Not much in this world feels better than digging your way out of a hole. That is the task that has occupied a large chunk of my waking hours for the past couple of months, and it appears to be paying off. My house is home to a lot less clutter than it was a few months ago, and although I still have a long way to go, it is nice to be able to walk into my office without tripping over mounds of haphazardly-placed crap, or to look into my master bathroom and see evidence of demolition where there used to be shiny-white but hopelessly leaky tile. And it is equally nice to know that I can now go to my crappy, moribund job each day with the knowledge that I now have the freedom to leave, anytime I want, and make it until I can secure full-time employment again. As a result of these developments, my stress level has decreased substantially, and my running continues to progress.

This weekend began with another Saturday-morning run in downtown Greenville, which has become kind of a ritual for my wife and me since we started it a few weeks ago. I did 10.6 miles of long slow distance last Saturday, so this time I decided to do a long tempo on the rubberized "marshmallow trail." I had done 30 minutes on the soft surface at 8:19 splits over the 4th with no difficulty, and this time planned to do 32 at a similar pace. I went out too hard, at around 8:05 by the halfway point, but as the weather was overcast and the temps just under 70, I decided to hold it for the full 32, and did OK with it, finishing with 8:06 splits and feeling reasonably fine. The rest of the morning was relaxing as usual, fueled by coffee and capped off by my wife treating me to a belated birthday lunch at a Chinese restaurant. But later that afternoon, the hard workout began to catch up with me, and I dozed off hard. Later I dozed off again, and was out for good by 11:00.

I probably needed the rest anyway. I've got more building to do, more miles to pack on before the Summer is over. I want to be up to 50 per week by Labor Day, when I will start serious marathon training, and hopefully lay the groundwork for a new beginning during the Winter and Spring racing season.

Posted by MHB at 11:03 PM EDT

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I hesitate to use that word -- "productive" -- because it has so often been used in recent years as a euphemism for the expoitation of workers, and has even been snidely thrown up to me a few times on my present job. But this weekend, I was productive for me, and it was good.

It started with a good night's rest Friday night and an early 10 1/2 - miler downtown Saturday morning, followed by some coffee, fresh blueberries, and well-earned leisure at the farmer's market. When I got home, I had lunch and sacked out for most of the afternoon, but after that I worked on some writing assignments even though the deadline for them is over a month away and I have some days off set aside for finishing them, then checked some blogs I haven't been to for while, left some comments, did some laundry, and wrote some more while knocking back a couple of cold ones. I had already gotten a semi-long run in for the weekend, so I was free to sit up late, watch Austin City Limits (a rerun of the Pixies, not too bad), and catch Saturday Night Live for once (also a rerun, but as I've been getting up early for Sun. long runs, I hadn't seen it).

This morning was even better: up early, fueled on eggs and Red Bull, and ready to tackle the landfill that used to be my office. I spent a few hours back there today, and event though it's still not much to look at, by the time I was done I was able to get a broom and sweep part of the floor -- a huge step forward. I can actually walk in there now.

After a good Mexican lunch, my wife and I went to Home Depot, where we loaded up on those energy-saving flourescent light bulbs, which I switched with the few incandescent bulbs left in our house. I also cancelled a credit card once used for my old publishing company, broke up some more tile in our master bathroom, took out the garbage in the garage, and reloaded the dishwasher. I have been so active that my wife has gotten worried, and I had to reassure her that I was contemplating neither divorce nor suicide.

Slowly but surely, I am removing the clutter and superfluous crap from my life, with the aim of regrouping, and coming back stronger.

Posted by MHB at 9:37 PM EDT

Updated: Sunday, 8 July 2007 10:45 PM EDT

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The realization that I had hit a rut in my life also applied to my running performance, which has not advanced at all since the high-water mark of breaking 4 hours in the '06 Spinx Marathon. In fact, my 5k times had been slipping for about a year prior to that, and nothing that I tried seemed to reverse the slide. Of course, most of my training revisions focused upon speedwork, and were rewarded with shin splints and piriformis. And while I have read that regular speedwork is necessary for a masters runner, speed did not seem to be my problem. I could turn on the speed when I needed it, as long as my legs hadn't gone lactic or my core wasn't crying "enough." Sure, my breathing wasn't great, but it never is, and it was getting better even when I was not doing heavy speedwork.

What I needed was more endurance, and the best way to get it was to build an aerobic base by running lots of long, slow distance, adding more and longer tempo runs as my weekly mile totals slowly increased. So I made a plan: after the Sunrise Run in early June, I would take a few days off and then start a program of steadily-building easy miles that would last through the summer, until it was time to start training in earnest for Kiawah Island in December, which I figured would be around Labor Day. By then I hope to be up around 50 miles per week, and to be ready to fine-tune for the Spinx Half at the end of October and the marathon on December 8.

That is still my goal, although I have not built miles at the pace I had hoped due to the heat, my inability to get up early on weekdays, and the stress of my job. But I'm still pretty much on track, and will get around 30 miles this week once I complete a semi-long run of 10-12 miles tomorrow. I've begun to mix in some tempo as well, including a 30-minute long tempo at 8:19 on the rubberized marshmallow track in downtown Greenville the morning of the fourth. That felt good, as have most of my other runs over the past few weeks, indicating that my plan is working. The rest has been good for my legs: my piriformis is practically gone, and even my left achilles tendon doesn't bother me much anymore. And I can fell my endurance slowly building.

Despite all that has transpired, I feel an unusual surge of energy, as if something is dying and something else is being born. I'm going to ride it, and see where it takes me. No matter what, the ride will be interesting.

Posted by MHB at 10:26 PM EDT

Updated: Sunday, 8 July 2007 11:03 PM EDT

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This summer has been weird. Why it is weird is complicated, too complicated for me to explain sufficiently at this late hour. I suppose that it is a culmination of many things: my job, my mood, the mounds of crap piling up in the corners of my house, the myriad things that haven't been getting done around here, the state of the country, the state of the world, and the mediocrity of my recent running performances. It is time for it all to end, and it is up to me to shake things up a little, or a lot.

Much of it depends upon my ability to regroup. I hate the word "acceptance," and I refuse to use it to describe what I must do to get out of this predicament. But it has been necessary for me to acknowledge some things, first and foremost that much of what I have attempted during the past several years has failed, and I must abandon them, remove them from my calendar and my agenda, and go back to square one. I've gotten cocky, and I'm not the guy that I thought I was.

That might sound harsh and ugly, and in the beginning it was intended to be so. I have a habit of self-deprecation, one that I have depended upon for years to motivate me, and when it became obvious to me just how screwed up things were, I natually fell back on it. Things were not going right for me because I am a stupid-ass bumpkin who got in over my head in thinking that I had anything meaningful to offer the world.

Don't get me wrong: it may well be true that I am a failure. But if it is, it is not true for the reasons that I believed it was true. It is true simply because I have failed to accept -- excuse me, to acknowledge -- reality. for example, I am proud of my education, hard-earned as it was through endless hours of solitary research, writing, and rewriting during nights with no sleep and days surrounded by leisure-seeking clods who now earn much more money than I take home in my paltry bimonthly paycheck. I have spent years harboring contempt for those people, but I must acknowledge that the market favors them, and has very little respect for what I have accomplished. Therefore, if I am ever to break out of this rut I am in, I must retrain myself in a manner that will allow me to be more competitive in this environment, even if it involves immersing myself in bullshit.

That's the cynical side of me coming out again. I'm glad it's still there, but I've gotta suppress it for a while. It's time to start over, to clean house, to build a base, in life and -- as I have not yet discussed here -- in running.

I'll talk about running next time, for it's late, and I don't want to squander the base of sleep that I built over the holidays.

Posted by MHB at 11:26 PM EDT

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Let's see -- what will be my excuse this time? My crushing, ill-advised workload? The seemingly endless stress of the past month? The difficulty I have had finding any siginificant light at the end of this long tunnel? I have lots of 'em, but they are not enough. Not for me.

So ... how to recap the last month, or however long it has been since my last post? Two week ago I ran the Sunrise "8k" (on an uncertified course that according to my GPS and several veteran runners that I've talked to, is really an even 5 miles) in mediocre fashion, finishing in just under 40 minutes after experimenting with holding an even pace until the 75- degree heat and 70 percent humidity did me in.  Then, later that morning, I had to take a Praxis subject test as the last step to getting a provisional teacher certification. I've had two job interviews -- my first in ten years -- and neither one went very well. My wife is disgusted with me for not having started this process sooner, and I am beginning to share her disgust. Meanwhile, my day job continues to deteriorate into a pageant of absurdity, as my co-workers and I struggle to do right by our patients against the machinations of the loathsome self-preservationists and bean-counters above us in the shame of command.

If I sound bitter, it's only because I am. My anger is not the result of being forced to change, as that is probably long overdue. It is because the people that have depended upon me as a familiar face and a guiding force for over ten years will soon be left with nothing, and no one. I will not apologize for my fury over that, and I will not ignore the voice of conscience within me that fuels my utter hatred for the bastards responsible for this travesty.

But it's late now, and I've been burning the candle at both ends. Thus I shall put an end to this entry with intent -- but not promise -- to resume regular posts to this blog.

Posted by MHB at 11:41 PM EDT

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With all the early hype over the 2008 presidential election and the fact that most of the world is waiting nervously for us to regain our sanity, it should be no surprise that the '08 campaign is getting lots of ink overseas as well. Yet as far as I know, only one fictional take on the race is currently in print, and it is unique one, to say the least. Simply entitled First Lady President, it is the brainchild of Indian author Inder Dan Ratnu, an erstwhile poet and dramatic interpreter of Winston Churchill's speeches who takes time out every now and then to write alternative histories and fantasy recreations of key events in American politics, including Alternative to Churchill: The Eternal Bondage (in which the Axis powers win WWII and Churchill becomes an underground resistance leader) and The Ultimate Defense (which illustrates what might have happened had Bill Clinton come clean with Congress and the public about the Lewinsky scandal).

For the sake of disclosure, I have worked with and for Inder at various times during the past several years, and even printed and distributed a dummy run of an earlier version of First Lady President in the states. Yet I have no financial stake in it, and call it to the reader's attention primarily for its exotic appeal and offbeat nature, not to mention that of its author.

Anyway, for those reasons alone, I would recommend giving it a look. Those who do will immediately notice two things: 1) English is Inder's second language, and  2) his portrayal of American politics and culture is a bit, um, fanciful. There are actually several websites devoted to this book: here's another. So if you're interested in what's out there on the fringes of this campaign, check one of them out, or maybe even place an order if you want a one-of-a-kind souvenier of the 2008 presidential race.

Posted by MHB at 7:11 PM EDT

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The title speaks for itself. It was a nice one, I might add. As usual, I had a list of things to do today, and I pretty much did them all except for two: play guitar and work on some paid assignments for which deadlines are looming. That's a quality performance for me, even though I really should have written something for money today. Instead, as I have done several times in the past couple of weeks, I decided to blog for nothing instead. Well, here's to nothing.

My first order of business this morning was a ladder workout at the track, consisting of 200-400-800-1200-800-400-200, with 1:1 recoveries on the way up and 2:1 on the way down. It wasn't a particularly tough or intense workout by any means, but I am still easing back into speedwork 2 1/2 weeks after a marathon, and so I wasn't looking to do any more. I felt comforatbly fatigued at the end, and stretched my cool-down an extra mile to practice running on fatigued legs.

Upon reading this blog, one might assume that I have lost interest in politics, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth. But lately I have experienced great difficulty any time that I have attempted to sit down and write about politics in anything resembling an articulate manner; for when I think about the state of this country and the world, my mind is seized with fury and words that faciltiate polite, cogent discourse elude me. In fact, even impolite words often escape my mind's grasp when I am in such a state, which anymore is quite often.

You know that things are bad when you are reduced to taking solace in the natural demise of a public figure who disgraced himself beyond repair years ago and has been slowed by ill health for quite some time now. Yet I refuse to entertain any feeling of guilt for it, for Jerry Falwell was a dangerous fascist who did irreparable damage to American society by exploiting the intellectually and emotionally vulnerable to advance a retrograde, theocratic political agenda. Even the corporate stooges from the mainstream news media are having a hard time saying anything nice about him.

Posted by MHB at 10:59 PM EDT

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I meant to post this last night, but when faced with a choice between blogging and watching Ray Davies on Austin City Limits, I naturally opted for the latter.

In short, I ran like crap. I've got an entire sack of excuses with me -- it was 70 degrees and humid, I had been ill with some strange crud for half a week, I ran a marathon two weeks ago -- but the bottom line is still that I ran like a big, steaming heap of shit. I went out hard, had nothing left for the big hill that made up half of the last mile (and don't think I would have had much more if I had gone out easier), still thought I might have a chance at a sub-40 at the top of it, and found out quickly that I had nothing left in the tank. Then I turned into the final straight that was the last .10 to the finish, where last year I had seen (but not smelled) the clock and executed a vomit-inducing kick to the finish that got me in in 39:58. I found out later that I got third in my age group. I was there when the awards were handed out, but I hadn't bothered to listen, as placing was the furthest thing from my mind.

But this year, there would be no heroics. I did manage to hold off a couple of runners who were closing in on me at the finish, and also not to barf, both of which provided me with a measure of consolation. My finish this year got me ninth in the 40-44, despite being only 23 seconds slower than I was last year when I got third. My time last year would have gotten me -- you guessed it -- ninth this year as well.

My wife also wasn't feeling well, and as a consequence did not run well. She was consoled later when she discovered that she had not finished last as she had assumed, and that her time had somehow not been recorded in the results (chip malfunction?). Plus, like all the women in the race, she got a carnation, which is bright red and coming out well in the vase upon our mantle.

Posted by MHB at 11:09 PM EDT

Updated: Monday, 28 May 2007 8:14 PM EDT

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I think I might be getting a cold -- or something. My head has been stuffy for two days, my colon has been doing jumping-jacks, and my easy 3+-mile run this afternoon felt almost tough at times. Normally I wouldn't care too much: a couple of days off from running and/or work would bring some much-needed rest time even if the cause were a head full of bad-tasting crud. But I have a race Saturday morning -- a race that I will still run as long as I am not feverish, but that I dread like hell running while sick. It is an 8k for a local battered women's shelter, and even though they already have my money, I will do it even if I have to hang back and pace my wife. That is always an option, one that I wouldn't really mind; but if I can make a race of it, I will.

For now, I've taken a couple of shots of Zicam up each nostril and resolved to fight the illness with all the mental and physical energy that I can muster. I just wonder how much that might be at this point.

Posted by MHB at 10:43 PM EDT

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Change -- in running, in politics, in life -- can be a good thing, a vehicle of renewal, revision, reform. Yet in these times, change too often occurs for the wrong reasons, or for no reason at all, wreaking havoc upon innocent lives for nothing. I'm not just talking death and destruction here, although there is far, far too much of that. I'm talking about the niggling little changes that pick, pick, pick at our quality of life day after day after day: those that may not knock us for a full loop, but nevertheless leave us frequently fighting for our balance. And too many of these changes are precipitated by our corporate overlords, who then blame us for our difficulty in adapting to them.

Yes, change is frequently good, and more frequently bad -- like the ominious changes taking in place in my sinuses right now, three days before a race; like the wretched decline that our country has taken in the past six years under the Bu$hCo regime; like the slow but steady decline of mental health in South Carolina and, consequently, of my own job satisfaction.

By the way, I took a day off from running today. It wasn't entirely planned, but I knew that I would not do much today, and the beer I had with a friend after work plus the tofu Philly cheese steaks (yeah, I know, but it's not so bad) that my wife and I had for dinner sealed the deal. I needed a break after that botched, excessively fast tempo run I did yesterday. My back was sore today, in part as a result of that run, so I didn't even do any ab work this evening. I had work to do, anyway: work on resumes, applications, finding e-mail addresses, thinking about what the hell I would tell someone in an interview, things that I haven't had to think about in years.

What was I saying about change? Some people relish it. I can only take it in small doses, and preferably on my own terms. Thus I find this entire process absolutely loathsome.

Posted by MHB at 10:33 PM EDT

Updated: Thursday, 10 May 2007 11:14 PM EDT

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