June 21

I had a nice walk yesterday. It was a little involuntary, but nice.

Here's what's going on. Yesterday, I went in to see my doctor for my annual ultrasound and ABI test. It's the usual "patient in the dark" procedure - the technician globs some gel on an ultrasound wand, gets readings at various spots in your body while furiously typing into a computer, then hands you a tissue and sends you on your way. Sometimes, I never know what the results were, which is good, I guess.

Before I went into the ultrasound room, however, my doctor talked to me about my weight.

"It's not good," he said.

"I don't know why," I said. "I work out five days a week now, plus basketball on Saturdays."

"Uh-huh," he said, looking down at my chart. "I think I'm going to start you on Ozempic."

This threw me for a loop. I'd heard good things - rapid weight loss - and bad things - gallstones, diarrhea, burps that taste like rotten eggs, lesions, and even something called "Ozempic face" where the elasticity of the skin on your face doesn't keep up with your weight loss.

Ozempic face.

"It's worked really well for other patients," he said. "Just a needle in your belly once a week."

Yuck.

As I was driving home, I got a text from the CVS telling me that the Ozempic prescription was pending insurance approval. For once, I was rooting for the cheapskates at Cigna to put a kibosh on this strategy.

I started canvassing my friends and family about my doctor's plan, and they were pretty uniformly against it.

"Um, no, dad," Sarah said.

"You need a new doctor," Josh said.

"You know that the way it works is by making you so sick, you have no appetite," my friend Elizabeth told me. "That's no way to live."

When I told Art, both of his eyebrows went up, an extremely rare occurrence. 

"I think it's a bad idea," he said. "You just need to commit to better choices. You want me to start making your dinner?"

As tempting as that was, I couldn't impose on him. I could bankrupt him, the way I eat. 

He then told me to eat lots of fresh vegetables, eat smarter proteins, and start drinking water instead of Diet Coke.

He also told me to get back on the 500 calories of cardio a day plan. "You have 400 calories left today," as he pointed to the treadmill at the gym.

When he told me that, I had just finished a workout with Sarah (a new and happy development for the summer) and she gave me a subtle stink-eye about having to stay any longer at the gym than necessary. So I told Art we needed to get back home, but that I would do it that night.

"Uh-huh," he said. "How do I know you'll do it?" He knew the non-existent value of my promises regarding self-directed exercise. 

"How about this?" he said. "If you don't do it, you pay for your partners' workouts for next week."

Not being made of money, I respectfully declined.

"Okay," he countered. "If you don't get your 400 calories in tonight, you walk a half-marathon with me this weekend."

Having "walked" with Art before, I knew that 13.1 miles would be three hours of aches, chafes, and blisters at a pace that would melt the soles of my shoes. Plus, it would be three hours in early Houston summer, where the morning "breeze" would be slow-roasting me like a pig on a rotisserie spit.

"Sure," I said, precisely because I knew it would make me go.

So, when I got home, I worked a little on my book, then I went outside and power-washed the sidewalk in front of my house. (Side note: there is nothing more satisfying than etching grime off of concrete and exposing the clean white surface underneath. After I was done, I went outside three times to admire it again and again.)

After that, I was wiped, but the prospect of Art's walk loomed over me. So I took a shower to get the grime splatter off of my legs, then laced up my shoes and walked in the dark until I got the calories in. Then I showered again, and slept the sleep of the righteous.

I am eating right, exercising more, and looking over my shoulder, trying to outrun the Ozempic vampire.

Onward.

P.S.    Here's a recording of my weird new dog Frankie. For a small dog, his bark seems to come from a deep, dark place in the depths of his old dog soul. He may be the best burglar deterrent I have ever owned. 

June 5

Hi!

I’m writing this from the balcony of the Houston House of Blues, waiting for one of my favorite bands to take the stage.  I’m here alone because it’s hard to explain to my friends how much I like this band without getting one of those looks.

“Toad the Wet Sprocket?”

“Yeah. They did ‘Walk on the Ocean.’ You’d know it if you heard it. No? ‘Fall Down’? ‘All I Want’? No?”

“What, do they perform in frog outfits? Are they some kind of art collective? Toad… the Wet Sprocket?”

Sigh. Even my wife begged off. Sometimes it feels like being Joe Schlabotnik’s only fan.

Anyway, what I feared at the beginning of this quest has come to pass - it’s now HOT. 

The additional complication now is that about a week ago, I had my face peeled off with a dermatological procedure called photodynamic therapy. It was to clear a bunch of pre-cancerous keratoses from my face, in lieu of freezing a bunch of individual spots.

I was told to be much more careful being out in the sun while my face heals. So, I have been - lots of sunscreen and couch-lounging, waiting for the danger to pass.

So when Art asked me why I hadn’t made any new entries in a while, I told him that I was following doctor’s orders.

He arched an eyebrow.

“Don’t you have a treadmill?”

“Yes, but it’s out of order. I need someone to tighten the belt and lube its joints,” I said.

“You know, you can get a new treadmill,” he said, arching the other eyebrow.

“I could,” I said, “but I won’t.”

Here’s what I know about treadmills: you buy one with the best intentions, and then they eventually (and inevitably) become a really expensive laundry rack. It’s why my old treadmill is in the garage - Lisa challenged me to tell her when I’d used it last, and I couldn’t remember.  And when I turned it on, the belt was sliding under my feet (a very vertiginous feeling, kind of like that scene in the opening credits to “The Jetsons”):

It also started making a funny smell as it ran, which could have been friction, or the accumulation of sweaty bacterial sweat from when I used to use it.

But all it needs is a tune-up, and after my son’s move-out last month, we have room upstairs to store it. It may take some spousal convincing, however, since she has a Plan for the upstairs that probably does not include featuring a decrepit treadmill in the middle of one of the rooms.

Anyway.

I am still committed to getting into half-marathon shape by next January, so this morning, I took the bull by the horns (brief aside: Who takes a bull by the horns? That is an idiotic idiom, and should really denote someone who wants a painful death, which now that I think about it, is kind of appropriate when talking about getting into half-marathon shape in June.  End of aside.) and I took a 4.5 mile walk at a clean 16 minute pace. Aside from some chafing, which I should have prepared for, it wasn’t so bad after a long layoff. And then an hour later, an hour with Art, doing arm exercises at the gym.

Tomorrow, the same, except that I will be working out at the gym with my daughter! So great - except that tomorrow will be working out the quads, which is kind of the worst for a first gym workout with a trainer.  Lots of squats. I hope Art will be kind to her.

The next couple of months will be pretty important to how the rest of the year goes. I play in the Main Event of the WSOP in July, I’m still working on my ethics book, and I need to start laying the foundation for 13.1 miles in January.  No more procrastinating.

Last thing: we have a new family member. We adopted a 12-year-old dog whose owner is in hospice care. He is every single day of his twelve years, with an apparently benign mass in his chest, a leaky eye, some patchy fur, and long claws that click on the floor. But how can you not love this old man, especially the way his paws splay out?

Onward.

May 6

I got tired of the "Day X" convention, so now this blog will update you on the dates that I train.

I am at a crossroads now - it's getting late in the spring and the weather is getting progressively more hot and humid.  The weather's been good for my herb garden - I have been harvesting basil (which seems to be one step removed from a sturdy weed, hard to kill) as well as my first two jalapenos, which I promptly pickled and stored in a glass jar in the fridge, where they glare at me every time I open the door, daring me to use them in something, and not promising that they won't set my mouth on fire.  I have lunchbox sweet peppers, thyme, rosemary, sage, and Italian parsley as well.

But the weather is going to make it harder for me to leave the house. I have a treadmill, but it's about thirty years old and needs some maintenance. Plus it's just hard to go for long in one place without feeling like a gerbil on a wheel.

That all said, the decks are clearing - I won a big case last week, which takes that off my docket, and I don't really have anything else coming down the pike. This means that my only priorities now are:

• Writing my book.
• Preparing for the World Series of Poker Main Event (I qualified for an entry last week).
• Getting fit.

I took a big step in that direction on Saturday when I "ran" a "5K" with Art and his daughter. I say "ran" because it was mostly walking, and I say "5K" because it took about a half-mile to get to the starting line and another half-mile to get back to the car, so we really went about 4.5 miles or so.

I felt good, no aches and pains - just the usual old age and heaviness keeping me firmly on the ground instead of gliding like I prefer. The company was GREAT - Art's daughter Everly was doing her first race ever, and I was honored to be a part of it. I told her stories about my dog, Penny, and we raced from point to point to keep her mind occupied, and she finished AHEAD OF ME. A four-year-old prodigy!

I am so proud of her, and a little bit proud of myself.

Onward!

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!

 

Day 110

I wasn’t able to keep the streak alive - Saturday morning basketball took it out of me (and for what it’s worth, I was playing at a pretty high level, hitting most of my mid-range shots, bullying defenders in the post, and even hitting a three) - but I made up for it on Sunday.

It was a nice day, about 80 degrees and a cool-ish breeze, when I left Lisa planting flowers in the front yard. I cued up my Garrison Keillor book to listen to more humorous ruminations on aging and death and, for the first time, took a right at the three mile intersection instead of heading back the way I came.

This was a brave new world for me. I kind of knew where that road would go, but from my old marathoning days, I also knew that roads sometimes go in unexpected ways and you can find yourself WAY out of your original course. The difference between then and now, however, is that I have a phone that tells me how to get back on the right path, and I have a phone that can summon help if the remaining path is too long.

(Side note: I went to play with my Sunday blues band, and about five miles from home, I realized I’d forgotten my phone. Ooof - I felt naked without that security blanket in my hand, but I was already late to practice and couldn’t turn back, and I kind of wanted to see how it would go without my Good Friend. Turns out it was okay: I found my way to the practice site without needing Apple Maps, I faked my way through the songs we played without using the chord charts on my phone, and I didn’t miss any important calls. Still…)

Garrison held my hand through the walk with his shambling baritone storytelling. The main plot in this new book is his reconnection with a woman he’d loved as a small town teenager who is now dying of pancreatic cancer. Fun! But it actually is very sweet, as he recalls his first love and the uncomplicated emotions it awakens at an age when that’s all you need and that’s all that matters. As she declines, he visits her and she asks him to tell her a joke. “Make me laugh,” she says.

He tells three jokes. One that I’d heard him tell before, one that wasn’t that funny, and one that made me laugh out loud on the road. That one goes:

A guy is ice-fishing with his friends when they see a funeral procession passing the lake on the road to the cemetery. The guy puts down his rod, stands up, takes off his hat, and turns to give respect to the procession. One of his buddies says, “That was very classy.” The guy responds, “It’s the least I could do. We were married for 35 years.”

I told that one to Lisa and, to her credit, she laughed out loud too.

As I finished my sixth mile, I knew where I was - about one and quarter miles from home. I was at a good stopping point in the book, so I switched to a running playlist on my iTunes, and the Stones launched into “Rip This Joint.” If you can’t run to that song, you can’t run at all.

So I ran. And at a pretty good pace.

According to my splits, that seventh mile came in at 10:02! I didn’t think I could run a ten minute mile at all, much less after walking six miles. But there it was.

When I got home, I was tired, but the good kind of tired - out of breath, but not hurting (except for my pinky toes, which had taken a beating). I needed a cold shower, but then I remembered that I have a pool! Who swims in February?

Me! It felt great, and it probably did a lot of good for my muscle recovery, like hopping into an ice bath.

And if my face looks red in that picture, it must be a bad photo filter.

When I sent my splits to my workout buddies, Art was not happy that I’d run a mile. “If you want to push yourself harder, find a bike,” he texted me.

I have a bike, and I will probably start using it. But running a ten minute mile did more for my self-esteem than 30 miles on a bike. More, please!

Day 108

Yesterday was my third day in a row on the road, and a good one. I walked eight miles and averaged just under 16 minutes a mile.

It was a mid-morning walk in strangely warm weather, given the time of year and the overcast conditions. At that time of day, the sidewalks pretty much belong to healthy retirees, moving at a comfortable pace, smiling as you pass them.

I am retired myself, but I have been reluctant to embrace the label “retiree.” Don’t get me wrong - if I can get ten percent off my tab at Denny’s for being a senior citizen, I’ll claim it, but I don’t think of myself as being in that demographic yet.

Over dinner at a Thai restaurant tonight, I told Lisa why I wasn’t there yet.

“I feel too good to be this old,” I said. “I keep expecting to start getting lumbago, or sore hips, or the Heartbreak of Psoriasis. But I move fine, and the gray in my beard doesn’t bother me.”

She nodded. “Me too. I feel more like … I don’t know, like mid-thirties,” she said.

So do I. I know I’m not - my kids and my nephew Andrew make sure that I don’t forget my age - but my mind feels clear and agile, my disposition still sunny and optimistic, like I’ve felt since my salad days.

Lisa threw some cold water on my attitude, however.  

“You know we’re only five years or so until things start going south, right?”

Yeah, I guess. But when we got home tonight, she started playing old songs by classic acts - the Brothers Johnson, Boz Scaggs (such a great name), Phil Collins - and we rocked out like we were kids.

Anyway, the walk yesterday was uneventful - two hours wandering my neighborhood, listening to the new Garrison Keillor novel (he has a very companionable voice for a long walk, and the book is about mortality and aging, which seemed appropriate), interrupted periodically by phone calls with my clients.

When I got to almost eight miles, I looked at my Apple Watch and saw that my pace was 16:01. Not today, I thought, and I ran the rest of the way in, lowering my average to 15:58. Ha!