The Adventures of Cowboy Hazel

Wow.  Long, long day.  So long, in fact, that you may be wondering why I’m sitting here writing instead of sleeping.  I’m wondering the same thing.  Best answer I can come up with is because I’ve been running around like a crazy person for almost 20 hours now and I can’t simply flip the switch off.  I need a little moment to relax first…

It started at 4:30 when the cell phone alarm pulled me out of a very interesting dream — I was on board one of those giant barges that take garbage out to sea in the middle of a giant storm. There were angry looking people with guns running around too. I can’t quite remember how I got there or what I was doing, but I remember being surprisingly unworried by all the commotion.

Anyway, I woke up, got out the door and headed over to the west side for a grueling run with Sarah. We did a mile warm up, then 4 miles at a 6:25 pace, then a mile cool down. Gotta love that near-P.R. pace run an hour before dawn… It was painful, but so worth it. Headed back, cleaned out my inbox, made some breakfast and then started working for real. Other than an hour-and-a-half journey down to the U.E.S. to run a couple errands, I was working solid for my client from before 9 am until a little after 11 pm. I have this huge project that I really wanted to get wrapped up before my long vacation. And, it’s looking like I just might make it…

So, my parents fly in tomorrow afternoon and then the longest vacation of my adult life commences. They’ll be here for a week and then my buddy Josh is up from Miami for another week. After tomorrow, no work for me until 2009! How cool is that?

My kid sister and I are running the 15K on Saturday and then, after that, I’m going to take the running pretty easy for the next couple weeks. I’ve already trimmed them a bunch — I have less than 30 in for the week! I think the rest will be a good thing, though. I’m excited about the 15K for a couple reasons: First, I’ve never run one before so I’m anxious to see if it ends up being closer to my 10K pace or half marathon pace. Second, it’ll be my sister’s first time running in Central Park and I’m so excited for her to have that experience. Finally, as a little extra bonus, because I’ll be sporting the number 343 again (I picked up my bib today). Last time I wore 343 was in Staten Island and I shattered my P.R. I’m hoping the number stayed lucky for me. As a side note, it cracks me up how consistent the NYRR bib numbers have been lately. In my last 5 races, I’ve been 337, 303, 343, 335, 339, and now 343 again. It’s a good thing I don’t have any qualms about the number 3!

Other than that, we’ll just be doing touristy stuff, I’m sure. Josh flies up Christmas day in time for the big dinner at my house (the first time I’ve ever hosted Christmas). My family leaves the 26th, then Josh and I are going on a road trip for a few days: We’re headed out to the Jets game in Jersey on the 28th, then west to Pittsburgh to meet a friend at a bar, then to Canton, Ohio to see the Pro Football Hall of Fame, then to West Virginia because it’s one of the 6 states that I’ve never been too and don’t have a shot glass from yet. Yippee!

Strange day.  It started at 7:45 with my obnoxious cell phone alarm going off very loudly and me not being able to track down the phone and having to listen to that godawful sound for what seemed like an eternity.  Finally I found it in my jacket which I had apparently tossed up into the loft when I got home last night.  (I tend to throw everything up there when I’m too lazy to put it away.  You can’t even see the floor anymore.)  After climbing back downstairs (my head throbbing with a hangover — I’m turning into quite the lightweight) and firing up the computer, I try to make a pot of coffee… but forget to add water.  A few minutes later and I wander back to the kitchen to find this horrible burning smell and was pretty sure I’d just ruined my coffee machine.  Eh…  I turned it off and went back to the computer which had finally started up.  I logged onto the Cherry Blossom Ten Mile Run site at 7:55 and found that registration had already opened 5 minutes early. I filled out the entire form, submitted, got a confirmation page and then nothing. It froze. Typical. So, instead of heading right back to bed as I’d planned, I ended up sitting at the damn computer for over an hour trying to resubmit the form over and over again. The site was slammed with traffic and kept freezing. Finally, a little after 9:00, I got my application to go through. But, by then, I had to start my work day which was tough to do because I never got a chance to go through my morning routine. And, I still didn’t have coffee.

Out of curiosity, I headed back to the site around noon and found that the race had already filled up! I looked at a couple of the race photos from last year and instantly saw why this is such a popular race — it is unbelievably beautiful.

Fast forward to lunchtime… I check the weather and see that it’s 38 degrees and it looks sunny outside so I decide to wear shorts on my run. It was chilly when I first walked outside, but I figured I’d warm up. I decided to try the Nike+ again, but it still wouldn’t work. (I’m officially considering it dead now and am going to just buy a stopwatch.) I headed out to my chunk of the East River and started running. About a mile into the run, I see a big, giant snowflake come crashing down from the sky. “No way, it’s snowing!” I was so excited. The snow continued to pick up, but I was running with the wind and it was beautiful. I was trying to run slow to help stretch everything out from this weekend, but I couldn’t help but speeding up just because I was so happy to be out in the beautiful weather. By the time I got to the park over the FDR, I was nearly sprinting. It felt great. But then, I had to turn around and all of the sudden, I was greeted with a barrage of snow crashing straight into my face. The wind was significant too and the snow continued to intensify. For most of the run home, I couldn’t even look straight ahead because it was so intense. Needless to say, I got a little cold here too, running in shorts. In the end, I made it home all right and, all in all, was very happy to have had the snow finally arrive. I hope that it lasts!

It seems like everyone I talk to lately is filling out applications for law school, or grad school, or some grant so they can study 19th century German philosophy in Berlin for a year.  Feeling somewhat left out, I decided to find something that I could apply for myself.  Here’s what I came up with: The Empire State Building Run-Up. I’ve actually been planning to apply for a while, but was waiting until yesterday because I had a hunch that my best 10K time would drop a bit. It did. Unfortunately, the rest of my application is still pretty weak. They wanted to know if I had been in any other cool competitions and I really haven’t. But, I have no idea how they figure out who gets to run so I figured it was at least worth a shot.

I was at my client’s office in midtown today so I decided to head over to there for lunch. When I reached 34th Street, I looked up at the towering building with a completely different set of eyes than I had ever looked at it with before. It seemed so much bigger, so much more intimidating now that I was thinking of running up to the top of it. Now, I look at it as an opponent, something that can be beaten. Man, I really hope they pick me! I really, really want to do this climb. (Although, if I do get picked, I have no idea how I’ll train. My house is only 4 stories and none of my friends live in buildings taller than 24. I’ll probably have to start going to a gym for a bit to work on a stair-master…)

I also spent a bunch of time today planning out other fun stuff to do in 2009. I bought my plane tickets for the trip home in May. This will be my sixth running of the Bolder Boulder and (as some of you know already) a special one for me because my dad has committed to breaking an hour on it. I’m going to be running along with him and pacing him.

I’ve also been on the lookout for a good 10 miler to run because it is a sore spot in my personal records. In my defense, the only two I ever ran were in tough conditions — one was at 9,500 feet elevation, the other was in Maine in February. Still, I’d love to have a smaller time sitting in that spot. So, I decided that I’m going to run the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler in Washington D.C. this April. Registration opens on Tuesday and I’ve already set 3 reminders so I make sure to get my application in before it fills up.

I decided to check the baseball schedule for while I’m down there and found that the Orioles are hosting the Yankees the day after the Cherry Tree! That was just too good of a coincidence to pass up so I bought tickets for that as well. (Actually, I bought tickets for 4 Orioles games because the only way to get opening day was to get the pack. I’ll either sell the other 3 or head back down there in May when the Yankees are back.)

So, it looks like I’ve got my trips for the year lined up already: Baltimore/D.C. in April (and maybe May), Colorado in May, Chicago in October (registration still hasn’t opened — does anyone know when it usually does?), and Miami whenever the Jets go down there next fall.

In the more immediate future, I have an eight mile run at 5:15 tomorrow morning, so I should probably go try to get some sleep. Good night.

~I’ve noticed that the structure of my thoughts tends to mimic the narrative voice of whatever I happen to be reading at the time.  Sentences are choppier now and often seemingly irrelevant (but carry deep underlying truths).  It’s such a shock on the system suddenly switch from early nineteenth century Russian to Don DeLillo.  I feel like I should have had some sort of a cushion in between.

~I was quite surprised when I looked at my running log today and saw I had 38 miles in for the week. Considering that I’ve done no long runs, that’s more than I expected.

~I nearly lost my left eye yesterday morning. We had just started our pre-dawn run and were crossing 96th Street when I ran full force into the branch of a tree. If I was an inch shorter, it would have been a very serious injury. As it was, I got a cut on my cheek that seemed bad at the time, but was hardly anything after I got home and washed the blood off. Still, it startled the hell out of me.

~Mr. Mouse is no longer with us. He got caught in one of the old-school traps on Wednesday night. Having that happen the same day as the bird incident was almost too much for me to handle. As someone who rarely eats meat and never eats eggs, knowing that I personally killed two animals in the same day was a tough burden to bear.

~Maybe I should get a cat as Marcy suggests. Then I could have it do the dirty work for me.

~After running into the tree branch, I made an even bigger mistake: I told my running partner that I thought I ran faster when I ran alone. She decided to prove me wrong. We ran six-and-a-half miles at a 6:51 pace. Considering we had done almost eight miles of intervals the previous day, that pace was, to put it mildly, strenuous.

~But it was along the Hudson River (where I hadn’t run for almost a month) and the scenery was completely unbelievable. The moon was hanging over the water and reflecting back to us in the crisp, calm water. It almost didn’t seem real. It was just too perfect. Like a postcard.

~Juxtapositions keep life interesting. On the last part of the run, we ended up doing hurtles over bags of trash that were blocking the sidewalk for two full blocks.

~Yesterday, I put up my Christmas decorations during my lunch hour. It wasn’t a lot, just my little fake tree and a string of lights that I strung up and down the pillars of my fireplace. I’ll probably pick up some stockings for the mantle too, but don’t have them yet. Today, I wrapped gifts and put them under the tree.

~I’m so happy to be hosting Christmas this year. Having my family out here is going to be wonderful. This will be the first time in four years I’ve spent the holidays with them.

~Continuing on in the holiday spirit, I pulled out an album of Christmas songs today and went to put it on the record player. It was only then that I noticed that it had never been opened before. I looked at the copyright date: 1979. For 29 years, this record has been floating around and no one ever listened to it. How crazy is that? It felt weird when I tore the cellophane off, almost like I was defiling some precious artifact. I can’t help but wonder about the life of that chunk of vinyl… Where did it travel along its journey from the factory to the nun who I bought it from? Why did no one listen to it? And, if they weren’t listening to it, why did they keep it?

~I threw away an old TV antenna today and a toilet flush valve kit and a University of Miami sweatshirt.

~Last night, I forced myself to go to an alumni holiday party down near Union Square. It was painful. The house it was in (which belonged to a fellow alumnus) was beautiful and everyone seemed to be having a good time. But I am the world’s worst mingler. If they gave out awards for being socially awkward, I’d have a whole case full of ‘em. Running saved me — After about an hour of floundering about, trying not to be too conspicuous with my awkwardness, I found myself in an engaging conversation with a Kenyan runner. I told her that I plan on running a marathon in her country someday. Eventually, that conversation waned too, though, and I decided to make an early exit.

~Actually, I plan on running a marathon in all 7 continents. Antarctica is the one I’m most excited about. But Africa is a close second.

~On my way to the party, I saw another man lying on the sidewalk. This one was on 116th Street near Lexington and had a huge gash on his face. There was enough blood that a crowd had started to gather.

~I have to do laundry tomorrow. I’m going to wake up early and get there before it gets too crowded. I planned on doing it tonight but got lazy and didn’t.

~When I finish that, I have a full day’s of work on the financial adviser’s site to do. But if things go well, I’ll be able to take most of Sunday off.

~Sunday morning is the Joe Kleinerman 10K. I’m so excited. On my list of things to accomplish before I die is running a 5K in under 20 minutes. I’ve never done it (officially). But, if I can come anywhere close to my performance on Thanksgiving, I’ll break 40 minutes on a 10K! I need a 6:26 pace. I had 6:07 on the five miler, so I think that’s a reasonable goal. My plan is to really focus on pacing. I want every mile to be within a couple seconds of 6:20.

~And, no TK, I won’t be wearing my Top 2% button. They haven’t finished making it yet…

~NYRR posted their calendar of races for 2009 and I realized that I’m not ready to leave New York. True, I want to save money and buy a house, but maybe I can put all that off another year. Or maybe I could move to the boroughs. Or get roommates. Or both. I just know that I want to do the full Grand Prix this year. And I don’t want to be moving that close to my marathon next year (Chicago is 3 weeks after my lease is up). And I’d love to run NYC while I still live here.

~I just wish I knew how this whole economic fiasco was going to pan out. If things keep going for my business the way they are, I can stay here no problem. But, I’m afraid thinking that way is being a little too optimistic. It’s so aggravating that this whole situation that is going to have a potentially life-changing impact on me was caused by forces completely out of my control. I was in no way a part of the problem, but I still am feeling the effects.

~Eh… That’s enough for now. Good night.

I killed a bird this morning. We were doing intervals around the Reservoir just before sunrise and came upon a bunch of sparrows. I didn’t break stride, assuming that they would fly away. Most of them did. One didn’t. There was this horrible squish and I said to Sarah, “I think I…,” and she said at the same time, “Yeah, I think you killed it.” I immediately felt sick. To make matters worse, we were only 4 miles into our run, so I had to run past the body two more times.

Last night, I was on my way back from the Nike store and walking past the bodega on my corner when I heard a man say into the payphone, “Hi, this is the undertaker, what time do you want me to arrive?” His hearse was double parked with the blinkers on.

Monday morning, I was walking down Madison Avenue on my way to my client’s office when I spotted an old man in a blue blazer lying on his back. There was a small crowd of firemen and paramedics around him, talking quickly and passing back and forth equipment. His jacket had gold buttons.

In the midst of all this, Mr. Mouse continues to taunt me. I added four sticky traps to the arsenal, bringing the total to twelve. He remains unaffected. To him, this is all a big game. He waits until I’m on the phone to come running out into the living room. He thinks that’s funny. I’m not amused.