Rocky Twoska

I suppose an explanation is in order for my absence from the blogosphere (buzzword alert!) over the past two months.  In Rocky II, Rocky lost motivation to train when Adrian dropped into some sort of panic-attack-inspired coma, which remains among the stupidest plot devices in the history of movie and would only be redeemed by the Thunderlips fight in Rocky III.  

In real life, Adrian has not been in a coma.  But I've been in Rocky's funk.  To wit:

1) I am still running.

2) My knee still hurts.

3) I am not in fantastic shape.

4) This is going to be another grind, one that I can now fully appreciate in its dreadfulness.

Marathon Oneska was an adventure.  It was a challenge to my lifestyle and a test of my own character.  It was a fun kind of difficult.

This "adventure?"  This is a nightmare, and I'm scheduled to sleep until sometime between 1:30 and 4pm on Sunday.

It's a physical test, unlike the mental reorganization required by the first run around the city,  and my body has failed it to this point.  I cannot stay healthy.  I've found it impossible to write about because, frankly, I hate complaining about pain, and it's dominated my thought processes of late.  I always found a way to suck it up and keep truckin', rub some dirt on it and let's go.  Lately, though, this truck has a blown-out tire and is grinding axle on pavement.  This truck is overloaded and running out of gas.    

I'm reminded of my last offseason of football in college, after my freshman year of what was a demoralizing season on and off the field. Still, I intended to come back and play.  When the first workout came up on the schedule, though, I couldn't convince myself that it was something I wanted.  I didn't go, to that or to any others.  When a coach called, I could barely muster the voice to tell him I'd quit.  But I had, and I did, I just hadn't told anyone yet.

I am not a quitter, though.  I am going to fight Thunderlips in Rocky III, and to do that I have to beat Apollo this week.  And so I need the old Matuska, the one that kicked ass, and knew he could.  He knew it because he was, and is, a "hard try-er," as current Phillies manager and always baseball man Charlie Manuel likes to say, and if the effort is there and the will is there, the body will adjust to the absence of "ifs" and will resign itself to the inevitability of the finish line and complain later.  

So I write this and smile, because this is going to be fun.  Because the finish is inevitable, because I'm already there, because my best is good enough. because I've written it and thus it is so. I simply have to run the path.

When it's over.

Miles run:

Who knows

Beers consumed:

Who cares

Let's do this thing.  

Thank you very much-o, Mr. Roboto

At a karaoke bar last week, I had first-person contact with a legitimate cyborg.  We all have our suspicions- Phil Jackson, for one, seems somewhat likely to be a high-profile Sports Bot, spewing non-sequitir responses to interview questions from the massive memory bank of human knowledge infused into his post-post-postmodern neural net that still doesn't quite pass the Turing Test.  (For the uninitiated- the Turing Test is a very simple concept which suggests that a basic three-way blind conversation between two humans and an artificial intelligence will reveal the non-human intelligence to a human judge.  When an artificial intelligence cannot be identified in said blind interview, we will have successfully created a human AI.  Jackson, while an impressive specimen, does not pass muster.)  In my own circle of friends, I know for a fact that Frisbie is part machine, part man; however, I think that in the Robot Uprising of 2032, I'll be able to appeal to the small part of The Fris that remains human and avoid plasma-ray vaporization, living out the rest of my days as a moderately amusing, low maintenance pet to our mechanical overlords.  Preemptively: all hail the Master Control Program!

I was not able to actually engage my digital karaoke compadre (we'll call him "Hal") in a Turing-oriented conversation, but I am nevertheless certain he has freon running through his veins.   I had just finished a stirring rendition of Guns 'n' Roses's "Patience" and was accepting congratulations from neighboring barstools that appreciated the performance when the opening piano of Bruce Springsteen's "Thunder Road" came over the speakers.  As such, I barely registered initially that The Boss may has well have just entered the room.  Turning to my left, a small group of 40-somethings were gathered around a bespectacled, corporately-dressed singer who was just CRUSHING the song.  Generally speaking, I take a small degree of pride in my karaoke acumen, as my childhood voice training, coupled with my affinity for late-80's hair metal, tends to please the crowd.  I would stop short of describing myself as a Karaoke Master, however.  I may be good, but it is always my voice you hear.  I will never be confused for Jon Bon Jovi, in any sense.

Hal struck me as a Master.  He was not a dancer or a showman.  But he nailed Bruce at every inflection point, every breath, every soulful voice crack.  I considered retirement for a short while.  And then I decided to kick some ass.

I perform Louis Prima's "Just a Gigolo" in the style of David Lee Roth as well as I do anything.  (A pessimist might argue that I don't do much very well, but trust me, if you haven't seen it, you're missing something.)  So I knocked it out in rousing fashion, getting the bar involved and momentarily taking over the room.  I was pleased, my companions were pleased, everyone in the bar smiled from ear to ear.  The gauntlet had been thrown.  Let's see whatcha got, Hal.

Hal responded with Bon Jovi's "Dead or Alive," and the walk-off was on.  At this point, I became suspicious.  He was performing the song in Jon Bon Jovi's voice, just like he'd done with The Boss, and doing so as if he were playing a tape of the the recording from Slippery When Wet.  I took a closer look at Hal.  His clothes certainly could have been chosen by a socially inexperienced intelligence.  The glasses could be a prop, like a plastic retractable knife in a stage play.  And his head was practically hairless.  Perhaps the skin was rubber?  I thought to touch, then thought better.  I had no interest in picking a fight with a Karaoke Terminator.

I was not yet ready to cede victory to this machine, though.  Kasparov set one last trap for Deep Blue in the the form of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'".  While I have a small degree of difficulty with the higher notes at the end of the song, by then it usually doesn't matter- the whole bar is singing and the ladies are swooning as I wail away.  I concluded with a fist pump, and accepted high-fives from the peanut gallery.

How did Hal respond?

Meatloaf.  "Paradise by the Dashboard Lights," sung as a duet with an apparent female companion.  As before, the song was sung perfectly.

Now it was clear: at least two, and perhaps all six, of these purported middle-aged humanoid entities were mechanical in nature, with digitally-synthesized voices that can shift from one over-the-hill rocker to another.  I began to worry about the safety of the meat-people in the bar.  Could this be some sort of military surveillance program?  Maybe we had been targeted as "persons of interest," or worse, for extermination?  Is the Pentagon planning to invade Japan?  Is this a dry run?  Or is this mature technology?  Was Bon Jovi replaced years ago, like Paul McCartney, with a cybernetic organism?  Was Meatloaf?  And what does this say about our national security priorities, if Meatloaf ranks as a national personality without which our collective psyche would collapse?

Also, I was drunk.  I decided to sleep on it.

Week 5
August 15-21
Sunday: Rest, 0 beers
Monday: 7 miles, 0 beers
Tuesday: Rest, 0 beers
Wednesday: 6 miles, 0 beers, Doctor's office
Thursday: 3 miles elliptical, boxing, 0 beers
Friday: Karaoke, 12 beers (estimated)
Saturday: Physical Therapy, 5.9 miles, Ant's Bday, 12 Beers

Miles Run: 21.9
Boozecount: 24 beers

Overall Record: 3-2

  Week 6
August 22-28
Sunday: Rest, 0 beers
Monday: 7 miles, 0 beers
Tuesday: Rest, 0 beers
Wednesday: 6 miles, 0 beers
Thursday: Rest, 0 beers
Friday: 3.5 miles elliptical, Physical Therapy, 0 beers
Saturday: 7 miles, 10 drinks (estimated)

Miles Run: 23.5
Boozecount: 10 drinks 

A couple things to note from the past two weeks of training:

1) I've finally decided to get my knee checked out.  It's been bugging me more an more as I've been running, and I decided that it's about time I tried to actually solve the problem.  Doc Stark, whom I assume is a close relation to international playboy, corporate kingpin, and superhero Ironman Tony Stark, suggested I have patellar tracking problems, mild bursitis, and general weakness in my hip.  Physical Therapist Riggs, who is most likely the gay brother of Sergeant Murtaugh's partner Martin Riggs from the Lethal Weapon documentaries, prescribed some specialized stretching and strengthening exercises while cutting down on the continuous distances I typically run (i.e. if the run is 7 miles, run 3, walk 1/2, and then run the rest.)  I also was prescribed a new knee apparatus and bought some new shoes.

The net result of this so far is my legs feel worse than ever and now my lower back hurts.  Woo-frickin-hoo.

2) The above tallies aptly show my propensity to come from ahead and lose.  Both weeks, I had shutouts heading into the weekend.  Week 5 I fully shat the bed, while Week 6's conclusion was 10 seemingly meaningless unanswered points surrendered by the second-stringers after the starters jumped out to a 24-point lead. The team needs to show a bit more pride, I think.

3) I'm not really doing my long Saturday runs.  I even lied to Tim about Week 6 and said I'd run my scheduled 11 miles.  I felt bad about that, though, so I ran those 11 miles this past Monday after work.  Now I just feel bad in general.

Overall Record: 4-2

Travel this week.  11 miles in the bank.  Wedding reception in the offing.  Physical decrepitude advancing. What does the future hold?

A deviation

Over the short history of this blog, I've rarely dealt with any issues of social importance.  This is probably a result of my general "cuss. care?  cuss." attitude towards arguments that really cannot be won.  Usually, The Stupids prevail because they're louder and more persistent, and the Critical Thinkers get bored and move on.  It's not the proverbial "Good men do nothing" scenario; good men try, I think, and get frustrated by the endless red tape and Controversy in accomplishing the Good they set out to do, and even in success their faith in concepts like The World and Moral Order is mitigated by the bastardization and/or dilution of their initial intent.  The Point is lost, and the path to The Result becomes so discombobulated that Progress can hardly be discerned from Regress.

So we come to the "Ground Zero Mosque" and "Ground Zero" itself, and I find myself compelled to join the fracas.

The arguments have been made, and I'm quite sure there is a Right and a Wrong here, so I'm not going to belabor too much the intricacies of the plot.  Here are the facts, as I see them, of the "mosque" that is proposed on Park Place in downtown Manhattan:

1)  It is not, actually, a mosque.  It is purported to be a "cultural center" that will have something of a religious worship chapel on an upper floor.  It is clearly not Christian, however, and there may in fact be people who speak Arabic that go there.  I have not personally reviewed the plans, but there may or may not also be an Al-Qaeda training floor in the sub-basement, along with the auditorium, theater, performing arts center, fitness center, swimming pool, basketball court, childcare area, bookstore, culinary school, art studio, food court, and September 11th memorial found throughout the building.

2) It is not, actually, at Ground Zero.  Is is a couple blocks away from what is a 10 square block site.  My apartment on 102nd street is a couple blocks away when appropriately zoomed on Google Maps, and is probably more dangerous.  Maybe we should move Harlem.  In any case, its proximity seems to "disrespect" the memory of the brave souls who died when the Nation of Islam attacked.

3) It may or may not be funded by "terrorists," whatever those are.  Similarly, Fox News, BP, and the New Jersey Nets may or may not be funded by terrorists.

This is about all I know about it, other than that a whole bunch of people seem to be really upset about it and how it "disrespects" the memory of those lost in 2001.  It's not all I have to say about it, though.  Here is what I think about those three facts:

1) It is not illegal or immoral or even in bad taste to build a mosque.  It is a protected right.  This isn't even a mosque, but if it were, the letter and spirit of the law suggests that anyone who wants to front the cash should be able to do what they want (pending Zoning, DOB, and Landmarks Planning Commission approval, of course.  Don't get me started.)

2) Ground Zero is a place where careful bureaucracy has resulted in the (ongoing) construction of a monolithic monstrosity that IS an affront to the memories of those killed that day.  As far as I'm concerned, put the damn cultural center on the top floor of the Fear Tower.  Instead, we're suggesting the Muslims ought to sit in the back of the bus, drink from the Arab fountain, repurpose the Negro lunch counter and move their culture to Jersey, since it would make us all feel better if they did.

Here's the thing about respect: it is, and always has been, a two-way street.  Should we deny Islam its right to exist, and subsequently deny its believers their rights to exist as citizens of this country and the World, then it is both a natural and perhaps necessary reaction for Islam to wish us ill.  The attitude of mutual disrespect will not end well for anyone.   And the greatest disrespect shown will be to the people who died on 9/11 if this cultural center is quashed, because its symbolic absence will affirm that in their death, so died America, now the land of the mostly-free, home of the xenophobic, insecurely afraid.

3) I'm just about tired of this whole "terrorist" thing.  Not all Muslims are terrorists, and not all terrorists are Muslims.  I'd guess very few are in either case.  I hope someday we are reminded and shamed of this sad instance in New York City history in which latent popular bigotry was allowed to masquerade as political discourse.  If anyone remembers, a couple of white guys blew up a building in OK City a few years back.  And a bunch of white and black and purple Americans are blowing up buildings all over the world right now under the guise of a war on "terrorists."  You and I are "funding" that for sure.

We are nearly ten years removed from the atrocities of 9/11.  We are NOT safer.  We in fact are significantly more vulnerable to the vitriol of others not like us because of our government's actions in the interim.  Not only is this result undesirable, but it was predictable and inevitable.  We may get Mayor Bloomberg and President Obama speaking out in support of this cultural center's right to exist, but their pleas fall upon deaf ears and dumb expressions, as they contradict the atmosphere that they themselves have cultivated for the past nine years.  One may observe that we are losing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but an equally sinister problem is the isolationist culture we have nurtured at home.  One wonders if the paranoid suspicion of all that is unfamiliar will eventually result in some sort of implosion as we look left and right and back left again and again until finally we collapse from exhaustion.

I know I'm tired. This is exhausting.  I had intended to write about the stupid building that is being built at Ground Zero, One World Trade Center, the ironically-nicknamed Freedom Tower.  That's going to have to wait until tomorrow. My frustration with the World as it Is, and an ongoing debate over a question with an answer so obvious, leaves me deep in the Pit of Despair.   I push on, though, through training and writing, with just a bit of Hope: that tomorrow, everyone will get It, and we can all concentrate on Moving Forward, and avoid falling Back.

In the meanwhile, I happened across a quote from the occasionally sage George Will which I think will set my tone for the week:

"The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised."

I hope to be surprised pleasantly one of these days.

I wear my sunglasses at night

I've been doing all of my running in Central Park this year, other than the weekend I was in Ohio, and with rare exception I run at night.  Elder statesmen who remember a bygone era of New York City crime and Law and Order junkies might consider it unwise to run amidst the stillness under the dichromatic orangeglow of high-pressure mercury halide luminescence, but I prefer the desertion and perceived vulnerability to the ill-intentioned.  For one, I am saved the bruised ego experienced in AM hours as one actual, serious, life-committed runner after another passes the portly pretender ambling around the Park Drives.  Night running also helps me mitigate the brutal heat of this greenhouse summer, despite the fact that the weather up until this past week has largely been oppressive even after 9pm. Lastly, I relish the opportunity to try and convince a mugger that my MP3 player is incapable of playing rap music, per the urban legend of the woman who deterred a potential assailant in the '80's by suggesting that her Walkman only played music of the Classical variety.  I understand that it's only likely to get me pistol-whipped, but I think it'll be a funny story.

The Park at night is not without its peculiarities, though.  One is much more likely to happen across wildlife of the unwelcome variety, for one.  On the north side of the park, raccoon families make frequent road crossings and eye me suspiciously as I cruise past, giving them a wide berth.  Last week, Baby Cub found himself a straggler in the middle of the road as Mama and/or Papa Rocky scuttled into the underbrush maybe 25 feet in front of my path.  Generally speaking, I understand that animals are typically more afraid of me than I am of them, but I have no interest in playing chicken in a mother-protecting-child scenario.  I passed the potential wildlife insurgency without incident, but not without a moment of tension as a hiss arose from the underbrush as I passed between adult and toddler.

Then there are the bats.  I've seen enough of them over the course of my life to recognize the swooping, flapping, drunken black objects to not be nocturnally-inclined retarded birds.  I'm not sure if they have a tendency to hang around lightposts or if that is merely the only time I can see them, but I know they're around, nonetheless.  I have no harrowing stories of being divebombed by a rabid flying rat or guanoed by Sooki's vampire boyfriend, but I feel that story comes in just a matter of time.  In the meanwhile, I nearly always run with a hat, and otherwise bask in the benefits of my garlic pills like the Department of Homeland Security counts thwarted terrorist attacks. (As in: No one has flown into a building lately, so we must be doing a good job!  That said, we need the Cavity Search Bill to pass to effectively counteract potential Anal Bombs and further promote National Security (TM), since we've now made the Shampoo Bomb a a thing of the past.)

The lights themselves are interesting in a sort of semi-dangerous way.  There seems to be some sort of electrical problem on the stretch of East Drive on the northeast side of the Jackie Kennedy Reservoir.  As such, the lights on the path adjacent to the body of water have a tendency to just shut off spontaneously, leaving the would-be runner in pitch blackness.  The adjacent road's streetlights similarly fluctuate between states of on and sometime-on, like they've been shut off in series as a precursor to a demon's arrival in a religio-thriller flick like Constantine.  I've nicknamed this stretch "Watch Your Cornhole Corner," as it strikes me as a lovely place to sexually assault someone running along who suddenly finds him or herself transplanted from a well-lit path in a large urban park to an inky, isolated forest pass of twitching illumination where no one can hear you scream.

All in all, I like running at night.

Week 4
August 8-14
Sunday: Rest, 12 beers (estimated)
Monday: 4.5 miles, 0 beers
Tuesday: Rest, 0 beers
Wednesday: 7 miles, 0 beers
Thursday: 3 fast miles elliptical, boxing, 0 beers
Friday: 7 Miles, 2 beers
Saturday: Rest, 2 beers

Miles Run: 21.5
Boozecount: 16 beers

While the Cleveland recap sits languishing in the editor's bin awaiting review (his last comment was "remains Longwinded and Boring, and is also generally UnFun and specifically UnFinished"), I'll relate one story from Sunday evening.  We were wandering around the festival at St. Mary's in Mentor and the group of relatives I was with ran into a group of people they knew from church, or school, or the Rogaine clinic.  Whomever they were, I knew not, so I walked over to the beer tent to grab myself a frothwagon.  I rejoined the group, seeing my young second cousin standing idly with no one to talk to at his mother's side, and tried to strike up whatever conversation a 31-year-old could with someone 20 years his junior. It went something like this 4-line play:

Me: Hey Jake.  How's it going?
Jake: Everytime I see you, you have a beer in your hand!
Me: (stuttering, holding back a laugh) That's very perceptive...
Jake: It's true! 

This is not the first time I've considered I might have a problem, but it is both the most recent and the most memorable.  Nevertheless, the count favors me this week.

Overall Record: 3-1

Stay tuned for the eventual post that details the Exciting, Riveting, and 2 Week Old (and counting) events during my visit to the balmy shores of Lake Erie.  And a new blog entry is also due in 3 days or so.  We'll see if it actually happens.  Until then...

Let me take a moment to complain about Tim...

So Tim moved to London in May.  Since then, we've been interchatting fairly regularly, but haven't actually spoken but for his visit back over Memorial Day weekend.  Since training began 3 1/2 weeks ago, though, our chats have been nearly without fail opened by (ugh) training updates.  Tim ceaselessly wants to tell me how much he's run, wants to know how much I've run, and then discuss one's misery relative to the other.  This is tedious work for me, but eventually we move on to more interesting things.  Or perhaps they're not interesting, but at least it''s not discussing how he's running his Week 8 schedule while I huff my way through Week 3.

In fact...

Tim DID tell me he wanted to contribute to the blog somehow.  I told him he could write something anytime he wanted, and he's chosen to comment on each of the first two weeks' entries.  This strikes me as a poor effort on his part.  So, without ado of any kind, including permission from the co-author:

Tuskers's and Bigfnbird's chat transcript (with commentary) from August 9th!

1:43 PM bigfinbird: how was cleveland?

1:44 PM me: OK. Had a good time while I was there

 bigfinbird: with the other tuskas

 me: 60 hours is about right

A quick note: My Cleveland trip was a bit more complicated than I've let on here.  I didn't feel like talking much about it at the time.  There is an extended recap in the editor's bin awaiting posting which I think will enlighten the reader.  Tune back in sometime in the next few days.

 bigfinbird: or should i say "how was north dakota appeals court?"

1:45 PM me: Yeah, apparently there's a Mark Matuska out there that deals meth

 bigfinbird: and he's you?

 me: Ha

From an appellate brief in State v Matuska entered in the North Dakota State Supreme Court:

"On December 28th, 2006, Mark Matuska pled guilty to the crime of Possession of Methamphetamine within 1,000 feet of a school, a Class B Felony. Prior to sentencing, he sought to withdraw his guilty plea. On March 6th, 2007, Judge Bruce A. Romanick denied his request to withdraw his guilty plea. On March 20th, 2007, a criminal judgment was entered sentencing Matuska to five years in prison with credit for 187 days served. (App. 6-7)"

So, there's a Mark Matuska out there that likes to deal meth to kids.  Many thanks to my friend Jen for bringing this to Tim's attention.

 bigfinbird: so how did running go?

  i have to make sure you're still on pace

1:46 PM me: There's also one who's a staffer for a Minesota state rep

This is actually incorrect.  Mark D. Matuska of Minnesota WAS a staffer for the former Congressman Mark Kennedy of Minnesota.  He is now a Regional Director in the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.  How do I know this?  The Internet.

  I did run

  Not very well

 bigfinbird: 7?

 me: No sidewalks in willoughby hills

 bigfinbird: yeah, i did 18 in aurora/solon last year

  that blooooowed

 me: I cut it short. It was annoying and I almost died twice

  I'll make up for it this week

I was exaggerating a bit with the "almost died" stuff.  There is something disconcerting, though, about running along a rural Ohio route with a 12" berm while cars pass you from behind at 50 miles per hour, not to mention uneven footing, blind hills and turns, and the occasional crumbling concrete bridge curb.

 bigfinbird: well, now things get serious

1:47 PM week 4

  8 miles

 me: yes yes

 bigfinbird: i did 15 and it was painful...big jump from 12

 me: You are insane

Read that again.

15 (!?!?!) miles?  It's frickin' Week 3!  Why is this so easy for this jerk?

1:48 PM bigfinbird: off week, or off saturday this week

  did 5.5 or so today

  and then i might do 8 wednesay

  but then off til tuesday

  so i'll be rested

1:49 PM me: Well, I need to get in better shape still

  my beer gut is still prominent

1:50 PM bigfinbird: i desirable attribute among power lifters

  among marathoners....not so much

Thanks, buddy.

1:52 PM - 2:00PM snip!

Here is where I save Tim some embarrassment and cut the part where he asks me a relationship question with an obvious answer that he somehow doubts. Tim is almost without peer in Goonsmanship, but every once in awhile his neuroses come through to the point that the Brute Squad considers revoking his license.


Nowz ze time on Shprockhets when Tim tellz me zumsing aboutz London:

2:00 PM by the way, i live by london city airport (small but still international flights)

2:01 PM and planes taking off from there 1 mile away look like they're gonna plow into planes lining up to land at heathrow every 10 minutes

  i know they are thousands of feet apart

  but it must be a mess to keep track of

 me: Is that Gatwick? Or someplace altogetehr different

 bigfinbird: different

  gatwick is way south

2:02 PM i'm at the east end, it's called london city airport

  planes take off west from there

  and planes line up overhead there to fly west to land at heathrow

I have no real comment here.  I reprint it only for the reader's edumacation, as it's clear that I don't know much of anything about various London airports and the inner workings of intra-airport air traffic controller coordination.  A fascinating subject, no doubt, which briefly reminded me of the John Cusack- Billy Bob Thornton vehicle Pushing Tin, which I don't really recommend unless you are in fact fascinated by said subject

And then a pause...

7 minutes

2:10 PM bigfinbird: lasagna time!

  that's what i say

  when i'm eating lasagna
And we're done.  That was fun, no?  Maybe I'll do it again sometime.


A quick recap of This Week in Running:


Week 3
August 1-7
Sunday: Rest, 0 beers
Monday: 4.5 miles, 0 beers
Tuesday: Rest, 0 beers
Wednesday: 4.5 miles, 0 beers
Thursday: 4.5 miles, 0 beers
Friday: Fly to Cleveland (boy are my arms tired), 6 beers
Saturday: 5.4 miles, lots and lots of beer


Totals: 18.9 Miles, Eleventy Beers
Saturday was marked by excessive consumption of High Gravity Steel Reserve, which not only qualifies as a malt liquor at 8.1% ABV, but also comes in a handy 16oz. can.  My father purchased it.   I find it depressing to contemplate what this stuff is doing to my insides, so I'm just going to skip it and chalk one up in the loss column.  


Overall Record: 2-1
Hey, the Browns won't be going 16-0, either.


Up this week: More travels, I'm afraid.  I've been running well so far, but probably not enough to make up for what was a brutally irresponsible Sunday.  Keep a look out for my Cleveland recap, which looks to be chock full of seriousness with some lighter interludes entwined.  Till next week...

Run run run run run run run awwwwaaaaaaaayyyy....

In examining my recent health choices, I've uncovered an alarming pattern: no matter what the task might be, no matter how small, briefly engaging, obvious, or simple, I will avoid making the correct and/or responsible choice.  Let's examine what I did today as an example:

My boss leaves the office at 12:30 today to visit his son in Boston, leaving me with a sketch of a townhouse we're working on in highly schematic form.  My task?  Figure it out- not an unreasonable thing for an 8-year architecture vet to attempt to do.  How did I spend the rest of my day?

Not drawing.

Honestly, I don't know how I spent the day.  I was tired, having actually shown up on time after staying up late the night before.  But still- couldn't I have at least made an effort?

Apparently not.

 At 7pm, I decided I'd just stay and work while listening to the Indians game.  When they play on weekday afternoons, I often do this. Were these productive hours?

No.

So I walk in my apartment door at 11:15pm not having had dinner, not having run, and not having actually accomplished anything over the course of the day.  I consider the dinner options: go grab a sandwich or two from the all-night deli,heat up some leftover beef stroghanoff, go with cold leftover nachos from the night before, and/or munch on a half a bag of leftover Cheetos from a Sunday binge that also included inhaling a bag of Gummi Bears.  What do I choose?

Leftover nachos and the bag of Cheetos.

After eating "dinner," the appropriate thing for me to do then is to take my nutrient cocktail, which was assembled with no real rhyme or reason based upon the pills that I have in-stock.  It includes: a Vitamin C tablet, the object of which is to stave off cold infections, which, because of my absurd (lack of) sleep schedule, I am particularly susceptible.  I should note here that I seem to be less susceptible these days, as I've (by real estimates) contracted roughly 94 of the known 200+ cold viruses over the course of my lifetime, and as such am immune to almost half the bugs out there.  Next up is a Vitamin E liquigel, as my doctor prior to Marathon 2008 suggested them as a liver booster to combat the chronic side stitches which may or may not have been related to my drinking habits.  (The stitches are gone, by the way, for the most part.)  I also take a one-a-day multivitamin, for the hell of it, and two glucosamine-chondroitin-MSM tablets which are supposed to promote joint health, because my knees hurt.  Finally, I take two garlic pills, for absolutely no reason whatsoever, other than that they are there.  Why do I have them?  Eh- another day.

Anyway, I'm leaving the kitchen and have turned off the light when I remember I should take my pills.  Do I do so?

No.  At least, not until I slap myself upside the head for being the laziest POS on this entire island.

Will I brush my teeth tonight after I'm finished typing?  50-50.

Let's get to the tally:

Week 2
July 25-Aug 1
Sunday: 3.3 miles, 2 beers
Monday: Rest, 1 beer
Tuesday: Boxing, 0 beers
Wednesday: 4.5 miles, 0 beers
Thursday: 3 miles, 1 beer
Friday: Rest, 5 lonely beers
Saturday: 6 miles, 1 beer

Totals: 17.8 miles, 11 beers

I suppose it's a win.  2-0.  I'm going to hold off on congratulating myself until I validate my humanity somehow.

More to come soon.  Off to Cleveland this weekend to assess the scorched earth of the LeBrocalypse.  Be seein' ya....

And... We're back!

Well, the "royal we" are back. I suppose it's more accurate to say that I'm Back, hoping to not waste your time, or mine, with further musings on an upcoming NYC Marathon, in which I expect to be a factor and finish in the top 10,000. This iteration portends to be something more than a blog of dreary runs in oppressive heat (of which there have been several so far- we'll get to that in a moment), but instead an exercise in conscience. Things left begun but unfinished, half done, almost there, and not quite, a log of which could, and may in fact someday, fill a book.

If only I could learn to use a comma appropriately!

Anyway, the runs have begun. I did Week 1 twice, a decision of necessity, as I'm in brutally incapable shape. We're only going to chart the past week, though, as in my old age my long term memory is fading. Not to fear, dear readers. We'll get there, individually, but as a group.

The plan:

16-Week Marathon Training Schedule

Week	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun	Total
1	3	Rest	4	3	Rest	5	Rest	15
2	3	Rest	4	3	Rest	6	Rest	16
3	3	Rest	4	3	Rest	7	Rest	17
4	3	Rest	5	3	Rest	8	Rest	19
5	3	Rest	5	3	Rest	10	Rest	21
6	4	Rest	5	4	Rest	11	Rest	24
7	4	Rest	6	4	Rest	12	Rest	26
8	4	Rest	6	4	Rest	14	Rest	28
9	4	Rest	7	4	Rest	16	Rest	31
10	5	Rest	8	5	Rest	16	Rest	34
11	5	Rest	8	5	Rest	17	Rest	35
12	5	Rest	8	5	Rest	18	Rest	36
13	5	Rest	8	5	Rest	20	Rest	38
14	5	Rest	8	5	Rest	9	Rest	27
15	3	Rest	5	3	Rest	8	Rest	19
16	3	Rest	3	Walk 2	Rest	26.2	Rest	34.2

The reality:
July 17-24
Sunday: 4 miles, 1 beer
Monday: Boxing, 1 beer
Tuesday: 3 miles, 0 beers
Wednesday: 4 miles, 1 beer
Thursday: 3 miles, 1 beer
Friday: Heavy Drinking (TM), 12 beers
Saturday: 5 terrible, terrible miles, 2 drinks (Hair of Dog corollary)

Miles Run: 19*
BoozeCount: 18

*Out-of-shape Matuskas running in 90-degree heat at 90% humidity sometimes need to walk

I should get some credit for boxing on Monday, right? So it's not that close. Week 1 is a win!

Overall record: 1-0

Soon, we'll have some actual content. In the meantime, check out my In Memoriam for Lou Brown below. Have a pleasant week!

Lou Brown, greatest manager in Indians history, dead at 70

In the early spring of 1989, I was 9 years old. A nine-year-old who loved baseball. My team, the Cleveland Indians, had never won a pennant in my lifetime; somewhat incredibly, the last time they'd sniffed the World Series my father was 9. During the '88-'89 offseason, the longtime owner of the Indians, Donald Phelps, died of an apparent heart attack, leaving majority stake in the hands of his 40-years-junior wife Rachel. She was lampooned in the press for her career choices prior to her marriage to Donald, having been a Vegas showgirl (and who knows what else) before marrying into her good fortune. These were things that, while aware of them, I was unable to process wholly in my ten-year old mind. To me, March just meant Spring Training, the weather turning, school's end on the distant horizon, and Hope. Hope that this might be our year.

Most of the city of Cleveland did not share my optimism. On paper, this looked to be the most anonymous collection of has-beens and never-weres ever to populate a "major league" squad. Our most proven starting pitcher, 41-year-old Eddie Harris, was coming off a subpar season and looked to be playing out the string of his long, up-and-down junkballing career. Our third baseman, Roger Dorn, while still a very good hitter, was nothing short of a complete liability fielding his position. And our catcher, former All-Star Jake Taylor, around for his second stint with the Tribe, had spent the past two years playing in the Mexican league. The rest of the roster was filled with non-prospect rookies and similarly unspectacular veterans.

"Do you think we might be good this year?" I remember asking my Dad.

"We don't look too good," was his unenthusiastic response.

"I think we'll be good," I retorted. "I think so."

The roster and coaching staff itself were topics of great debate in the Cleveland media and between barstools across the region. Rumors swirled that Rachel Phelps was trying to lose on purpose so as to exercise an "out" clause in her lease with the City of Cleveland for Municipal Stadium. Such rumors were not entirely unfounded, as Miami (among other cities) looked to be an attractive, willing destination for an owner looking to relocate. In hindsight, however, her moves look to have been acts of brilliance- and none moreso than her choice to manage this hodgepodge of unripened or expired talent, one Louis Brown of Sandusky, Ohio.

I only met Lou once, and to say I "met" him is a bit of an overstatement. In May of 1989 on my 10th birthday, I asked my father to take me and some of my young friends to a ballgame. This was not then the exorbitant expense that it is today, as right field general admission tickets cost only $4.25 apiece and hot dogs cost 2 bucks. The Indians were not drawing well at the time, either, as befit their uninspiring 10-18 record. As such, we had the run of the place. I liked to get to the ballgame early for batting practice, in the ever-optimistic hope that I might be able to shag a ball that reached the stands.

As we were walking towards our seats and the small throng of hopefuls in right field, Willie Mays Hayes was taking some swings. Through the first few weeks of the season, Hayes had been underwhelming, as the only suspense during his at-bats was whether he'd pop up to the catcher or give himself a chance to beat out the inevitably weak grounder to the shortstop. As I noted as I watched him, his batting practice display hardly inspired confidence in projected improvement. Which is why, when first base coach Pepper Leach lobbed in a batting-practice fastball as we passed the Indians dugout, I was in perfect position to field the foul pop off of Willie's bat.

I'd brought my glove with me to the ballpark, as kids do. I only had to back up two steps to get right under it. I was about to catch my first baseball at the ballpark- on my 10th birthday, no less.

Until some grown-up jerk reached over my head and caught it himself.

I was crushed. My Dad yelled at the guy, who slinked off into the concourse as the few onlookers who had seen the atrocity launched epithets in his direction. I sat down in a seat and felt tears beginning to well up in my eyes. That ball was mine. It was mine.

Suddenly, as I was about to suffer greater indignity by crying in front of my friends at my birthday party, a gravelly voice shouted from the direction of the field.

"Hey kid!"

It was Lou Brown. He was holding a baseball.

"Catch!"

He underhanded the ball to me, smiled, and turned back towards the field to berate Hayes on yet another popup. I'm not sure if he knew that he'd just made me the happiest kid in Cleveland, but he'd just gained his biggest fan.

The rest of that season is well documented in Indians lore. Brown coached through a slow start, taking a zero-tolerance stance on any overblown egos in the clubhouse, and somehow fashioned a team that could compete with the best. Attendance began to pick up as the Erie Warriors found themselves hanging around in mid-August. After a crushing loss to the hated Yankees to drop the Indians to 60-61, eight games back of the Eastern division-leaders, Brown led the Tribe and the city of Cleveland on a comeback run for the ages. They finished they year 32-9, placing themselves in position for a one-game playoff with those same Yankees for the Eastern Division crown.

Or, as it's known in Cleveland, The Greatest Game Ever Managed.

Brown began his masterpiece by switching up the rotation, starting the rejuvenated Eddie Harris instead of young fireballer Ricky Vaughn based upon Harris' superior track record against the team from New York. Harris justified his move with 8 2/3 innings of 2-run ball, an excellent start by any standard. Then, rather than bringing in one of his regular relievers with 2 men on and two out in the ninth with the AL Triple Crown winner Clue Haywood at the plate, he went with Wild Thing Vaughn, the man who had given up four home runs to Haywood in only eight PAA's in the past year. The result: a strikeout. On three pitches.

I remember jumping out of my seat in right field as Ricky fist-pumped after the third pitch.

The Tribe still had to win the game, of course, and Brown was the manager for that time and place. After a two-out infield single for Willie Mays Hayes, Brown gave him the green light to steal during Jake Taylor's ensuing at-bat. Everyone in the stadium knew Willie was going, including Duke Temple, the Yankee closer. After a close play at first on his first pickoff attempt, Hayes got out to an even bigger lead. Inexplicably, Temple threw a pitch.

3.1 seconds later, Willie was on second base. The stadium was louder than anyplace I'd ever been, then and now.

And then, Taylor did something entirely unexpected. He pointed to the center field fence. He was calling his shot. Temple, unimpressed, threw at his head. Spinning out of the way and hitting the dirt, Taylor pulled himself from the ground and stepped back in.

And he pointed to the center field fences. Again.

The lunacy of the situation was entirely lost upon me, as I'm sure it was to everyone else watching in Cleveland that night. The season had been something unlike anything we'd ever seen already; this sequence of events was just par for the course. We were on this bandwagon, however disorienting the ride. We knew a base hit would win us the division. And we believed old Jake Taylor, the heart and soul of the team, bad knees and all, would find a way.

In years since, barroom pundits have debated whether the call for the bunt came from the dugout or whether Taylor acted on his own. No doubt, the pointing theatrics were all Taylor. In either case, Brown deserves credit for approving the tactic if not spawning the idea. It was unconventional in every sense of the word. With two outs, Taylor, the personification of slow-footed, would have to leg out the bunt for a hit if the play were to be successful. Even with the third baseman playing deep, this was an iffy proposition. However, Taylor's lack of footspeed also proved integral to the play's success, as the third baseman had to realistically believe he had a chance to nab Taylor at first in order for Hayes to score from second on the throw. And so, as we all know, Jake beat the throw before tumbling over first base, and Willie kept running, and Haywood's throw was in time but a bit up the line...

Safe. I could hear the umpire from my seat, the entire stadium was so breathless.

Delirium.

All things considered, it was the most logical magic I've seen in person. And the head magician was Lou effing Brown, a guy who had managed the Triple-A Toledo Mud Hens for thirty years prior, who worked the phones at Tire World in the offseason, who took a team of nobodies in an underdog city and turned them all into winners.

The guy who tossed a kid a baseball on a lazy Sunday in May.

We'll miss you, Lou.*


*James Gammon, an actor whose notable roles include Lou Brown in the movie Major League, died July 16, 2010 at the age of 70.

Thanks everybody!

So concludes MAM2k8INGNYCMTB. The final real post is below. I'd like to thank everyone who's been reading this and following my little story. It's been a lot of fun to write, and so I hope it's been fun to read. Expect more obscure references, wild tangents, and non sequiturs via a new forum in the near future.

Stay tuned for my next project. Until then...

Don't Stop Believin'-

-Mark

Epilogue

I sat amongst my friends at The Mad Hatter, the most depressing bar Tim and I could find, and also the dive in closest proximity to his apartment, and marvelled at the attendance level. I say it's depressing in the most positive fashion: we knew it would be empty, as it nearly always is, and as such we knew our friends could come in and take over. I was pleased to discover when I hobbled in that they were, in fact, dominating the place. My parents had found a table up front and were munching on appetizers while my local gang gathered in the back. I stopped briefly to greet the adults, invited them to join us in the back once they'd finished, and waddled onwards to greet my public.

They started clapping. I smiled and bowed my head sheepishly in embarrassment. I'm not very good at accepting congratulations. I need more practice, I guess.

Frisbie offered me a beer from the bucket. Yes please.

Blair and Cassie wanted to meet my parents. Hoo boy. This is how it starts.

Over the next several hours, more people began to filter in and I smiled and chatted with all of them (I hope- I had another pang that evening thinking that somehow I hadn't sufficiently made the rounds and that someone had come to my marathon afterparty that I'd inadvertently ignored. Such a thing, of course, would not have been my fault, but I worry about these things sometimes.) I learned a number of fine statistics and fun facts:

• My dear friend Liz accomplished her goal of qualifying for the Boston Marathon with her time of 3:35:14. This made me happy. I knew she would do it, of course, but I'm not sure she shared my confidence. Perhaps her prior experiences explained her anxiousness; as I had discovered, anything can happen over 26 miles.

• Tim clocked in at 3:49:13, good for 9414th place, roughly 20,000 places ahead of me. This result was not totally unexpected- I figured he'd break 4 hours. (I thought I might, too, but we'll get to that in a bit.) I think he's reasonably pleased. That time doesn't qualify him for anything other than a pat on the back, though. We discussed possible follow-ups to this spectacle, focusing on a running-boxing Biathlon (not unlike the Winter Olympic Biathlon involving cross country skiing and riflery) in which we'd run 5 miles and then fight each other for a round before running again. As far as extreme sports go, this might be our best idea yet.

• More people had been following this blog than I'd thought. I can track visitors, but generally speaking I can't tell how interested they are in the articles. For example, through the magic of web statistics, I've discovered that by typing the words "Matuska sex" into Google, the the first page of results includes a link to this blog. I can't help but think that websurfer was looking for something else. Nevertheless, the positive feedback I received was overwhelming, and as I fielded inquiries over beers that day, I started to feel like a writer.

• I realized the bathroom in this place was downstairs. This made me sad. Seriously, this was a major miscalculation on my part. I had a desperate moment, sitting on the toilet, thinking that I may have to spend the rest of my life in the basement of this crappy bar. Somehow, though, as all of us do at one time or another, I found the will to wipe my ass and stand up again.
  

My friends seemed fascinated by the prospect of entertaining my mother and father, as they rarely sat alone at the back room table, as my mother gushed deeply personal secrets of my childhood to the peanut gallery (or so I imagined.) Normally, such a gathering would horrify me, but I was concentrating on trying to drink my beer. Never before have I experienced such difficulty in downing a magic frothwagon like I did in those hours after the 2008 NYC Marathon, as if my body somehow wasn't ready to go back to being Mark Matuska.

I don't want to frighten anyone, but it still isn't.

I'm going to channel Rocky IV for you one last time as I wax philosophical: over the course of those 26 miles, I's seen alot a-changin'. It's become a pinnacle of politicized corporatespeak lately, like "synergy" and "paradigm shifts", as if "change" is a thing in and of itself. The underlying theme that I fear has been lost in it, though, is that we can do better. That doing better means individual efforts on a daily basis, not a single heroic act to save the world from the terrorists or global warming or whatever you're afraid of. One guy's not gonna do it. But it might not be a bad place to start.

Old habits die hard, or so my platitude cheat-sheet says. I'm trying to kill mine. Not just in an effort to do better. But to be better.

"Cause if I can change... And yous can change... EVERYBODY CAN CHANGE!!!!"

And that's why this probably won't be my last marathon. My knee's still a bit annoyed, nearly three months removed, but it won't stay that way (I hope.) I've decided I kind of like running. Maybe those sixteen weeks of training, which I considered at the time to be the toughest four months of my life since freshman college football, ought to be the norm instead of the exception.

There is also the question of goals. A friend of mine suggested to me months before that when I finished this Marathon, that the feeling of accomplishment would fill me like a glowing ball of warm fuzzies. I waited for that feeling at the end, and it didn't come. I was disappointed. But not like I'd been when I ended my football career, or graduated from the fourth grade. It felt more like a lost game, amidst a season of many. If I want to, I can keep playing.

4:55:13 feels like unfinished business. It was the best I could do on November 2nd, 2008. But it's not the best I can do.

As hard as I try to color this picture in negative fields, however, it wasn't all disappointment and cynicism. After speaking with my parents at the afterparty, my friend Cassie came over to me and said, "Matuska, your parents are so proud of you." I chewed on that for awhile, wondering what my mother could have possibly told her. Probably something like "We're so proud of him," I decided. Not so bad, I guess. Not to mention that it seemed a whole lot of other people seemed to be pretty psyched for me, too.

I peeled my broken body out of bed the next day and strolled gingerly over to a local bodega in search of a newspaper. I slapped down a couple bucks on the countertop and carried it back to my apartment, being careful not to damage it. Drained from the four-block walk, I collapsed into my desk chair and started leafing through. As I read the New York Times on Monday evening and found my name in the Marathon finishers section, I found a way to be proud, too.

But, as I've written before: I'm not done yet.

Finish

I stepped over the finish line. I waited.

Some cameramen flashed in front of me. I mugged for them. Still I waited.

A woman's voice urging just-finished Marathoners to keep moving droned in the background. I realized that her instructions were directed, if not precisely at me, then at a group in my general vicinity that included me. I looked around in an effort to extend my middle finger in her direction, but I could not zero her location. My phone beckoned, so I texted the letters "DUN" to Jamie.

With nothing better to do, I stepped onwards.

A number of lines awaited us ahead. Waves, even, like one might imagine waves of riot police, draping and taping aluminu-heatshields and finisher medals ("Everyone's a winner!") instead of Billy-clubs to the nosebone or tasers to the torso. I accepted my SWAG and examined my shiny new mystery metal medal: a brass-cast figure (we'll call him/her Androgyna, the god(dess) of nonspecific gender efficiency) stands on the front, arms raised, presumably running through a finishing tape, "2008" above its head, and "ING NEW YORK CITY MARATHON" over its torso and groin, clearly in an effort to conceal the fact that Androgyna has both boobs AND junk. The back of the medal provides two blank plates for the runner to have his/her name engraved and his/her time stamped, as Pheidippides must have done to his messenger-service timecard at the Parthenon before he keeled over in 490 B.C. It probably went something like this:

Pheidippides: Whew! Hey Everybody! We won! The Persians are defeated! (walks over to the timeclock clutching his card)

Messenger service dispatcher: Hi Dippy! That's super! And wow! You did that in 3:05! Nice job.

Pheidippides: Thanks. Can't wait to go home and take a nap. I'm exhausted!

Dispatcher: Hold on a sec there, Chief. You're not off for another hour. I got another run for you.

Pheidippides: (dies)

3:05 is my best guess for that first Marathon. Take into account that our buddy Dippy was most likely not on performance-enhancers, didn't really practice running long distances, and was in such lousy shape that he killed himself running, I figure he couldn't have broken 3 hours. On the other hand, he was running as fast as his body would allow the entire time; we'll say that I didn't exactly do the same. Wondering what that original time was in the marathon could drive one crazy, though- I mean, we could guesstimate Roy Hobbs' stats from his one season in "The Natural" (I'd say a .362 batting average with 45 homers and 97 RBI in 110 games) or Jimmy Chitwood's averages in "Hoosiers" (41.2 ppg, 0.0 assists, 2.1 rebounds), but we don't really know anything about Athenian distance runners in 490 B.C. We simply don't have any data. How fast would I have had to run in order to kill myself doing it? I suppose I don't really know, but my guess is those lazy bastards eating olives and grapes within the Athens city-state limits could have waited another half hour or so so Dippy wouldn't have had to die.

Where was I? Oh right. The medal. An elderly volunteer-lady handed me my medal, smiled, and said "Congratulations." I smiled weakly and tiptoe-limped past as if I were trying to walk with my legs encased in a burlap sack full of knives. As I inspected my medal, of which there are many like, but this one is mine, l started to think about the frontrunners- does the 10th-place guy who thought he had a chance to win this thing in the beginning, for whom this 10th-place finish is a monumental disappointment, take a finisher medal? Does he clutch his heat shield gratefully and mill about with other "we're all winners!" losers? Does he grin broadly in defeat and head to a UPS truck to pick up his pre-race belongings?

I looked back across the line of volunteers. Some of those chicks were hot! How come I got the old lady?

Does he swat the medal away in disgust from the well-meaning elderly volunteer and scream at the sky from his bowels?

I considered this for a moment. I had waited at the finish line for something. Androgyna wasn't it. I was still waiting. I was beginning to fear it wouldn't come.

The reckless-despair-panic attack remained an option for longer than I cared to think about it. The conditions in the post-marathon protoplasm pool made Auschwitz Staten seem like a finely catered brunch. Hundreds, probably thousands of runners stood packed onto a 25-foot-wide road, each having just completed his or her marathon within the prior 45 minutes. All suddenly were obliged to hurry past the finish line and wait, again. We moved at roughly 1 foot per second, or, in terms of Marathons, 1 Marathon per 96 days or so.

After a while of standing amongst others past the finish, many of whom were clearly in greater distress than I, Alex Trebek suggested I try "Famous Death Marches" for $400. At the time, the Trail of Tears came to mind; I began to contemplate exactly what "exposure" meant medically, and how forced marches bred history book epitaphs such as "death from exposure." After the fact, Tim related to me that his mind was on similar subjects, although his historical atrocity of choice turned out to be the Bata'an Death March. To paraphrase,"Until that line to exit the Park, I couldn't imagine falling out of line during a forced military march knowing that doing so meant being shot or stabbed repeatedly with a bayonet. Now, though... Let's just say that for a few minutes there, I might have taken the bullet to the base of the skull."

Well, then.

So I had a lot of fun walking (crawling, piddling) to the UPS truck after the race. No, the specters of shivering, blue-lipped girls huddled on the curb didn't disturb me. Much. I made it to the 28K group (which, in retrospect, was exactly where I should have been- congrats to the organizers for realistic expectations!) and picked up my way-too-large bag from the (sadly) different UPS guys than I had at in Staten. I wanted to chat them up. Ask them how the trip was. Were they having fun too. Et cetera. Oh well.

I called my parents as I made my way to the exit. Slowly. They were in the mid-sixties, I was in the mid-eighties. I suggested the meet me in the M corral, a suggestion I thought was not completely unreasonable, given my last name, and theirs. So I made my way over to CP West and waited. For something.

Eventually, I saw my mother and my father, he waddling as best he could up the sidewalk, his body failing him in the most basic of tasks I've become so accustomed to, walking ten blocks here in the metropolis that best defines these United States. I've made many allusions to why I've made this effort to complete this race, at the age of 29. My father, at the age of 65, as the best example I can extract, is the most visually descriptive reason I can cite. They met me, hugged me, congratulated me. Somehow, physically drained, I didn't feel much different than I had five hours earlier.

I could barely walk. Thinking critically, it seemed most likely that the best way downtown (where I'd planned a small gathering of friends to meet me) would be the subway. Cabs were few and far between. I directed them over to the BC line at 81st and hobbled down the steps, I could have struggled up and down four times before my father made it once.

We waited for the subway. I waited for something else.

Central Park

I've tried to avoid quoting Sly Stallone throughout the course of this blog-narrative, for fairly obvious reasons- his excessively sentimental cheesiness, coupled with his unabashed exultation of the cliche, demands resistance. It's a difficult task, though- the Rocky movies, I think, with the semi-triumphant return to semi-respectability that came with the only semi-cheesy Rocky Balboa in 2006, do a nice job of identifying athletic struggle and the athlete's will to succeed, even if it's all hackneyed and hyperbolized. Sly takes a lot of crap from Hollywood circles these days, I think mostly because he's not pretty enough to fit in to that crowd, having recently mutated into a grotesque caricature of the little guy fighting Apollo Creed in 1976. Maybe his time is past, but when you recap the life and career of the man who created and starred in two signature American film franchises- the Rocky series and the Rambo series (not to mention Stop or My Mom Will Shoot)- I think you start with a guy coming to Hollywood with a script and a dream. That, more than any invented storyline in the Rocky films, is an inspirational script.

Without further ado: The last three-plus miles of my 2008 NYC Marathon, as narrated by the pen of Sylvester Stallone.

Rocky IV

Adrian (speaking to Rocky from the top of the staircase after he scheduled a Christmas Day fight in Moscow against an invincible opponent who had just a few days prior killed his best friend in an exhibition bout without really mentioning the idea to her first): You can't win!

As I passed the Mile 23 marker a bit before we entered the Park, I guesstimated that I had 35 minutes to run the final 3.2 miles in order to come in under my new, five-hour, last-ditch, better make-it-or-else goal. Given that I'd been running 12 minute miles for the prior ten or so (which in itself is mind-numbing, considering I can walk a mile in sixteen minutes at a brisk pace) I began to feel a sense of urgency. If there was anything left in those legs, Mile 23 was the moment I decided I had to try and pull it out.

Dammit, Adrian. I can win. (Figuratively, anyway.) Take your wet blanket someplace else. 'Cause I'm a fighter. That's how I roll.

Rocky I

Mick (As the Rock has just been floored by a barrage of Apollo Creed shots to his terminally-undefended skull and is crawling about on the mat, grasping for the ropes, bleeding out of his face in the 14th Round): Down! Down! Stay Down!

My legs revolted one last time, as I mentioned in my prior entry, just as we entered the park. This one felt like it might be the last one. The burning sensation in my hamstring that had surfaced on Fifth now shifted to my groin muscle (there's a burning-sensation-groin-joke in here, but I'll leave it to the reader) and I again contemplated my race future (or lack thereof). There were no inspirational signs, or people, or landmarks to push me forward. Just the thought that I wasn't done yet.

One more round, Mick. You stop this fight, I'll kill you.

Rocky Balboa

Rocky (after he takes a massive knee-buckling hook from Mason " The Line" Dixon and drops to a knee, running through a 30-second inner monologue as an effort to regain his bearings during the longest ten-count in the history of fictional boxing): Whadidjoo tell de kid... It ain't about how hard you can hit. It's about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward. How much you can take... (breathes) and keep... (breathes) moving... (breathes)... forward.

I would walk twice more in the park- at Miles 24 and 25, the fluid stations. But only for a few steps. I was making good time. Better time, anyway.

Rocky I

Mick (as he holds the heavy bag for Rocky, telling him how he's going to eat lightnin' and crap thunda, and become a vewy dangewous poirson): Lay off the pet shop dame! Women weaken the legs!

I saw some friends of mine on the south side of the park, just for a moment, as I ran past. Blair and Cassie and Aileen and probably others shouted in unison "Matuska!" as I smiled and waved back.

I put my head down and started digging for the finish.

Right, Mick. Women weaken the legs.

Rocky IV

Rocky (after getting pummelled mercilessly by the towering Russian Ivan Drago in the first round of their zero-payday Christmas Day 1985 bout to ostensibly determine a victor of the Cold War): I see three of him out there!

Paulie (as the most useless corner man in the history of real or fictional boxing): Hit the one in the middle!

Ah, Paulie. He's my favorite. If I could, I'd reprint every line from every movie attributed to Adrian's surly meat-packing brother-turned trainer. I fear that would be an exercise that would only be entertaining to the writer, unfortunately.

Why do I recite this only moderately-amusing exchange? Well, mostly because I think I went blind briefly during Mile 26. It's my only explanation for not really remembering much. We turned north on Central Park West and I could sense the finish. I was running faster than I had in 13 miles. As in Brooklyn, I was again looking down at myself from above, detached, disembodied. The crowd lining the left side of the road seemed awfully quiet, so I took a cue from some Italian Stallions I saw earlier in the race and shouted "Make some noise!" as I high-fived some people for the first time since First Ave.

Duke (after Rocky has taken 11 rounds of punishment, been knocked down roughly 74 times, and won over the hostile Russian crowd and perhaps some members of the Soviet politburo): All your strength, all your power, all your love. Everything you've got. Right now!

We turned back into the Park off of CPW. I began to see signs in the distance- 300 yards to go.

Paulie (as he inexplicably rubs Duke's bald head as Rocky inexplicably turns the tide of the fight in the 12th Round) : Rocco, knock his head off!

200 yards...

Rocky III

Rocky (as he willingly accepts Clubber Lang's onslaught in their rematch after Rocky predictably lost the first fight while his lifelong trainer Mick died offscreen due to (in my opinion) zero medical attention): You ain't so bad, you ain't so bad, you ain't nothin'. C'mon, champ, hit me in the face! My mom hits harder than you!

100 yards...

Rocky IV

Adrian (as Rocky is about to knock out the Russian, she chooses to shed her prior doomgloom wet-blanket character and expose herself as the frontrunning golddigger she really is): You're gonna do it!

Hey, you're right. Yo Adrian...

I did it.

(Note: I actually DID do it. The time of 5:16:41 in this photograph indicates official race time from the first Staten Island departures. I didn't cross the start line until (apparently) 21 minutes later than the privileged elite at the front of the line. For those keeping score, my race time was 4:55:13, giving me nearly 5 more minutes I could have wasted and still made the NY Times. Next time, I'll try and cut it a little closer.)

Wait... Next time?

Rocky

Apollo: Ain't gonna be no rematch.

Rocky: Don't want one.

Of course, there was a rematch. And five more movies. Tell you what- stop by one more time next week, and I'll lay down some final thoughts for you to chew on. Until then- I hope you had a lovely Christmas, and have a splendid New Year.