Inchworm

Inspiration

Andrea (en route to Mpls., by the way) has been sending me daily inspirational quotes to go along with our marathon training. This one came today and I think it's one of my Top Five Favorites:

"Now if you are going to win any battle you have to do one thing. You have to make the mind run the body. Never let the body tell the mind what to do. The body will always give up. It is always tired morning, noon, and night. But the body is never tired if the mind is not tired. When you were younger the mind could make you dance all night, and the body was never tired...You've always got to make the mind take over and keep going."

- George S. Patton, U.S. Army General and 1912 Olympian

Taxonomy of marathon runners

These are the training groups I remember from my first two marathons which I trained for with Club Run at what was then called Northwest Fitness. I discovered that running in the winter was the only way to survive the 11 months without sun here and Club Run marathon training -- especially with my friends there, Ed Fisher and Annie Bianco -- was the only way to run at night and feel safe in the nitty gritty city. These were the groups:

Gold (very, very, very fast)

Silver (very, very fast)

Bronze (quite speedy if you ask me)

There were a bunch of groups named according to wavelengths of light and sound. They were all pretty damn fast but I can't remember the names. Sine? Cosine?

Then there were the fruits.

Kiwi (It was my dream to run with Kiwi and finish a marathon in 4 hours.)

Runnin' Raspberries (You know you're getting to the slower groups when they have to go the alliteration route to make it sound all peppy.)

Some very lame fruit which I can't recall whose goal was to finish. A worthy goal, I might add!

A friend mentioned that there should be a vegetable category below the fruits. Probably should.

This Sunday's Minneapolis Marathon will be number 11 for me and number 142 (I lost count) for my best friend, Arnold. Our goal is to 1) refrain from crying during the marathon; 2) avoid snow; and 3) have a freakin' fun time!! (And not die.)

That said, my friend Mary and her running team are going to qualify for Boston on Sunday! (Yes, you are! You ARE!)

:-)

RAGBRAI

There's a great photo series with more crazy people at ragbrai.org.

Preview of "Never Stop Singing"

It's going to be on public television here next week.

Spring Scene by Hope

And then there's Hank

Hope keeping it real

We think she was born to make people smile.

My new favorite website

Awkward Family Photos

I have many, many, many family photos to submit. Watch out, My Family!

Helping

If you are so inclined. There is a family who could use your help.

Id B

Chocolate pudding

This is what can happen when you're not paying attention.

Em

Here's a picture snapped by my friend, Mary, at this morning's freezing cold Golden Valley Days Parade. Em is the reason I get up at 4:40 every M/W/F/Sat to run. If she wasn't out on the corner waiting for me I would not be getting out of bed that early. She's also the one with the Williams Sonoma Deep Fat Fryer. Yeah, Gary and I agree that we can NEVER, never, NEVER own one of those. We would each weigh 400 pounds by this time next year, if not sooner.

Too cold in mid May

We had to account for windchill this morning when figuring out what to wear on our morning run. It was windy around the lakes. Check out those white caps! Fantasizing about food started around mile 8. What I really wanted -- a dark beer and a cinnamon roll -- I did not get but the omelet Gary made for me was pretty dang good.

Golden Valley Days: Summer Begins (and it's freakin' cold!)

Pay no attention to the fact that the temperature was about 32 with the windchill. Hank and Hope were not about to miss the fun at Brookview Park. Gary and I would have been quite content to sit on the couch and watch Candid Camera or The Sonny and Cher Show but apparently Hank and the girl at school he claims to "despise" had plans to engage in a major water balloon fight. So we went. It was cold but fun. And our daughter provided some pretty good entertainment while we waited for the fireworks to start. She's been working on her popping and robot dance moves in preparation for the next season of, "So You Think You Can Dance." (I thought about photoshopping out the pant stains but I decided it kinda adds to the charm.)

Hope busts a move.

Haircare?

Someone in this family is trying to get a jump-start in protecting his hair from sunburn this summer. Or so it seems.

Danger, Will Robinson

People know that I have sort of struggled with weight issues most of my life. I've always been "pushing maximum density" (a line I've always related to from The Breakfast Club). I was on the Nutrisystem Diet for about three days in the Summer of 83. I gained the infamous "Freshman 15 50." The real reason I've been willing to sacrifice toenails by running 10 marathons now, as slowly as I have, is only so that I can burn those twice-weekly, 14-inch, thick-crust Dominoes pizzas that constituted the foundation of my college food pyramid in the late 80s.

So here I am, hanging in there, only 5 pounds over my driver's license weight, running regularly at the crack of dawn with my neighbor. Things are going well. So what's my beef? I cannot stop thinking about her William's Sonoma Fryer she got last weekend. I cannot stop fantasizing about the hush puppies and fried catfish. I wonder about doughnuts and falafel. How delicious they must be if they come to you fresh out of your very own Williams and Sonoma fryer. Help me, Jesus. I'm not sure I'm ultramarathon material.

Laws Concerning Food and Drink; Household Principles; Lamentations of the Father --by Ian Frazier

On Screaming

Do not scream; for it is as if you scream all the time. If you are given a plate on which two foods you do not wish to touch each other are touching each other, your voice rises up even to the ceiling, while you point to the offense with the finger of your right hand; but I say to you, scream not, only remonstrate gently with the server, that the server may correct the fault. Likewise if you receive a portion of fish from which every piece of herbal seasoning has not been scraped off, and the herbal seasoning is loathsome to you, and steeped in vileness, again I say, refrain from screaming. Though the vileness overwhelm you, and cause you a faint unto death, make not that sound from within your throat, neither cover your face, nor press your fingers to your nose. For even now I have made the fish as it should be; behold, I eat of it myself, yet do not die.

Mother's Day

It's not always a piece of cake being a mother but it is the best job I have ever had. Today I celebrated the day by taking a heavenly 3-hour nap. It was fantastic.

Marathon mania

While I'm going to miss running the May 31st marathon with my neighbor, friend, and running partner, Em, (who's going to be down south with family that weekend), I am beyond happy that my long-distance friend and long-distance running friend, Andrea, has decided to come run this one with me. She sent me a quote today that I had never heard before and I love it:

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn't matter whether you're a lion or gazelle - when the sun comes up, you'd better be running.

After Minneapolis we have the Twin Cities Marathon. We'll talk more about that later. That's going to be fun in a whole different way with several first time marathoners who have decided to take the plunge including my niece and brother.

Good times; sore muscles, maybe some blisters, maybe some tears, but for sure lots of annoying running discussion about the digestive system. That's always a given.

UPDATE: My brother recently signed up for his first marathon and when I sent this quote to him to inspire him his reply was, "I'm a dead man."

Be still, my heart!

I know my kids love me. They tell me semi-regularly and they show me that they do every day but today was a first; Hank asked me -- ME! -- what I want for Mother's Day. Thank you third grade teachers for putting that idea in my child's head. It was a touching mother/son moment.

I realize of course that he's thinking hard about how to sell me on the idea of a lukewarm hotdog lunch and several rounds of laser tag at GameStop after church that day.