I was tagged by my good friend NBTR. Here goes:
1. How would you describe your running 10 years ago?
Ten years ago I ran my first race since high school (I was a JV harrier for two years). On a whim, my oldest son Jimmy, 12 at the time, and I ran in the 1998 Memorial Day Falls Church 3K Fun Run even though neither of us were runners. However, I had coached Jimmy's team in soccer (I hold a Series-D soccer coaching license) and conducted soccer workouts and basketball shootarounds with him. We finished in 18:48 (10:05) and were so proud of ourselves!
2. What is your best and worst run/race experience?
My best running experience is always my last run. Yesterday morning I did my last long run in preparation for the next Saturday's hilly Lake Tahoe Relay which I am going to run in as part of Bex's team. I did 11 miles in 1:36:25 (8:46), running six easy miles on the flat W&OD Trail in 49:16 (8:13), and five miles of hills in 47:09 (9:26) wherein I ran up every hill within a mile of my house.
My worst race experience was the December 2003 Tidal Basin 3K. Because it was the last race of the year, I started "reviewing" as I ran and began thinking about the endless litigation I was enmeshed in--her divorce filing in 2001 after she took our minor children out of state for "Spring Break," my lack of any visits in almost a year despite having full joint custody with standard visitation, the staggering legal bills with no end in sight--and for once, running wasn't a solace. Totally overwhelmed, I stopped to walk for awhile, practically crying.
3. Why do you run?
I feel like it. Almost always.
4. What is the best or worst piece of advice you've been given about running?
The best advice I was ever given was, Run early. That way, reasons not to run don't constantly crop up as the day progresses.
The worst advice is that advice which I give freely and for free. Remember what it cost. However, the following two pieces of advice reside on the Facebook profiles of two of my former running students, under their "favorite quotes" section and each is attributed to me by name: In order to run fast, you gotta run fast; and, If running were easy, it'd be easy.
5. Tell us something surprising about yourself that not many people would know.
During the 1972 presidential campaign, I ran a branch office of Staten Islanders for George McGovern. Tricky Dick Nixon's subsequent crushing victory in the election taught me everything I needed to know about the American populace. Therefore I wasn't surprised in 2000 or, especially, 2004.
There ya have it. I tag the next five readers who feel like doing the exercise.
Showing posts with label meme. Show all posts
Showing posts with label meme. Show all posts
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Seven.
I got tagged by my friends DC Rainmaker AND Jade Lady to come up with seven weird facts about myself that no one probably knows. Rainmaker is a longtime runner blogger (all right, he does some dark-side stuff too AKA biking) who is pretty accomplished, and Jade Lady is a newcomer to running blogging who is...pretty accomplished. (She also knows Shirley real well.) Okay, here goes.
7. I like number 7. Mickey Mantle's number. John Elway's number. When I was a boy, I used to hide two dollar bills in books on page 77, for later retrieval on that proverbial "rainy day." Why page 77? Because I could always remember it thanks to the then-current TV show 77 Sunset Strip.
6. The number of children my parents had. And no, we're not Catholic.
5. At one time all three of my sons wore number 5 at the same time for their select soccer teams. Jimmy was 5 on the McLean Sting, Johnny was 5 on the Arlington Force and Danny was 5 on the Arlington United Strikers. I had a little hand in getting those last two numbers assigned since I was the manager for the Force and the equipment manager for the US.
4. My social security number ends in 4. I like even numbers much better than odd numbers. It would be hard to get a social security number that was all even numbers, and I'm cool with that, but I was mightily pleased when my first two children got social security numbers that ended in even numbers. I was bugged when my last child got one that ended in an odd number.
3. The number of children I have. Although I was delighted with three boys, I always wanted a girl.
2. The number of children we had help in conceiving. We worked hard at it for a long time, you know, coming home in the middle of the day, that sort of thing, before we sought intervention in our thirties. Is it accurate to say that a child got conceived by a man with a cup in a stall in the men's room at a fertility center? I dunno, but those two look like me in many regards. The other child was definitely a surprise, at least to me. He looks nothing like me or anyone else on my side of the family.
1. I coached a team to first place in the recreational soccer league once. Danny's team, and Jimmy was an assistant coach and Johnny was an assistant to the coach on that team. This was harder than it sounds because we were a suburban team from Falls Church and we had to play urban teams from South Arlington with players who are immigrants from South America where they grow up with soccer and, apparently, they don't keep real accurate birth records. Some of those kids were shaving. And they were rough. The few times we got a breakaway going I winced because I knew what was coming. A brutal takedown from behind that was going to leave the kid writhing in the turf. But we went 7-1-1 one season and finished first. Danny was my rock on that team; booming kick, could score a little, pass a lot, and could and would go into goal.
Happy Birthday, Danny. I love you and miss you.
I tag...anyone who reads this and wants to continue the meme.
7. I like number 7. Mickey Mantle's number. John Elway's number. When I was a boy, I used to hide two dollar bills in books on page 77, for later retrieval on that proverbial "rainy day." Why page 77? Because I could always remember it thanks to the then-current TV show 77 Sunset Strip.
6. The number of children my parents had. And no, we're not Catholic.
5. At one time all three of my sons wore number 5 at the same time for their select soccer teams. Jimmy was 5 on the McLean Sting, Johnny was 5 on the Arlington Force and Danny was 5 on the Arlington United Strikers. I had a little hand in getting those last two numbers assigned since I was the manager for the Force and the equipment manager for the US.
4. My social security number ends in 4. I like even numbers much better than odd numbers. It would be hard to get a social security number that was all even numbers, and I'm cool with that, but I was mightily pleased when my first two children got social security numbers that ended in even numbers. I was bugged when my last child got one that ended in an odd number.
3. The number of children I have. Although I was delighted with three boys, I always wanted a girl.
2. The number of children we had help in conceiving. We worked hard at it for a long time, you know, coming home in the middle of the day, that sort of thing, before we sought intervention in our thirties. Is it accurate to say that a child got conceived by a man with a cup in a stall in the men's room at a fertility center? I dunno, but those two look like me in many regards. The other child was definitely a surprise, at least to me. He looks nothing like me or anyone else on my side of the family.
1. I coached a team to first place in the recreational soccer league once. Danny's team, and Jimmy was an assistant coach and Johnny was an assistant to the coach on that team. This was harder than it sounds because we were a suburban team from Falls Church and we had to play urban teams from South Arlington with players who are immigrants from South America where they grow up with soccer and, apparently, they don't keep real accurate birth records. Some of those kids were shaving. And they were rough. The few times we got a breakaway going I winced because I knew what was coming. A brutal takedown from behind that was going to leave the kid writhing in the turf. But we went 7-1-1 one season and finished first. Danny was my rock on that team; booming kick, could score a little, pass a lot, and could and would go into goal.
Happy Birthday, Danny. I love you and miss you.
I tag...anyone who reads this and wants to continue the meme.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Five things you need to know, five people you need to meet
I’m going to do a meme, whatever that is. I think it’s just a blogging version of - Tag You’re It.
I tried this once before without much success. Jeanne (Not Born To Run) cooperated, so I might as well tag her again. She has to post once a day for a month anyway because of Nablopomo, whatever that is. So she’ll undoubtedly thank me. Go read her blog. She’s brilliantly funny. (Aww, anyone who reads this knows that already.)
I got the idea from reading Irene in San Diego (Magazine Smiles). She likes Led Zeppelin and I’m going through a Man With Sticks phase right now (again). It looked like it would be fun. Besides, my parents got married in San Diego, in 1944. My Dad was a young Marine about to ship out for Peleliu and Okinawa, and my Mom was a defense plant plant worker. They met at a USO dance. She was hiding in the coat room when he was getting his jacket to leave. She was lonely and shy, having grown up in Yuma, Colorado, a small farming community on the plains. My Dad, OTOH, was cosmopolitan having grown up in Winona, Minnesota, a large town on the Mississippi River. She was 20, he was barely 19. They were together til death did them part 42 years later when he died of lung cancer. I was there when his life departed. He became addicted to nicotine from smoking the three cigarettes supplied in each K-Ration during the war. He came back from the war and taught her to smoke. She died of emphysema. Those were different days. Nobody stays married now and the kids suffer. (There. You just got a lot of free information. At work, I always tell new attorneys, never give out information for free.)
Here are the Rules:
• Link to your tagger, and post these rules on your blog.
• Share 5 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
• Tag 5 people at the end of your post by their names and links to their blogs.
• Let them know they are TAGGED by leaving a comment on their blog.
1. I was born in Connecticut. (I lived there all of six weeks.)
2. There were six kids in my family.
3. We weren’t Catholic.
4. I have three sons, all over 18.
5. I had never run a distance of more than seven miles at any one time when I did my first marathon, the Inaugural Baltimore Marathon in 5:05:20. (I told myself the whole last hour while I was walking it in that if I only could beat five hours, I’d never do another marathon. I missed my goal so I had to do fourteen more (and counting)).
Here are four more persons besides NBTR who are going to be mad at me.
cewtwo - why, how, what, where I run...
Dorine - she do run run
nylisa - Lisa's Running Journal
sunshine - best day of the year
I tried this once before without much success. Jeanne (Not Born To Run) cooperated, so I might as well tag her again. She has to post once a day for a month anyway because of Nablopomo, whatever that is. So she’ll undoubtedly thank me. Go read her blog. She’s brilliantly funny. (Aww, anyone who reads this knows that already.)
I got the idea from reading Irene in San Diego (Magazine Smiles). She likes Led Zeppelin and I’m going through a Man With Sticks phase right now (again). It looked like it would be fun. Besides, my parents got married in San Diego, in 1944. My Dad was a young Marine about to ship out for Peleliu and Okinawa, and my Mom was a defense plant plant worker. They met at a USO dance. She was hiding in the coat room when he was getting his jacket to leave. She was lonely and shy, having grown up in Yuma, Colorado, a small farming community on the plains. My Dad, OTOH, was cosmopolitan having grown up in Winona, Minnesota, a large town on the Mississippi River. She was 20, he was barely 19. They were together til death did them part 42 years later when he died of lung cancer. I was there when his life departed. He became addicted to nicotine from smoking the three cigarettes supplied in each K-Ration during the war. He came back from the war and taught her to smoke. She died of emphysema. Those were different days. Nobody stays married now and the kids suffer. (There. You just got a lot of free information. At work, I always tell new attorneys, never give out information for free.)
Here are the Rules:
• Link to your tagger, and post these rules on your blog.
• Share 5 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
• Tag 5 people at the end of your post by their names and links to their blogs.
• Let them know they are TAGGED by leaving a comment on their blog.
1. I was born in Connecticut. (I lived there all of six weeks.)
2. There were six kids in my family.
3. We weren’t Catholic.
4. I have three sons, all over 18.
5. I had never run a distance of more than seven miles at any one time when I did my first marathon, the Inaugural Baltimore Marathon in 5:05:20. (I told myself the whole last hour while I was walking it in that if I only could beat five hours, I’d never do another marathon. I missed my goal so I had to do fourteen more (and counting)).
Here are four more persons besides NBTR who are going to be mad at me.
cewtwo - why, how, what, where I run...
Dorine - she do run run
nylisa - Lisa's Running Journal
sunshine - best day of the year
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