she would have thrown in the towel long ago. But there was something more there, a love of life, an acknowledgement that it was important. If I only knew why.

The last days of little Squirt

At 18 years old, the fact that this little American Eskimo dog is alive is pretty remarkable.

But she's always been full of moxie, this little dog, barking and running and brawling with bigger beings since she came into our lives 16 years ago.

When we first saw her, she was shivering in the back of a humane society cage, and we thought she would be this meek little lapdog. She immediately put that to rest, running and playing with Maverick, our Vizsla as if she knew him forever.

Squirt moved in quick little bursts of energy. She would nip at the heels of Mav, then squirt away from him. She always was a Squirt.

She would run with me and Mav, too. pulling on the leash like a sled dog. It was nothing for her to go five, six miles. But a few years ago, her physicality slowly started to erode. I would take her for half mile jogs, then walks, then around the block, then just up the street.

Finally she was reduced to staggering around the back yard like a drunk. Then she lost the use of her back legs.

We carry her where she wants to go. We know that she won't last long, and we agonize over the decision to put her down. Are we keeping her with us because of us, or because of her? Here's the thing: Old dogs usually tell you when they are ready to go. Something dims in their eyes, and they look at you as if asking for your help to make it all go away. So far, Squirt hasn't had that look.

She looks at you with bright little eyes, pointy ears perking around at attention.

Squirt is tough, and there's something innate in her that values life.

Back in the saddle

Tonight's bike ride won't win any Strava king of the mountain points.

I rode 1.6 miles with about an 8-mph-average, a slogging loop through the neighborhood on a single-speed mountain bike.

This was my first bike ride of the year. It was 10 degrees out. I nearly wiped out riding through a three-inch rut made in one of the city streets, where car tires wore grooves into the hard-packed snow that covers the pavement. It was dark.

I'm not sure if it was fun or not.

I had planned to go nine miles, or three loops around my Southeast Wausau neighborhood. 

I wanted to stay close to home. It's dangerous riding at night, and especially so on a night in this winter. No driver is expecting to see a cyclist at 8:30 p.m. in conditions like this, so they're apt to run me down, thinking I was no more than an illusion, a snow mirage.

That is, if the driver saw me at all. Riding through these streets, with their four-foot high snowbanks, is like riding through frozen canyons or a winter maze, and nobody in a car can see anything coming off from side streets. So they -- and I, if I'm honest -- just plow ahead and hope for the best.

Traffic was quiet, though. 

But I turned around halfway through my first loop, or about 1/6th of the way through my journey, because my headlight went dim.

I bought this light last year, and it cost about half what my first car did. I love it. It's a shining beacon that helps lead me through the darkness, and it lasts and lasts and lasts. But even it, as good as it is, needs to be recharged once in a while. I think the last time I had used it was last July.

So really, I'm lucky that it lasted the 12 minutes it did. It goes dim when it runs low on power, giving me a chance to turn around, or worry or get another light for a while longer. I'm not sure how much longer it will last when it goes into the power-saving dim mode, and I'm hoping never to find out.

It's saying much about this particular winter in that I haven't ridden at all, and here it is March 4.

Usually I can ride through most of it, with January the only month I have to take completely off, and even then I can get out for a jaunt or two.

Last year I rode six miles in a temperature of 9 degrees below zero. This year I vowed not to ride if it was below 20.

But it's been so cold, the 10 degrees tonight felt downright balmy, and I was half tempted to wear shorts.

Last year by this time, I had ridden 70 miles. Not much by many standards, but not bad either.

It's going to be tough to catch up. I need a recharge, too.