You know I really shouldn’t be writing right now. It’s late, I’m tired and I still have a ton of work to do. But if I grade one more paper tonight I’m going to go berserk, meaning that I’ll wind up yelling at the top of my lungs, meaning that I will wake up my whole family, MEANING that I will never go to sleep tonight. So, I’ll write instead, which will probably soothe me, and eventually send me to bed real soon (go ahead and argue that I could be in bed right now, but I’m committed to this and Robert Kudja is expecting this post tonight. He told me so. Who’s Robert Kudja, you say? Well, I’ll tell you… hey wait a second, you’re trying to make me lose my train of thought aren’t you… NICE TRY! I have thoughts to write down… an intro to Rob will have to wait!) Continue reading →
Here’s the first poem (albeit a short one) I’ve written in a long time, but it’s definitely pertinent, considering yesterday’s blog…
A MAN OF MY “WORDS”
Yesterday I said I’d write today
I’d write today, I swore
So today I wrote a little
And tomorrow I’ll write some more
Over the last few years I have actually considered myself a writer. Sure I’m not a published writer, but I feel like I am a writer nonetheless. If it was up to me, I would write every day. I don’t write more now because I find myself grading papers or working, or doing stuff around the house, or tending to the kids. Of course, then there is the time that I am running. I can’t write then either. I have found that if I run on a particular day, it is almost impossible for me to write, and vice versa (you guessed it, I didn’t run today). In a perfect world, I would do both. Damn, the imperfect world!!! But the truth is I love to write. And yes, I love to read what I wrote later on so I could see what my state of mind was at any one snapshot in time. But why did I start writing? What spurred me on to doing this? Continue reading →
Almost 19 years ago when I decided to be a teacher I knew that I wasn’t going to be a millionaire. I was OK with that. I always figured, though, that I would always have enough to simply live comfortably. For a long time it seemed that way, until very recently… when our fourth child was born… and gas prices went up, and the prices of everything else went up with it… and the economy fell apart… and the salaries for public school teachers came to an almost complete standstill meaning my wife’s salary has barely changed now for a few years… and home insurance premiums went up with my taxes, even while the value of my house went down. Suddenly this teaching gig didn’t looked so good. Continue reading →
The day came and went again. It seems that it’s always gone in a blink of an eye. It really is overrated you know, but it doesn’t stop me from looking forward to it every year. After Christmas it is probably the day that I most anticipate in the year. And really, for what? To remind me that I am a year older? To reinforce that I am getting closer and closer to eventually stop counting? (Trying hard not to say “death”… doh! I failed!) And yet I look forward to that day. Continue reading →
5 more days… that’s all that’s left. This Sunday at 6:10 am I will be running my third marathon. It’s going to be my first marathon here in Miami after two in Disney (two and a half actually since I did the Goofy Challenge last year). I am looking forward to running here in my own backyard. I am also looking forward to trying to improve on my time on last year’s marathon: 4 hours and 25 minutes. I’ve trained well. I worked hard. All my runs lately have been strong, consistently staying in the sub 9 min/mile range, something I was not doing the last two years. And yesterday I watched “The Spirit of the Marathon” to psyche myself up for the race. I should be ready… Continue reading →
TWENTY-EIGHTH LEG: Wency Ortega – 4.9 miles*
9:18 am – My run started simply enough. I had decided to not push myself too hard. I could have tried to go sub 8:30 for the almost 5 miles, but with a cough and no sleep, I chose otherwise. I would try to stay sub-9. I started running and after about a quarter mile I looked at my watch and noticed I was running at a 7:15 pace. Was I crazy? I would die trying to maintain that pace. It’s amazing what adrenaline will do. I forced myself to slow down and find a comfortable pace. I eventually settled at about 8:45 a mile. That felt good. Now, the sun was still really hot (it was 72 degrees, which to one who is not running sounds perfect, but when you’re body is warm, and mine never fully cooled off from my almost 12 miler the night before, it feels 15 to 20 degrees hotter. I was sweating profusely before reaching mile 1), and I was way too aware of it. I took water with me in case I got thirsty, but I didn’t think I’d need it. I didn’t remember the last time I had water in a 5 mile run. But one mile in my throat was desert dry. This was not going to be fun. I looked up. There was nobody in front of me to be seen. I would have no “kills” on this leg unless I sped up quite a bit. I didn’t look behind me. Continue reading →
TWENTY-FIFTH LEG: Javier Cuevas – 9.6 miles*
6:25am – OK so maybe I shouldn’t include the asterisk. I’ve always wanted to put one in something I wrote so that I could put a little footnote at the bottom. Truth is Javier may NOT have done 9.6 miles on this leg (others who ran it with a GPS measured it to be 9.2 miles, and still others will argue that Javi started about a half a mile to a mile in because Alex had overrun his leg), but he definitely earned the right to say that he did, since after all, he ran 2.5 miles extra the day before. So for all practical purposes, he ran 9.6 miles. Continue reading →
OK this excerpt’s even longer than the last one… But I think it’s good. Read on!
SIXTEENTH LEG: Wency Ortega – 11.7 miles
7:44 pm – The tough part about writing about the relay from your own perspective is that you have NO idea what’s going on in the van while you are running, no idea what your teammates are doing and saying. I’m a bit jealous at this point because I was so enjoying my van time, particularly the last few hours. Our conversations spanned all areas of life, from serious to funny, deep to trivial. I was enjoying being part of these conversations. For the next two hours though all the conversations would have to be without me. I would not be able to participate in this portion of the journey with my comrades. It was my turn to go on and run. My run would be particularly lonely, though, because unlike everyone else before me, I wasn’t going to be running into my teammates every 10 to 20 minutes. I was going off on my own. I was jealous of my teammates. Continue reading →
I take a moment now, to invite in a guest blogger. Javi wrote this to me and teammates after the race was over, and I found it to be an incredible account of an incredible moment for him. I asked if I could share this on my site, and he gave me his blessing.
Here we can see how a simple race can teach one so much about anything and everything, and how at the same time it can totally mirror life. We went in as a team of 6 in our van, working together, but it was the resolve of EACH INDIVIDUAL that made this whole thing happen. And it was Javi’s resolve that defined our race and our success. So with that I give you Javi’s thoughts, in tact. Please excuse the harsh language meant for the eyes of 5 teammates (totally PG-13, borderline R, but I didn’t change it so as to not diminish the integrity of his thoughts. Changing just a word would change the true feelings he was dealing with (though he did ask me to edit a bit… sorry Jav!) This is along account, even by my standards, but so worth the read. Without further ado, I give you Javi… Continue reading →
