1. A pretty decent beer (though pretentiously calling itself a wheat ale was a hurdle for me to get over)

2. Admittedly, a low one,

3. Because I got over it pretty easily

4. A song

5. From the fifties

6. Not that I remember the fifties or anything

7. A baseball pitcher named John Odom

8. Who received that nickname in the minors because he brought a record player on the road

9. And his teammates got sick of listening to that song over and over

10. (He was pretty good pitcher)

11. I am remembering him with the A’s, but I am not positive

12. A full moon

13. But the second one in the same calendar month

14. Which happens about every two to three years

15. Because a lunar month (one revolution) doesn’t take a whole calendar month

16. If it did then we would have a lunar calendar

17. Like the Jewish or Islamic calendars

18. (See, they can get along, and there is hope for peace in the Middle East)

19. Tomorrow

20. Take a look

21. No, it won’t look blue

22. Or any other unusual color

23. The name is a reference to a popular almanac which used colored inks to print astronomical events

24. At least that’s the reference which makes the most sense to me

in Gordland.

I didn't really mean to let two weeks go by since that last (pitifully short) entry. Just busy. Second lame excuse? My back has been bothering me (except when I run, go figure), so sitting in my blog chair and typing has not been leaping to mind as a favorite activity when I do land briefly at home with some free time.

I saw a chiropractor for the first time ever yesterday morning. I have a sort of dull ache in one leg which gets worse if I sit still, but better if I walk. I think the sciatic nerve might be involved, because I don't know anything about sciatic nerves other than they run through the legs and sometimes hurt.

We have to fly to Europe (Amsterdam) in less than two weeks, and the thought of sitting on a flight for several hours caused me to give in and listen to spouse's sensible request that I actually decide to do something instead of sitting around hoping to get better. (This "strategy" is referred to in the medical literature as "wait and see," which I think sounds so much better than what my spouse calls it ("Not doing ANYTHING about it").

About two years ago I injured my back (sneezing) (no, I am not making this up) and all I did was walk around the block. Each day I walked a few more times, and also a little faster. Eventually I was back to running (gingerly) and never did see a health-care provider. This caused consternation in Gordland. But then I read an actual article in a reputable magazine (the only kind I read)(usually) that said that walking around slowly, and gradually increasing activity, judging by how you feel, is better than taking drugs or having back surgery for acute lower back pain. So, HAH! I thought to myself. I left the article where a certain beautiful spouse was sure to stumble across it.

After she slipped on the magazine and hurt HER back, she, of course, wanted to see a health-care provider. (OK, I admit I am now making things up. She didn't slip on the magazine, I just had to read the article aloud. With a look of smug satisfaction.)

After seeing the chiropractor I started to feel better in the evening. Plus, I took Ibuprofen. Hence the blog entry.

Please don't feel sorry for me or send home remedies my way.

To all Space Moms:

Thanks for all you do,

all you have done,

and all you will continue to do (they just don't go away, do they?)

to make our world a better place.

gord

Big moments coming up real soon around our place.

We have three sons, and two of them will be graduating this spring, middle son from a major midwestern university (tomorrow) and youngest from high school ( a couple more weeks). So, naturally, just as you might expect, beautiful spouse is washing glasses tonight.

I'll hazard a guess that you are picturing wine glasses or cocktail glasses, aren't you? Graduation parties . . . company coming . . . the clinking of toasts, perhaps. But, no. She is very busy washing eyeglasses. Eyeglasses that have been standing around in our garage in giant black plastic bags, eyeglasses that were donated years ago to the Lion's Club, through the hardware store where my Dad had his second career.

When he passed away (8 years ago) he left several giant bags of eyeglasses in his garage. No one knew they were there until last summer when my Mom sold the house and moved to her new townhouse. We inherited the giant bags of discarded eyeglasses, and couldn't bear to throw them away. After all they had been donated to help people in need. (He was in Lion's Club). But nowhere that takes donations of eyeglasses really wants enormous giant quantities of them. Even Goodwill wouldn't take them. Lions Club would take them, If we drove them (or shipped them) to their disrtribution center in Indiana (so far east, it's practically in Ohio). So they have been in our garage for the past ten months.

But then spouse found someone who would take them! Of course, they are rather filthy, what with eight years in garages. But not anymore. They are nice and clean now.

And oh so fashionable, as you can imagine, I'm sure. Most of them will end up in Third World villages where fashion is not the utmost concern anyway. So, our garage is emptier, people will see more clearly, and the world will be better.

Plus there'll be two more graduates out there.

Today's entry is going to be a lot about running. So if you're NOT into running? You just might want to read this, because it's going to give you several additional reasons to say to any running friends, "THAT'S what I'm talking about!"

(If you ARE a runner, here's what you want to know. 2:05.)

While writing this piece any stray random keystrokes will be attributed to the weighty medallion hanging around my neck and dangling suspiciously close to the keyboard. Don't get any ideas. I didn't win or place or anything. All it says is "Finisher."

You could give those out at funerals.

The graphic on the medal shows a steam locomotive in silhouette crossing a green prairie with a golden sunrise behind it. Significant. Because I do feel like I was run over by a train.

The race started innocently enough. I got up early, had plenty of time for coffee and getting ready (pin on numbers, double tie shoes, decide to pull socks over my hands as throw-away makeshift gloves, drive to the trail, warm up with a light jog, head off into the woods about seven minutes before the start).

But as soon as we started jogging away from the starting line I knew I was in trouble. The wind would be with us for the first half of the race. Yayyy! Of course you know what that means for the second half.

I was armed with a master plan developed over months of serious treadmill preparation. I was going to run each mile at a predetermined pace, a pace just quick enough to earn myself a neat little walking break every other mile. All I had to do was look at my watch, and stay on pace.

My first little snag was that without batteries watches don't work as well. My running watch has been dead for over a year, but two weeks ago I had a jeweler put in a brand new battery. No use taking any chances with some discount store counter help.

That battery went dead eight days later. So I was wearing my regular watch. The one with the sweep second hand and no Stopwatch function. But still, I should have been all right, because they actually had time clocks on the course at miles 2, 4, and 6, which doubled as miles 7, 9, and 11 on the way back. So I should have been fine, except that the time clocks were WAY OFF!

At Mile 2, when I should have been earning myself a nice little two minute walking break, I only got to walk for thirty seconds. You want to know what a 30 second walking break feels like. OK, imagine this: you're just . . . there, it's over!

I was expecting a two minute walk beak. During a two minute walk break you can write novels in your head. You can go to your mental beach (mine's in the Caribbean, less jet lag). A two minute walk break is enough time to visualize yourself using a PortaPotty. Not enough time to actually stand in line to use one. But it's all about visualization. The visualization exercise is one of the key ways that champions get ready for Peak Performance, which was a major handicap for me the whole way of the race. All the peak performers were on their way back to the finish line before those of us further back could even get to the halfway point. And some of them were smiling.

At the starting line I had scoped out the crowd and picked out where I thought I would fit in. Those people wer chugging along with me until the two mile mark, which included the first water station. I have learned that it's best to walk through the water stations. That way a few drops of the precious liquid make their way into my mouth. The other choice, namely jogging through the water station, results in dousing my shirt front. This can be cooling, but is less nutritious.

Each time that I walked for a minute I found myself trying to catch up with "my crowd." After about five or six miles I had a new crowd. They looked a little more like me than I would care to admit. A lot of people who think of themselves as runners. Even though no one else really does. Well, I kept up with my new crowd until about mile ten or so. Then I passed them up, I outdistanced them, I left them choking on my dust.

That lasted about fifteen meters. Then I chugged into my new place in line, finished the mile, took a walk break, heard them crunch on by me, and watched them fade into the scenery of the trail. Now I had a new "new crowd." These were the handicapped, the true water buffalos of the savannah. I recognized them from the last Half-Marathon I ran three years ago. In fact, I think one or two of them were still finishing.

The terrible thing about looking around during a long race is that every single person you see, no matter how pathetic or deranged they may look, no matter how awful their foot strike pattern, or how badly their shorts fit is, by definition, AHEAD of you!

This can be demoralizing.

At the Mile 11 marker (two miles to go) I saw the time clock. They still hadn't corrected the obvious error! Only 16 minutes to go if I was going to break two hours. You may be wondering, Can he run two miles in 16 minutes?

Well, thanks for asking. As a matter of fact, I can. It helps if they are the FIRST two miles, though, not the last two. I seriously intended to run those last two miles in 16 minutes. All I had to do was set the pace at 7.5 and crank it out. On a treadmill you just push the little button thingy, and "beep-beep-beep" you just increased your pace to the necessary point.

Trail running is a lot different. To increase your pace you have to pass people up, the same people who just passed you up when you took your walking break. This represents a serious obstacle. Because if you pass them up, and then you never see them again, all is fine, but if you pass then up and then get tired and they pass YOU up again, you know they are motivating themselves by watching your own sorry ass dropping along the trailside.

So I kicked it into gear.

For about a half mile, then I tried to maintain that, but by Mile 12 (just ONE more to go) I had to walk a bit, because there was a serious hill. Actually, it was a little bridge, the same one we had sailed over without noticing when it had been stationed at Mile 1, but now that it was sitting along Mile 12, the race organizers had decided to replace the original gentle slope with an enormous cliff that goes straight up, and straight down. For no apparent reason. I still don't understand why they would do that.

I was feeling a little nauseous. I was thinking to myself, "Is it better to get sick on the side of the trail on the left or on the right?" There's no clear ruling on this in any of the runner's literature that I have read. So I decided to slow down. Then I decided to walk. Walking during the last mile is like admitting defeat. Plus, all of the truly lame and injured people who you just passed are now passing you. Some of them are wearing Major Leg Braces, as if to say, Yeah, I was in the hospital until yesterday, but I'm still beating your ass!

It's something of an indignity. But not as much as throwing up along the trail, I decided. With about a half mile to go I started jogging again. At this point I was feeling more encouraged. People were cheering (many of them were the race organizers who wanted to clean up and go home as soon as everbody was off the course). Then the impossible happened.

They threw in ANOTHER MILE! Just for the heck of it, some jerk decided to take the last tenth of a mile, and make it an entire extra mile. With no warning. You're just loping along, getting to the Mile 13 marker, and expecting it to be right by the finish line, and there, way off in the distance, with cheering people looking the size of ants, is the actual finish line!

I seriously think that the whole 13.1 thing has got to go! They should just say, Thirteen Point Way-Too-Much, and be done with it.

Beautiful spouse was at the finish line waiting for me. That was nice, except she looked all clean and comfy. If she really wanted to show support, why wasn't she wearing a gritty, sweaty T-shirt and looking like she had just recovered from the train accident? I passed under the finish banner in 2:05:31, not too bad, but I missed my time goal, and also my PR. (For nonrunners, that stands for Perfectly Ridiculous, meaning faster than you have ever run before.)

They had cold water bottles. I grabbed one, then lay back on the grass. Which smelled like horses. You know what horses smell like? Well, this is how bad I felt. I DIDN'T CARE. I just lay there and performed my personal post-race ritual. I have a little mantra I use after every race (a lot of runners have mantras, though some prefer to call them gender-neutral-tra's) that goes like this,"Oh-my-God-I-am-never-doing-this-again."

They also had bananas. And bagels. With cream cheese. But no coffee. (My mantra changed to "No-coffee-are-they-nuts?") I was up off the grass by now, and beautiful spouse got me some goodies. They had picinic tables if you wanted to sit down. Did I say "wanted?" What I meant was, "Please, May all the powers of the universe grant me permission to cease standing on my feet." There was a fat lady snarfing down the runners' goodies, and hogging an entire side of the picnic table. I sat down on the very corner of her bench expecting she might make room. After a minute I swung my legs over to face the table anyway, said, "Excuse me." Then she finally moved over to let me sit. Then she goes' "Are you all right?"

I wanted to say, "Do I look all right?" I wanted to say, "I just ran thirteen frickin' miles. How about you?" I wanted to say, "Can I get you another bagel?" But I just said ,"No." Just to make her feel guilty for not moving over. Actually I was feeling better by then, feeling that, though running thirteen miles for no reason doesn't make a LOT of sense, sitting on a picnic bench watching OTHER people who ran thirteen miles probably makes even less.

So, take that, Bagel-Lady!

May's full moon, for obvious reasons, is The Flower Moon. And it is looking in full bloom tonight, though technically May 2 is the full moon.

The only other thing I will add is that if you like this one, just wait because there will be a second full moon (the so called once-in-a-blue-moon) at the end of May. I have a link at left for more full moon stuff (almanac link).