Day 69

I finished my big brief today at 5:30, my impeccable sense of procrastination bringing in the project exactly one day early. It was very satisfying, although I wonder what my client will say when he sees my bill.

Once it was done, I started thinking about my poker game tonight at Billy’s at 7:00. And then I remembered my pledge to walk every day this week and audibly sighed. (My dogs Penny and Sam looked at me with canine concern, probably wondering if they were going to the vet.)

Could I get a walk in? I wasn’t feeling great; in fact, I’d cut today’s workout with Art short today after feeling like I had no energy. (Having to pull 350 pounds on a sled may have also had something to do with it.)

But I’d made a promise to myself and felt like I had to hit the road, so I did.

And it turned out to be a good walk, mostly because I decided to listen to music instead of a book on tape. Clear and cool, a light breeze in the air, I felt new energy that was enhanced by my music choices.

A short digression about music. I have a setlist from my marathoning days on Apple iTunes that is basically comprised of fast, propulsive songs. Some other day I’ll memorialize that list here, but I wasn’t listening to it today.

Instead, I started with a song I’m trying to learn for my blues band: “Many the Miles” by Sara Bareilles. Here’s a version of the song live on a houseboat:

What a cheerful song! The chord progression moves in a nice, shifty way and the lyric is actually kind of relatable for a retired guy who wants to see the world:

There's too many things that I haven't done yet
There's too many sunsets I haven't seen

Wanting more of that sound, I went to a 2002 album from a singer named Sarah Shannon for a song called “I’ll Run Away” (apparently not available on You Tube).

I have fond memories of that indie record, which I heard playing at Cactus Music and bought on a whim. Sarah never made it - but she has had a nice career singing to kids, and her record never gets old.

Still in an indie mood, I then pulled up Jon Brion, the musical savant from LA who has a residency at the supercool club Largo.  He has some quirky cool songs that I used to have on heavy rotation in my office:

If you want to understand me, you have to know that I truly believe that he and I would have been close friends and collaborators had I gone to California to write comedy instead of going to law school. But I didn’t, so we aren’t. I still love his music.

Then I pulled up the video of Jon’s legendary television show pilot featuring Elliott Smith, which was shot by genius director Paul Thomas Anderson in 2000. The banter between Brion and Smith is a little twee, but the music! Every song is great and the shambling informality of the show is charming:

That was my soundtrack the rest of the way in. Lisa worries about me when I listen to Elliott Smith because his songs can be a little…grim, but I love his melodicism and commitment. Please listen to this video.

The funny thing is that none of these songs were true running songs - they were introspective and sweet and meaningful to me, and took the edge off the long walk. Today felt like the equivalent of a stroll in the park holding hands with your girl and feeling like everything in the world is okay. I might be being a little twee myself, but so be it. Life is too short to miss out on any opportunities to feel a sense of contentment.

See you tomorrow!

Day 68

When I was a kid, I was an avid reader. My 84-year-old mother will tell you, whether you ask or not, that I was reading at 3, and that I had read (and comprehended) a chapter book at 5.  (The book was called Richthofen and it was about the legendary World War I ace known as the Red Baron. What this particular book was doing in an elementary school library, given that it was about a guy whose claim to fame was shooting down English and American pilots, I have no idea.)

But I was one of those kids who had a book in his hands all the time, including when I was walking to and from school. (Consider that for a moment as well: a kid who read and walked to school - no wonder I was skinny and smart!) People driving by would see me, head down, absorbed in the book I was reading, and wait for me to walk into traffic or walk into a light pole or tree. (I knew this because these drivers would then see my dad at the hardware store and say, “Durf, your idiot son almost got run over by a panel van on Valley Parkway.”)

But I never ran into the pole, tree, or traffic. I had some kind of weird radar that alerted me when I was approaching one of those hazards and I would unconsciously move aside to miss it. 

In short, I was a distracted walker, an early precursor of the current generation of phone heads who walk (and drive) obliviously while surfing social media.

Why tell you this? Tonight, I dusted off the old skills and updated the distraction: I played online poker while walking.

There were upsides to this: the walk felt like it went by much faster and it turns out I won the tournament!

The downsides: I gave up situational awareness, which you kind of want when walking in the dark after 9:00. Also, although I felt like I was going as fast as I usually do, I actually wasn’t. It was weird - I’d look down at the Apple Watch, breathing hard, and expect a sub-16 minute pace, but find out instead that my pace was over 17 minutes.  I’d noticed this phenomenon about a month ago when I was talking on the phone while walking - something slows me down when the phone is out and in use. Go figure.

Anyway, a nice nearly five miler today. No ailments, except for sore pinky toes. See you tomorrow!

Day 67

Once again, time passes without a training walk. Here are my current excuses/explanations:

• Illness - I had a pretty gnarly flu over the holidays and was stillcoughing until about Sunday. Respiratory stuff really takes it out of you, especially when you feel like your lungs aren’t filling up to capacity.

• Other Exercise - Despite the illness, I have been going pretty faithfully to my workouts with Art. When you get a full hour of intense strength training, it’s easy to justify not doing more exercise. And when you’re already not feeling well, the justification threshold is low, almost nonexistent.  Plus I feel sore all the time, which Art tells me is normal, but man, it is still annoying.

• Work - Despite my happy retirement, I am still doing some law work here and there. One of those projects is a murder case in which I am responding to a 105 page, ten issue brief on behalf of a DA’s office in a nearby county. It’s been a while since I’ve had a project that big, and its weighing heavily on me. Plus I have another big project in the on-deck circle, so when I’ve finished working on it for the day, I’m not inclined to do much other than decompress.

So there you go. I was ready to sit out another day on Sunday when Josh asked me if I was up for a walk. How could I say no?

We walked the golf course I live on and talked about life. It was a good walk for both of us.

Now that the big murder brief is pretty much done, I’m going to pledge to walk every day for the foreseeable future. 

Tonight, I walk with Lisa - she’s been wanting to exercise with me for a while. We’ll see how she does!

Day 61

Yes, there has been a little gap between entries, which means that, yes, there has been a little gap between long walks.

To explain: this weekend, I went to Oklahoma to play in a World Series of Poker tournament. Poker is definitionally the exact opposite of any kind of exercise activity - you sit and sit and sit some more, waiting for a pair of decent cards to play with. And when you play those cards, you are actively suppressing any elevated heart rate or other physical tells that would give away your hand. You kind of look like this:

So, yeah, I have not exactly been elevating my heart rate over the past few days.

But when I got home yesterday, I eased back into normal life with a table tennis match with Josh, and then later, we took a nice five-mile walk and talk. He’s been keeping me from being a total couch potato.

Anyway, more to come this week, even though I have a brief due next week and two poker tournaments here this week. (When I told Lisa that, she understatedly said, “That’s a lot of poker.”)

Yes, yes it is.

Day 55

Happy New Year!

After a nice family weekend with a visit from my nephew and his son, I had a noon workout with Art and Sam (Avina was off for one more day). The new regimen is quick transitions with 8-12 reps. We did dips and pull-ups and flies and shrugs and presses, oh my!

Art said he had been reading my blog.

“You’ve been writing a lot about me,” he said. “It’s like I’m one of the main characters. I mean, Sam and Avina are in the blog, but they’re supporting cast.”

“That’s true,” I said.  “You’re a big part of the story.”

He smiled.  “If this was a show, who would I be?”

I thought about it and said, “If I was Thomas Magnum, you’d be TC, his helicopter pilot buddy. You know, the sensible sidekick.”

“I don’t think I’ve seen that show,” he said, to my shock.

I keep forgetting that, due to our age difference, Art didn’t grow up watching the shows I watched. Would he get it if I compared him to Mr. Spock? (That would, of course, make me Captain Kirk in my life story, which I am totally in favor of.) Maybe Picard and Data would be a more apt comparison for him as a member of the Next Generation.

I got today’s walk in later in the day when Josh and I walked our home golf course in drizzly weather. I always have good conversations with him. He has hidden depths. The pace was good too, although walking the unlit golf course can be tricky in wet weather.

My favorite moment: Josh found a golf ball near the path and instead of taking it home, he ran onto the green of a nearby par 3 and deposited into the hole. Someone will have a nice surprise tomorrow.

Day 51

Okay - so this is an accountability moment. Allow me to explain.

On the 16th, I got the flu. Fortunately, it was not COVID - the test was negative. But unfortunately, it was the day before our long-anticipated (and unrefundable) vacation to Colorado.

So I masked up and went to Colorado. After I slept for about twenty hours, we had a great time skiing, snowmobiling, and eating.

Machine Gun Ridge, 12,500 feet

I didn’t do any serious exercise besides the skiing. I was still kind of raw and did not want a relapse. And Vail is not really a walking environment at this time of year.

Case in point: as I was standing on Machine Gun Ridge, I decided to walk over to the edge of the summit to look down.

“Hey!” our guide said. “Stand still!”

“What?” I said.

“That’s a cornice. Take a step back towards me.”

I thought a cornice was one of those things on a wall, like crown molding. It turns out it’s a term of art for an extremely dangerous snow drift at the top of a mountain that I had almost stepped on. Had I taken the extra step, I would have experienced an avalanche from the top down.

So trust me when I tell you that walking in Colorado is fraught with danger. After Machine Gun Ridge, I was afraid to walk to the Starbucks.

We eventually made it back to Houston, traveling through Denver on the worst travel day of the year. You really can’t fully appreciate how privileged your life is until you look out your airplane window, sipping Buffalo Trace on ice, watching a guy loading your luggage in sub-zero weather. I paid my dues as a kid cleaning grease traps, working as a garbage man, and mowing lawns, but man, I didn’t do anything that tough. Respect.

When we got back, I worked out with Art and Sam (no Avina - on vacation), but I wasn’t motivated to walk yet. I’m not sure why - I was still a little congested, and the weather wasn’t great, but I think it was that I was in vacation mode and not interested in getting back to work.

So on Wednesday, I was at my workout with Art and Sam and feeling punky. We were doing sets of twenty 40 pound chest flies, and stair climbs with 30 pound kettlebells and I was done with that. Just done.

So I made a bet with Art. 

“Let’s do a weigh in, right now, and if I’ve lost more than 5 pounds since my last weigh-in, I get to end this workout,” I said.

“Nope,” he said. “That’s not good for you. Plus anyone can lose 5 pounds in three weeks.”

“Okay,” I said. “Ten pounds.”

Art arched an eyebrow. “If you’ve lost ten pounds, I’ll give you a free session. But there’s no way you’ve lost that much weight.”

What he didn’t know is that I’d weighed in when I returned from Colorado and discovered, to my shock, that my bout with the flu had burned off twelve pounds. I’d been strength training and walking and playing basketball for months and not getting anywhere with my weight, but a week of flu carved a whole brisket off of me.

So we weighed in and Art thought there was something wrong with the scale. Eventually Sam laughed and told Art that I had been sick. Art smiled and told me I’d won the bet, but that I had to use the free session by the end of the year. It being Wednesday, December 28, there was a pretty good chance the offer was going to expire before I could claim it.

But Art was just creating an incentive for me to exercise on Thursday. He offered a gym visit at 5:00 a.m. (nope) or a workout at his house at 3:15 p.m. I was feeling bad about scamming him, so I offered to let him off the hook.

And of course, as the uncommonly decent man he is, here’s how he responded:

So at 3:15, I was at his house to walk. We walked a mile

with his daughter Everly, who showed great musical talent, singing along with this hilarious song from the Guardians of the Galaxy Christmas Special:

We then dropped her off at home and did another four miles in drizzling weather. It was a nice walk, and after we traded stories about terrible jobs we’d had, I asked him, “Do you ever feel amazed with how great your life turned out?”

Art, usually taciturn, surprised me with the passion of his answer. 

“Yes!” he said. “Every day!”

Me too. Happy New Year!

Day 36

I took a short break from walking this week.

I was going to try nine miles on Sunday, but it was my daughter’s boyfriend Devon’s birthday, so by the time I got back from jamming with the blues guys (side note: it is so much fun playing with those guys, but sometimes I feel a little out of my depth, like I do when I have my recurring dream about playing piano with the Stones, which always starts out great and ends badly, usually with Keith Richards hitting me with his Strat, and Mick calling me a wanker), and we’d had pizza and birthday cake, I just didn’t feel up to a long walk, especially while still recovering from Saturday’s basketball game (side note: I had the most backhanded compliment of all time on Saturday morning, when the Commissioner said to me after the fourth game, “You move better on the court than anyone I’ve ever seen at your weight.” Um, thanks?)

Then Monday night … I don’t know. Just didn’t feel like leaving the house, plus it had rained earlier and I didn’t want to get rained on. But mostly, I just didn’t feel like it.

Tuesday night was poker night. I finished 5th out of 30 in our annual championship, and then had fun in the cash game afterwards. For a hot minute, I considered walking off my adrenaline at 1:30 a.m., but remembered that I am not a vampire and went to bed instead.

Today, we had people coming over to the house at 9:00, so I got up early and attacked the day. I got some legal stuff done, picked up some cream of tartar at the store to finish my holiday sugar cookie dough, and checked my work mail and found a nice check waiting for me. Then I went in for my last workout with Art before our family winter vacation trip.

While doing sets of rows, I told Art that I’d been to the doctor on Tuesday morning and that the doctor had told me the same thing Art had been saying all along: no running yet at my weight.

My doctor was encouraging, however, saying that I was already doing the hard part by regularly exercising.

“Now, you just need to do one more exercise,” he said. “When you’re eating, do a push-away.” He then mimed pushing his dinner plate away, about as subtle as brick through a window. “You know, like when you’re eating pie, stop at one piece instead of three.”

Art agreed with my doctor, although he did observe that there was a fatal flaw to the “one piece of pie” advice.

“How big is that first piece?” he asked, arching an eyebrow.

Both of them said that my knees would not hold up to four hours of running. I’ve been dismissive of this, not having ever had knee troubles, but then, right on cue, my left knee started feeling wonky as I was bustling in the kitchen making Christmas cookies. The feeling passed the next day, but this was a kind of reality check, so after the holidays, I am going to try the “push-away” technique in earnest.

Tonight, however, I did get a couple of miles in on a beautiful cool evening (60 degrees with a breeze). I had not been planning to walk, but this was one of those evenings where getting out of the house keeps you from saying something you regret to someone you love.

And for the first time in this training effort, I took my beloved dogs, Penny and Sam. Exercising with the dogs has its pros and cons.

PRO: They have WAY more energy than you do and they pull you faster than you think you would walk by yourself.

CON:  You think the dogs are making you move faster, but paradoxically, you just feel like you’re going fast. In reality, you’re moving inefficiently and slower than you do walking by yourself.

PRO: This is because your dogs run like maniacs for a hundred yards, then they stop on a dime and sniff a clump of interesting grass. This gives me inexplicable joy, because I know they are luxuriating in 10,000 different scents, like a wine enthusiast basking in a glass of Chateau Lafite Rothschild, except without all of the pretensions. I am happy to wait for them to drink it all in until they remember that they are on a walk and dash away at 400 miles per hour.

And despite Art and my doctor’s warnings, I couldn’t help myself. I ran with these dogs for stretches, letting them open up their strides and feeling myself opening up as well. For a few happy moments, I wasn’t a newly minted 59-year-old, I was back in my prime, swallowing up the road, feeling fast again. So nice.

So maybe tomorrow, I’ll try the nine miles in the morning. 

Maybe.