Blah Blah Blog HOLY CRAPTASTIC

Okay, okay,okay... I am sure that almost everybody has forgotten about this blog. Yes, it has been a long and somewhat eventful year. So let me proceed... blah blah blog

HOLY CRAPTASTIC! Summer is over.

Right now we are overcoming this overbearingly hot weather which has had its detrimental effects from just sweating too much to making it almost impossible to go out on my daily runs or etching our tires within the dust of various cycle trails. In short, my miles have decreased, but not all is bad.

The spring weather of mid May brought on our move into a very vibrant looking pink and very much over the top house. This project in progress is entailing a lot of work... think working or multitasking in current English speak. Many positive results occurred due to the move... especially me pretending to display better organizational skills (aka; keeping things clean all the time). Yes, my running or therefore lack of did suffer partially due to the move. Blame the torturous hot weather for much lacking mileage... what else can I say? The fact is that this never ending move help to keep me in reasonable epic shape while also developing a sort of a green thumb. I know nothing about flowers and plants except that the chemical called h2o keeps them going and going.

(The New Homestead)

Most importantly... okay.. I am sounding boring now The past few years, a massive hurricane of lameness has struck me in the ROCKNROLL Department. Excuse or not? My age had taken hold of me and wrung every inch of my rocknroll attitude out of me. Frankly, my ringing ears have got really tired of listening to the regurgitated sounds of the past twelve years. I have become oh so jaded and very cynical in my older age and frankly trendy music or appearance do not matter much to me anymore. Bring me the primitive sounds of the great bands like the Gories, The Oblivians, or even the garage-punk superstars, The Cramps. Give me a guitar, like my cheapo electric Silvertone guitar and I will annoy the entire household, then go running the next hour. Basically rocknroll motivates me as running motivates me... running is like a death sentence to most rockers and vice versa.... blah blah blah.

Before I sign off, listen to, take in and enjoy my fave song by the (insert your favorite genre label) The Gories.

All The Way Or Not At All

The almost unknown, yet so great of a rocknroll outfit that any adjective below does no great favor to the almost legendary outfit, Kansas City's Cretin 66. Their blazing high energy kick you between the legs rocknroll personifies their basic philosophy in life, All The Way Or Not At All.

In short, it is my goal to transfer high energy sonic jams into high energy blazing journeys of blazing footwork. My first 5K race tested this very intense proclamation to the point that my leg work would set the pavement afire if it was not for the previously intense thundershowers. My eventual sore feet managed to keep up with many twenty and thirty somethings while my 47 year old body managed to prevail.

Despite the very threatening looking weather [see the above radar photo], I managed to run a 8:24 pace for 3.1 miles, with the total time reading 00:26:06. I was completely gasping for air after my sprint across the finish line.

And the first thing that popped into my frazzled mind? All the way or not at all!

p.s. : Here are the race results!

Splitting Random Thoughts

I am constantly living the life of a circus performer. I wake up in the morning and hoping by a prayer to motivate myself enough to rise before the sun beats me to my running jaunts, doing the tasks of everyday life before it totally overtakes me.

Even though Thursday has hightailed itself to the current position on my sometimes chaotic calender, this has been a week that shall never slip from my brainstem. Even though the buzz of the electronic device ordering competitive swimmers to strat the race in the evening, the day was already on for Shannon as everybody being surrounded by swimming pools was wondering if mother nature's electrical wrath was going to be exhibited via thunderbolts. Earlier in the day, it had rained poolfulls [bad pun intended] to the point of practice being cancelled. Naturally, most parents were wondering whether a full evening of swimming events was going to be allowed to occur. Of course, I had doubts flowing through my mind!

Come 4:45, things appear a bit on the rough side looking upwards into the sky. Rain producing clouds tormented everyone looking northwest. It appears that cancellation is written all over this event as a huge black cloud intimidates everybody poolside. After the traditional organized choas of transferring the list of races from the computer printout to the childs arm using a permament marker, the festivities began.

We all waited, and waited until the heats accumulated to lucky thirteen. Shannon climbed onto the starting blocks with her hair slightly tucked into her bathing cap, feeling the cold wind blow against her bathing suit. Before we knew anything, the starting buzzer at this very efficiently run meeet had sounded off. Into the water went Shannon, as her free-style was gliding her through the mixture of h2o and chlorine. I looked in amazement as she was running towards the front of the pack. In the end, Shannon barely edged herself to second place.

Fast forward to heat number 37. Shannon jumps off the strating block in glee into the very cold water. Shannon immediately grabs the chrome colored starting bar and propels herself into the backstroke upon the electronic prompt. Once again, she resembles a machine on its back moving and moving without stopping until she reaches her destination; the finish line. She has had another great race as she was excited, but in the zone to the point of not knowing the result. When I had informed her of finishing number one, she was very excited to the point of a huge smile. After this meet, we all drove back home, cold, yet happy that Shannon was not only very successful, but that the meet was not trampled upon by the weather.

Cough cough, sneeze, sneeze.... achoooooo! Waking up the next morning ended up being an event in itself with Shannon not only sneezing like crazy, but her ears bothering her to the point of its overly red colors being a painful irritant. After my Tuesday morning run of 4 miles or so, my fingers had to dial my children's doctor and I have since been enduring an uneventful event of putting up with random coughs, sneezes, and medicine dosages while mentally preparing myself for my upcoming 5K run.... my first race ever as I have only participated in the usually very child friendly fun runs.

One more random thought, enjoy the video below. Or as my son Ian says, How random!

Adrynalyn....

Or lack there of....

Last night's musical jaunt into the depths of 1980's Youtube inspired music brought me out to a disaster on the other end of the tunnel. In short, my eyes were transfixed upon the computer to the point of oversleeping with the end result being no run. I am just questioning myself; was it worth it? The reality is that it does not matter anymore.

In a timemachine, I magically press a button to take me back to the good old days, circa 1986. I imagine myself in college on a bitterly cold night in the town of Bennington, VT. I am urgently drawing on a bottle of Moosehead beer, listening to the sweet sounds of Minnesota's punk rock band, Husker Du. Some say these guys are unlistenable.... my opinion regresses.

Fast forward many many years later. My ears are chronologically documenting the sounds; in rock critic terms, I've got to say that this band resembles a very much amplified version of the Beatles. To go a bit further, these alleged Swedish lads [am I wrong to presume since they are from Minnesota?] are not only one of the greatest unknown outfits ever, but according to my snotty opinion, one of the best ever. Period!

Is this the ending? How Lame! Oh well....

A fIRE On The Plain

Yes, this latest rant exiting my wine induced brain may seem to be non-sense to the average running mammal. The fact is that the great tunage by one of the the primo bass extrodiarres in the whole universe, Mike Watt, amps me up to the point that it could potentially turn a possible rail-trail bike ride into an exercise of dementia.

Yes, the bands Watt happens to accompany sounds genious all around. His jazz/punk/rocknroll/Motown tendencies helps transfuse his great talent of make his bass guitar sound like a style of his own. The past couple of days, his sounds have been bouncing off my overly-active neurons to the point that listening to his material translates to a run or a bike on a very dusty plain in a rural portion of the Mid-Western United States.



Some great tunage by fIREHOSE!

Some great rocknroll wisdom by Mike Watt!

Blue Spark

As the legendary punk rock band X exclaims in their shoot-em up tunage on their track entitled "Spark," my biceps were actually invigorated by the thought of the twenty pound dumbells being lifted into the air until my muscles screamed to end these motions. These motions were not felt like a punishment for the first time in a while as I was stupidly placed on the injury squad for lifting.... I was relegated to the skimpy ten pound weights as my tendons were so sore I could not lift a twenty into the sky effectively.

Enjoy the great sounds of X .... I know it will sound much better than this quick electronic etching.

On a Plain

Rotating my feet circularly while my abnoxious yellow mountain bike propelled on the semi-dusty plain of Missouri's semi-famous Katy Trail is what occupied my late morning to early afternoon trot. Fortunently, many current meteorologist's favorite game of creating out hand paranoia ended today when this lame exercise ended up resembling nothing more than a bunch of old fashion turkey jive.

What is all this wordage leading me to? Is it saying that some lame 47 year old rock star critic wanna-bee turned late blooming weekend athlete? I do not know, but let me rewind a bit more than 24 hours. My bike [aka ; Elvis] guided myself and my two children along this jaunt. At least this journey was "an easy" 13 or so miles.... take that back reader gazin' upon this rant. My daughter Shannon at least claimed to have a hard time keeping up the peddling at certain strategic times. What could we do as our bikes/our legs were working in sync with our noggin, concentrating upon putting a check next to the box of our latest goal.