Beautiful Weather

I Mean low humidity and gorgeous!
I will run the 4.3 mile loop at lunch so I can put up more decorations tonight.....
I need a little motor to animate.

LOL, Over the top.

I promise a more insightful post in the near future.

Curtai

10 Miles in the Evening

Now this was when I could abuse my body and I was bullet proof! Dang I still like those ruffled shirts.

I need to tell you all that I am getting freakin paranoid about my knee. I have not had lingering problems with my legs before this one. It slowed me on the ultimate tourney in Huntsville last weekend. It seemed to go away. I think I hurt it showing a group of folks how to do the minute and a half drill. I dove for a disc and jammed my knee. It hurt like crazy for a day or two and since it has come and gone. Dang this body for getting older.....I think I am going to have to be a little kinder to it during Ultimate play if I want to continue to run. Layouts and getting dirty are going to have to become something that is saved for only the most dire situations. Add to that that I need to practice the art of straight legs and not jamming the knees into the turf. Nuff Said.

My right knee hurts for about the first 1/2 mile like someone has an ice pick planted on the interior nine oclock position, it hurts with each addition of weight and stops when the weight is removed.

Anyhow, I will mention it when I see the Sports Orthopods on Dec 6, perhaps they can get some diagnostics done for the knee as well.

Today is Christmas decoration day and I have put together a scene that depicts "Sugar-plum fairies dancing in thier heads" King sized bed and all is out there. Light o plenty are getting put up right now....... I need more power~!

God Bless and ttyl.

Curtai out
10 miles 1:49:52, 11 minute mile pace, ugh that is slow.......
It IS called the long slow run afterall.

Playing the Blues, that's my Boy

Now if this is not one of the coolest pictures you have ever seen, well then you must not be as biased as me.

The holidays are here like a freight train.

This weekend

Prep and have a yardsale tomorrow. Put up lights and try not to trip the neighborhood transformer. LOL, get in a longish (12 miler), Play a little Ultimate on Sunday (if anyone else will show up). Next weekend is Christmas party, with the following week a trip to Europe. Oh yeah and a bunch of stuff going on in between. Robia's Birthday is on the 13th, do not let me forget! Joshua's B-day is the 29th of Dec.

Doctor's appointment for this freakin shoulder on the 6th..... Wow I am busier than I thought. I think we are going to try to get a puppy to have the puppy fall out of the box, Christmas Morning, I'll post some photos if that happens.

Anyhow, I wish you and yours the Merriest of Christmas' and the BEST new year.

Curtai Out.

Running the Shoulder of Death!

Weight at 163.5 Need to drop 5 lbs, or rather just not gain during the Holidays!
Too many yummy treats out there to temp this tortured soul.

Running
Wed 4.3 in 39 minutes
Thursday Night I ran in Panama City Florida, In the dark on a road that has high speed traffic. Nothing lik running where the 70 MPH cars are about 3 feet from you when they pass in the dark. Not my smartest choice. I'll know next time.

I ran for 7 miles in about 1:10

I was going to do a half Mary on Dec 9th but it seems too much... I leave for Wales on that Sunday and the comination would be too much to handle for me and my family.

I hope all is well for you.

On a side note, I seem to be getting back to a spiritual center, which feels pretty good.
"Its not having what you want, its wanting what you have" so I am going to soak up The Son....Heh.

Curtai Out

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday

Monday 6.3 miles, 1:04, legs felt like lead....
Tuesday Ultimate, I was OK.......
Wednesday 4.3 miles a39:35 with a :30 second stap to talk to a neighbor.....

Signed up for the Local race here at Hurburt. 1/2 Marathon.

You know it does feel good to just flippantly sign up for a half, becuase I can, without regard to my current level of fitness, because I am already there.

Arrogant, no, confident, yes.

Be well my friends.

Curtai

Gratitude.

I am grateful for:

1) My God, to whom I can turn any time for support
2) My wife whose strength is formidable.
3) My shelter, I have a house that is nice.
4) My car that it runs and is completely paid for.
5) My other car, which safely and reliably transports my family
6) For my Dad who loves me even though we sometimes go weeks between conversations
7) My mom for her devout faith and love
8) For my daughter and her lovable innocence
9) For my son although he tries my every patience on a daily basis
10) For my job which allows me intellectual and temporal freedom ( Who uses the word temporal)
11) For my friends Stan and Dan and Ronnie and Bill, the Bait Shop Boys, who help me muddle through this existence.
12) 175 Grams of plastic, which has been the catalyst for many a friendship.
13) Running shoes that really fit well.
14) For AA, which gives me a blueprint to live my life.
15) The ability to examine not only my actions but the underlying motivation.
16) My neighborhood, which celebrates holidays as well as any.
17) For my friend Toby and the fact that he started Ultimate on the Emerald Coast.
18) For others in the local area that are willing to give up occasional weekends to go play Ultimate.
19) For my ability to organize an Ultimate Tournament.
20) For the simple fact that there are people who take care of my security, both locally and globally such that I can live a life that is removed from simple concerns of food, safety and shelter
21) There it is…………only took till 21 for me to realize how good I have it.
Gratitude works like a charm……….. Be well my friends and Happy Thanksgiving.

Perception as a function of Attitude

Attitude = Gratitude for what I have Perception of life is good
Attitude = looking to external sorces , Perception of life is gloomy......

I am feeling older these days. It may be in part due to the fact that the kids I play ultimate with all seem faster than me. That I am not singularly the best player anymore, that being the second pick overall in the Birmingham League is a distant memory. That playing at Nationals is a remote possibility. My hair is graying rapidly, my injuries seem to be more serious, healing takes for-freakin ever.

I can still run, but the pace seems slower and the effort higher. This last weekend at the Huntsville tourney, one of the young girls on my team called me a dirty old man when I made some jokes that were off color. I don’t want to be old.

I ran the best marathon of my life a couple months ago but in hindsight it sort of feels like the last hurrah. (Full stop, self-pity patrol issues a citation)

Jesus, what a bunch of melancholy bullshit this is. OK need to shake this one off.

I am going to live to be a freakin hundred and that my friends will be old! I still can carry a team at least a little.
I am my kids hero.
My wife loves me.
My parents, think I am all that and a bag of chips.
They pay me a handsome salary at work.

Life in general is very good, however as you can tell, I am having a fight with discontentment and restlessness right now……I’ll try not to be irritable. Later today I am going to publish a list of things I am grateful for and share it with my friends.

That usually gives me perspective.

Be well, Vaya con Dios
Curtai

Ultimate Weekend

Did I ever mention that I love playing Ultimate?
www.emeraldcoastultimate.com
Check it out!

Back from playing at the annual Turkey Tourney in Huntsville. My legs still feel like lead weights. Running all weekend with the twenty somethings is just a bitch. The distance muscles used for running are not the same as the fast twitch type that are used during Ultimate play.

One good thing, something magical happened during the night on Saturday night at the Tournament, my knee quit hurting....It was like someone had an ice pick in the dang thing on Saturday, but Sunday morning, I took my first few running steps and expected the usual negative reply from the right knee, but nothing, nada, zippo. KEWL as KEWL can be.

A number of the people who went to the tourney are in the military and were saying that they had to do PT on Monday (grumble grumble) so I took about an hour and went for a little recovery run. It was slow and way more painful than I thought it would be, but hey

I AM AN ATHLETE

I CAN PUSH MY BODY TO LIMITS THAT FEW OTHERS CAN.

HEH, I suspect there are only a few ultimate players that can run a marathon, however, I bet everyone who was at that tournament could run a 10 K in under an hour. Ultimate players are just like that. I will in general put ultimate players cardio fitness up against any other athlete type. Core strength, which is another animal altogether, is looming on my fitness horizon. I personally need to improve my core. According to Ronnie, as I age, I will injure more easily and if I wish to maintain levels of performance then core strength is crucial.

CAN I TELL YOU HOW MUCH I DISLIKE lifting weights? I would rather have bamboo shoots under my nails.......... ugh. but I think he is correct, as evidenced by the shoulder.

During last weekend's tournament, there were not too many on our team that could put the disc long. Thus It fell to my choice to put the disc long often and today I think you could rip my arm off and beat me with it and it would hurt just slightly more. I whine here cause it is all self induced... I did not HAVE to throw that far that often. OK I do have an appointment with the orthoped in Gulf Breeze in December to review the whole shoulder. Silberburg says I need to strengthen the joint muscles to hold everything in place, however I need a second opinion, cause if it is gonna require surgury to be better, then so be it lets do it, get it done and on to rehab.

We'll see and for tonight, I will try to NOT throw deep very often. I will work on the crisp passes and precision throws underneath.

I do not even know what strength exercises to do............ I hate the weight room.

PS our team did very well this weekend, despite my numerous turnovers.....

Shift in Plan

Well some of you have known that I was planning on running the Boston Marathon. Obviously if you follow this blog and know anything about running, you'll know that I am not nearly fast enough. I decided to do the run as a fund raiser for Run for Research, but after a serious look at my finances, the fundraising and transportation and lodging would have been prohibitive. Thus I shall stick with the local events for now, or those that I can get to on the company's dime.

This did seem to relieve a lot of pressure I was feeling about fundraising. So I am going to Run the Pensacola Marathon next. It is February 19th. The schedule was going to be for Boston so I am dialing that forward and going to jump in where ever the numbers put me today.

More on Scheduling soon. Hopefully I will be able to put in a few more types of workouts now.
Strides, etc....

My arm is still bothering me significantly. I am not wanting to go back to the former Doctor for evaluation, as I think she did not do anything. In my opinion, she should have fixed the avulsion fracture. If she had fit everything back together then today I would not be experiencing the pain I have…… perhaps I am wrong. Either way I am frustrated with the shoulder.

I could use a wambulance. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I am grateful that I can run at all.

Be well my friends.

Curtai

Lunch Time Runs

Enjoying the time off. I will begin again in ernest at the beginning of December. I am thinking that I want to jump back into sooner as this schedule has Pensacola as a simple long training run for Boston. I will look at the schedule and see what pops out. I was considering using the next three weeks to ramp up by doing week 1 2times and week 2 twice and so on until I catch up with the actual training program.....

I should actually figure out what to do with my shoulder until that time...

Anyhow

4.2 miles 37:45, 9:00 min/mile

I would like to see the pace drop to about 8:45s or there about in the not too distant future.

Tuesday will be Ultimate
I would like to find time for about an 8-10 miler this week sometime just to see if I can still go that far......LOL

I am so paranoid that I will lose all of my distance base. In retrospect, If I had really trained hard, I bet I could melt another 10 minutes off my Marathon time...... Am I willing?

Not sure....

Curtai Out