Tag: Blogs

Damn the Pain!

Damn the pain!

Yesterday’s five-miler started out great.  After the first warm-up mile, the second mile, without trying too hard, was 6:26.

My best “opening mile” since July 2007.

The “opening mile” is actually the second mile – the very first mile is simply a warm-up, in the 8-9 minute range.

Mile three is a “recovery” mile with slower jogging, three minutes of backwards jogging, some walking and stretching, etc. 

Mile four is designed to be the fastest mile of the five.  I use this for conditioning and especially for learning to gauge pace.  I mentally aim for a mile time, then study my 400, 800, and 1,200 split times to see how my pace is going.

I also try to run negative splits, meaning, the second half is faster than the first half.  Last month, a did a mile time trial, and clocked 5:38, with 2:53 and 2:45 splits.

I had juice left at the end, because I was running about 90%.  Going a full 100% felt risky, since I hadn’t run that hard in nealy two years.

Yesterday, however, at the mile four, I was excited.  But quickly became discouraged as the pain started right away and I couldn’t shake it.

Naturally, I backed off, and jogged the rest of the way, called Dr Wagner, my podiatrist and scheduled a 10:15AM appointment.

Now I’m back on Celebrex, and an anti-inflammatory heel cream.  I also delivered a script to my friends at Florida Hospital Celebration Health.  Electric-stimulation and massage therapy might be helpful.

I remain optimistic.  How can I not?  

Hope you have a great Saturday.  Carpe diem, jeff noel  🙂

World Class in Lane 8?

Can you become world class even if you’re stuck out in lane 8?

What do you think?

I think you can.

So every day, I wake up, and wonder, what would it take for an ordinary person to become extraordinary?

The way Rosa Parks dd.

The way Abraham Lincoln did.

The way Walt Disney did.

I’m acutely aware of how impossible can become possible, and more than that, how impossible can become “business as usual”.

I often say, “The road to excellence has no finish line”.

Well, there is a finish line in Track & Field.

I hope to make it in about 55 seconds.

Lane 8. Men’s 400 meters.  The 50-54 age group.  Finland.  August 2009.  The World Championships.

And, one other important point.  Lane 8, in the finals.

Ya with me?

Carpe diem, jeff noel 🙂

Blah, blah, blah?

Blah, blah, blah?

Nope.

Dream Big.  Get There.  Stay There.

That’s what Lane 8 is about.   Staying there.

Ran into a Father of my son’s classmate, at the gym yesterday.

I asked, “What motivates you”?

He replied, with an apparent wisdom, that he has found it more difficult, now that he’s almost 30, to stay in shape and keep his weight ideal.

Please forgive me for thinking this, but all I could think of was, “You really think that you’re going to stay fit and at an ideal weight for the rest of your life”?

“Dude”, I wanted to say, “You have no idea what is ahead of you, but I can predict one thing for sure.  If you think it’s hard now, imagine it 10 years from now, or 20 years from now when you’re almost 50”.

How do I know?

Because I turn 50 in three weeks.  I’ve got 20 years of “wisdom and mistakes” on him.  That’s how I know.

Wisdom comes from experience, and experience comes from making mistakes.

I should be the wisest man on Earth, eh?  Carpe diem, jeff noel 🙂

Slowest of the Fastest?

What does this metaphor, “The slowest of the Fastest” mean?

It means very simply this:

We have a choice every moment of every day.

To be positive, or, to not be positive.

Here’s one of life’s invisible truths:  Everybody is fighting a hard battle.  Everyone.  Even the people who appear, on the surface, to have a great (easy) life.

We all have a choice on how we live our lives.

There are two choices:

  1. To be the fastest of the slowest.
  2. To be the slowest of the fastest.

On our deathbed, if we are lucky (blessed) to have this moment, we can look back on our lives and say with a peaceful joy, “I gave it my best effort and have no regrets about what I could have, should have or would have done“.

Visit, or revisit, if you’re interested, the post that explains another metaphor, Lane 8 .

Carpe diem, because if you don’t, who will.  If not today, when?  jeff 🙂

You do the math!

Do the math?  What the?

Thirty to fifty?

Yep.

Thirty days until I turn fifty.

And, roughly 90 days until the prelims. 

Ten years in the making and it will be over, either side of 55 seconds.

Huge investment for such a short “performance”.

Decent run yesterday, and as the trend remains, intermittent pain all day.

Where could you end up ten years from today, if today was the first day you started exercising, and you didn’t stop for the rest of your life?

Carpe diem, my wellness-minded friends.  jeff 🙂

PS.  Tomorrow, I’ll post my son’s answers when I posed this question, “Do you think I should go to the World Championships?”