Day 4

I am writing this from the airport as I await my flight back from Phoenix to Houston.  I was visiting my sister-in-law and her family, and really had a lovely time - we got to sit on the front row behind the dugout at the Arizona Diamondbacks game; we played miniature golf on a course designed by Tiger Woods; and we had dinner at Benihana with one of the fun chefs.

Exercise-wise, while I was there, I had a nice walk with my sister-in-law, and I watched my nephew’s son Haydan at baseball practice. Not an intense fitness week for me, but I did get out for a little bit.

I was kind of amused by an email Avina sent to our group, which prompted a few responses:

Avina was hating me and Sam because we had both cancelled our appearances at the Friday workout, leaving her solely at Art’s mercy (meaning no mercy at all). But she was taking credit for being close to the top of Art’s mysterious rating system, which Art explained as follows:

He told me last week that I had been a regular in his top ten when I was regularly walking, but now… not so much.

He is a master of motivation, setting benchmarks, however arbitrary, and creating competition between us. Sam and I are wise to this, and yet we still keep track of how our efforts compare with each other.

This upcoming week is going to be kind of gnarly for me, but then it will be clear sailing for a couple of months. I will do my best this week, and then - with no excuses available to me - I will really get to uwork on my training plan.

Onward!

Day 1 (restart)

New developments since I last posted:

·          I did not win the lottery to get into the New York Marathon. As a generally lucky person, I was a little surprised that it didn't happen for me this year.  I can still get in with a charitable contribution of about $3000, which might happen if I do well in this year's World Series of Poker, but I am not counting on it. Instead, as the new title of this blog indicates, I am reorienting my goal to something a little more attainable (more on that in a moment).

·               I signed a contract with Thomson-Reuters, a pretty big publisher of legal books, to co-author a handbook on legal ethics. "Handbook" sounds manageable, like something you slip into your briefcase on the way to court, but this ain't that. If you click on this link to the previous edition of the book I am now working on, you will see that it is 6362 pages in three volumes, selling for a cool $1281. Now, I am only responsible for 600 pages of the book, and my final draft is not due until mid-November, which seems like a long time until you do the math and realize that you have about 200 days to write 600 authoritative pages on the Texas Rules of Disciplinary Procedure.  This is kind of weighing heavily on me lately.

·       For some reason, I fell off the wagon on walking. This is also weighing heavily on me, both mentally and physically, because I am currently feeling quite, er, husky. It is also bothering me because I know that the great weather we have been enjoying this year is about to give way to a hellscape of melting concrete and convection oven airflow and will stay like that for about six months.

To his credit, Art has periodically (but not too annoyingly) reminded me that the blog has been quiet. So, this weekend I decided it was time to get moving again and make exercise a part of the handbook writing process - the more structured my day is, the more likely it is I will regularly write.

So this weekend, I played basketball, rehearsed with both of my bands (fun!), and then this morning, did a tasty 4.72 miles, which included three half-mile runs without stopping. When I told Art this, he arched an eyebrow but did not repeat his highly sensible advice about not running until I lose weight. Instead, he suggested that I only do fast runs twice a week, which I will do.

Now, my new goal (absent some kind of ridiculous luck in Vegas which would finance the NYC Marathon), is to run the Houston Half Marathon in January of 2024.  My pal Avina has promised to run with me, which is nice, plus last time I checked, 13.1 miles is much less than 26.2 miles, which is also nice.

Will I keep this going? We will see!