One More Marathon

Let's just say the resting up from a marathon has continued beyond what was necessary.  I've been essentially lackadaisical in my return to running.  Two days after the marathon in the Twin Cities (3:59:02, thank you very much), I got out and did a few miles with the pooch, but since then . . . nada much.

But I'll come around again, and maybe once again I'll toe the line as in this photo from the Star Tribune.  Dillon Dwyer and I are visible just above the start banner to the left, him in a black shirt, to my right (your left) and me in a green shirt with a white hat.  Both of us appear to be looking down.  Anyway, that's us.

It was a beautiful day for a run there, and I enjoyed the heck out of the entire event.  I ran smooth and easy enough, with little niggling things that didn't amount to much in the way of sore legs, tender feet, and all.  Carrying some extra pounds was no help.  But that's the way she goes, right?

We'll see about next year.

Change is in the Air

There's no time like the fall.  Early fall, when the leaves still hang greenly from their treelimbs.  When each day grows shorter so sunset comes nudging up against the end of the day like a puppy who loves you more each night.  When morning too comes later and later, night expanding so darkness seems as though it might swallow the day.  It is the end of things.  It is the winding up of the season, the end of growth and the reminder that all things come to a close.

D and J Do Europe

The wife and I recently spent about five weeks in Europe.  Want to read about it?  Check out our travel blog here.
We had a great time, visiting seven countries (and setting foot in a couple more), tasting the fare, drinking the local stuff, and hob-knobbing with the natives.

Kent Meyers and "The Quietest Place in the Universe"

Congratulations to my fellow writer and long-time friend Kent Meyers, who teaches at Black Hills State University and has written several novels and other books. His essay, "The Quietest Place in the Universe," appears in the new issue of Harper's magazine. It's an amazing piece that wrestles with the complex issues of astrophysics and renders them poetic and compelling. Kudos Kent!

Kent Meyers (photo by Kent's wife Zindie Meyers)

My sense of Kent's writing goes as far back as seeing him reluctantly draw from the bottom of an office desk drawer his first publication--a poem in a book of poems collected by one of those "poetry contests" that profit from selling the collection to the proud recipients of letters of approval.  

I've seen Kent struggle through writing essays, stories, poems and trying to publish even romance stories of the sort you might read in Woman's Day.  But his persistence paid off, slowly, incrementally, until, suddenly, in 1998 and 1999, he had two books in print--The Witness of Combines, a collection of essays that he wrote over a period of 20 years or more, and The River Warren, a novel that describes horrific acts in a small town.  He hasn't looked back.  

Since then he has continued his writing and teaching career, winning awards and publishing consistently.  Congratulations to Kent.    

What Are You Saying, Dear?

I love this little film about how English sounds to people who don't speak English, or at least very little of it.

Das Biblio-mat

Ja, so I saw something like this in a little coffee shop in Fargo, ND, one time.  This baby is a one-off awesome machine that dispenses wonders like Wunnerful Wunnerful, the autobiography of Lawrence Welk, that happening music man.  Two bucks!  The little one up in Fargo dispensed, for fifty cents, a little book of poetry from a made-over cigarette machine.  So how many poetry book-dispensing cigarette machines do you find in the world?  My guess--just not that many.  Nor many Biblio-Mats.

More Progress

With a day that seems taken out of March, with melting ice and snow running in the ditch and down the driveway, it seemed a good day to take another step toward renewal and restoration.  So I put the leash on the dog and tied up my laces and hit the road again.
Oh, it's not easy, not by a long shot.
As I jogged down the road splashing through the melt, I felt like the young me again, but it was the young me that was climbing the steep hill up by Verendrye Monument in Ft. Pierre, a steep paved road that rose from the town and climbed so that a runner, even a young runner like me, fit and light, felt my heart throb in my chest like a slowly bursting bomb.
That's how the start of my run felt today.
But it got better.  I didn't pick up the speed any way, but I kept going.  Three miles worth.  That's enough.  A good day.

One Small Step

Okay, so today I committed once again to the running game, to getting some clothes sweaty with the effort of getting both feet off the ground at the same time, moving down the road at a steady pace.  I can feel the effect of that 2.7 miles on my quads, where the only work they've done is getting me up and down the stairs for the past two months.

I try to look forward, to look at the benefits of getting some miles in.  That's not easy when I think that I was in marathon shape just a short time ago and now I'm sporting some serious extra holiday baggage.  Looking back on that marathon, though, reminds me that all is possible.  My two companions--both first-timers--were fun to have on the journey, and they're both stronger having survived the long run.

Where was Andy?  Here's Dillon Dwyer and me at the start of a cool Twin Cities Marathon.  Andy Meyer also trained and ran with us, but we couldn't find him at the start!  

I'm confident, though, that I'll get there.  I'll be back at it.  My little Runkeeper app is a welcome companion in my efforts.

Today was a good day to get going again.  Warm, still, sunny.  Who could ask for more of South Dakota in mid-January?

House Project Progress

A colleague of mine mentioned that the photos of our nearly completed room look like a French New England mansion.  After taking some ribbing from his listeners for the odd combination, he insisted that the colors and finish of our dining room suddenly put the wife and me in some kind of elite "golden" status. See for yourselves.  We are just putting the final touches on it before we bring the furniture back in.

The wife and dog touching up paint. Compare this picture to the one below that shows the dark green trim and ornate wallpaper.  

Wallpaper, dark green paint, paneling, built-in plywood cabinets.  All gone.  

Still some paining to be done, but the corner looks a lot more inviting now than it did in the photo below.  

Those deep cabinets were good for storage, but they made the room and that passageway feel so small.  The doorway was like a little tunnel.  

Zoom in if you can and look at the floor in the corner to your right.  That seems to be an indication that there was once a doorway there as the fellow told us he remembered when his grandparents lived in the house.  Look below at my earlier post and you can see the outline of a former doorway.  

I found some cold air leaks that I was able to patch and make the room much warmer.  And that cold-air return?  A home-made remedy, courtesy of a 40 cent piece of expanded metal from the local metal recycler.  

We like it.  

Thanks go to our home's previous owners for saving so much woodwork and keeping the house in order.  They did a lot of work on the house themselves, and I hope they enjoy seeing the progress we make in turning it into our home. Thanks too go to DeLon Mork, whose gift of access to the old Mason's building in town gave us much of the woodwork and flooring that we used in the renovation of the room.