Injuries=not fun

Too bad I haven't posted for awhile: I was in the last mile of a run
two Thursdays ago and my left calf started to tighen...quickly. So I
began to try to "walk it off" and then jogged a bit, and the shuffle.
Not fun.
I've stopped the training to rest the calf and it's still a bit tight.
Bummer.

Boys weekend party

Temp: 25 f, wind: 15 (feels like: 4)
Run: 8 miles
Afterward: Fairly well after longest run
Listened to: John Grisham's The Broker (Chapter 28-30).
Lori is partying with college friends in Indy so for the next 28 hours, it's boys weekend. My run went well. I'm trying not to do the "30 min run, 1 min walk" thingy that I've done for the past 4 marathons. Instead, I'm trying to build endurance and run straight through. Today went well as I was able to complete the longer run with no walking (except to cross 15).
Today will be cool with the boys. Evan made a schedule for today with times for the weekend's activities (his mother would be proud).

Kasparov loses, wins, retires

Weather: 18 f, 8 mph wind (ssw) "feels like": 8 f
Miles: 4 (at MP)
Route: the loop
Afterward: fine...just fine.
Listened to: John Grisham's The Broker (Chapter 26-27).
I was going to write how Topalov beat Kasparov at Linares in the last game of the tournament (Kasparov still wins), but in my searching for Topalov's name, I happened upon this shocking news from Chessbase:

Breaking news: Kasparov retires from professional chess
10.03.2005 The winner of Linares and the world's strongest chessplayer, Garry Kasparov, has just announced his retirement from professional chess. His games in Linares are the last in his professional career, that has spanned thirty years, with twenty on the top of the ratings list. Full details to follow.

I'm going to have to let this one sink in.

Tuesdays are for fartlek

Weather: 20 f, 15 mph wind (s) "feels like": 4 f
Miles: Speed work--Good ol' fartlek
Route: Usual 3 miles
Afterward: Good and loose.
Listened to: John Grisham's The Broker (Chapter 23-24).
Yep. This week begins speedwork, so now I'm up to running something 6 days a week. To fartlek was probably the better way to introduce speed work to my routine and in a way, helped get some of the kinks in my legs. Fun to fartlek.

Spring is here...for 6 hours

Weather: 54 f, 2 mph wind (s) "feels like": 52 f
Miles: 4
Route: The usual "to the market to the dam to the post" run
Afterward: Good run...a bit tired.
Listened to: John Grisham's The Broker (Chapter 20-22).
Very warm and later today it dropped down to 20 f ....Ah, I love being a Hoosier!

Back in the Saddle again

Weather: 34 f, 2 mph wind (s) "feels like": 33 f
Miles: 4
Route: The usual "to the market to the dam to the post" run
Afterward: Good run...been off for almost a week
Listened to: John Grisham's The Broker (Chapter 16-17).

I'm back in the saddle again, out where a friend is a friend.
Where the lowly cattle feeds on the lowly jimson weed.
I'm back in the saddle again.
I'm ridin' the range once more, totin' my old forty-four.
Where we sleep out every night, and the only law is right,
I'm back in the saddle again.

I haven't run since last Saturday because of the flu; nice to be back out again.

Kasparov is leading at Linares

Most you need to know that Garry Kasparov is leading at the midpoint of this year's Linares.
Having established that fact, since Christmas, my older son has started to play chess with his father. (Yes, it is what it appears to be). Some father's play catch with their sons... go camping with their sons... watch Sponge Bob Squarepants with their sons...I have waited for this day for a long, long time.
In fact, I thought we were going to start early.
When he was 3 years old, my son and I played our first game...well, began our first game.
Here's the proof:

The game sheet would look something like this:
Son: Nf3 (very cool that he moved the Knight correctly...very, very cool!)
Dad: e4
Son: @#$%$ (he got tired of the game and proceeded to clear the board)
1/2-1/2
Life is good when your son wants to play chess with you.

A Week of "offness"

It's at this point where a writer gets a bit annoyed: an entire week of vacation--no writing, no blog, no...eeeekk! I'm a failure.
Okay, angst aside, we continue the story:
Last week's runs were regular (okay, that's an amusing little sentence, isn't it?). Weather was decent and the runs were strong. I'm through Chapter 14 in The Broker and like the other Grisham novels that I've read or listen to, it's been nice company.
Last week also brought to close the end of the 2nd trimester with finals and last minute "What's my grades" from students.
Sunday came, and the body reminded me of Multability and I was down with the flu for 2 days. I still played Sunday a.m. and started the new trimester Monday, but did a lot of sleeping during the day and quite icky sleeping during the night. Much waking, little serious REMs.
Poop!
(Don't let my son see that word, okay?)
I'm bummed about missing two runs within 4 days, so hopefully tomorrow will be some nice icing on the cake (not in a "MacArthur Park" kind of a way, just as long as it doesn't take too much time to get back in the groove.==>confession...I only used the "icing" reference because I thought it would be cute to include an obscure reference and seeing how I've already mentioned the song in an earlier post, it would seem to the ordinary reader that I have lots of time to rehash the same thing over and over again).
I digress.
My neighbor's daughter died yesterday after a 2 1/2 year battle with cancer. Beautiful girl, incredible struggle, and ... what do you say at a point such as this? She was in hospice care and her mother has carried on an honest wording of the season in their lives via a blog. I suppose I am reminded again of being human and it's limitations. I continue to drive by their house in the mornings and evening trying to imagine how different their world is from my own. Peace to you, hurting souls.
My mind has been looping the line from Tennyson's poem, "Ulysses":
"I am a part of all I've met"...but I will copy and paste via really cool combo key-stroking the passage around it...enjoy:

I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this grey spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
(lines 19-32)