2015 in Prospect

I look to the upcoming year with a lot of hope. Life is good now and in some ways I feel like I am in my athletic prime. NOT. Actually, I do swim better than ever, and although I don’t run so fast anymore, I've never enjoyed it more. I don’t have a lot of events on the calendar. The ones I do have, however, are important to me.

First up is the Mississippi River Marathon in mid-February. This fourth year race, offers a course from Lake Village, Arkansas (right along my beloved Lake Chicot) to Greenville, Mississippi. I did the half two years ago but missed last year due to a stress fracture. This year I just want to do the full, get my t-shirt, and have some fun. I have no real time goals, but knowing how I usually do, most likely I will run the thing as fast as I can that particular day. But that’s not the plan.

Next up is the Viking Half Marathon in April. Since it is right here in my hometown, I can’t pass it up with a clear conscience. Nor do I want to. Doing just the local Greenwood events is enough to go a long way to keeping me fit and healthy.

The Chicot Challenge has become my main event of the year. It is unique and long enough to require lots of planning and huge amounts of training. Swimming that far is not something you can just go out and do on a splash here and there. Much of my motivation for this ultra-marathon swim is admittedly selfish. I love the feeling I get when I complete a swim that epic. As a fundraiser for a special organization, the Diabetes Foundation of Mississippi, the swim is important for reasons beyond me. Each year the event gets longer, more complicated, and raises more money. I hope the 2015 edition continues those trends.

On August 2, 1980, I completed the first annual Heart O’ Dixie Triathlon that runs from Louisville to Philadelphia, Mississippi. I don’t think any of us had an idea of what a triathlon was. I didn’t. A front page article in the Greenwood Commonwealth set my soul on fire. It sounded fun. I wanted to do it. That was back in the day when you wrote a check, put it in an envelope, and licked a stamp. I licked a stamp the day after I read the article. I don’t properly train for this race anymore, but it will always be on my list. One goal I have is to one day be the oldest man who ever finished it.

At the Minter City UMC

The Bikes, Blues, and Bayous, Mississippi’s largest bike ride,  is held one week after the Heat O’ Dixie tri, and like the Viking Half Marathon run, it happens right here in my hometown and its surrounding roads. Even though I don’t train much on the bike anymore, I do some real riding on that day, meet some new people, and get to visit the Minter City United Methodist Church. As unlikely as it sounds, when the BBB was set up, someone in the meeting (I was there) suggested a rest stop/aid station at the little church in the almost dead town. The tiny congregation of elderly people embraced the chore with a vigor and pulled off the best aide station I have ever seen or heard of. Every rider who comes through is amazed. Usually I spend way too much time there and eat so much that despite pedaling 65 miles, I weigh several pounds more the next day. Nestled in a patch of huge, aged pecan trees, one can find water, Gatorade, ice, porta-potties, fans, shade, cookies, Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, oranges, bananas, pimento and cheese sandwiches, food for days, and a group of people who want to make you comfortable and happy. What’s not to like?

The 300 Oaks Road Race is a premium 10K run that starts less than a mile from my front door in mid-September. My wife walks the 5K, and our son and daughter run the 10K with me. Last year our granddaughter walked also. The course is flat and fast, if you have trained. Afterwards, you are treated to a live band and free food and drink. My times have been slipping the past few years, but for 2015 I plan a major comeback.

The Swim the Suck Ten Miler in the Tennessee River marks the end of my open water season. Held in early October, the only bad thing about this swim is you have to spend so much time with your face in the water. The scenery is so stunningly beautiful it can be difficult to swim. I just want to look. As the Association of Sports Swimmers world championship race, Randy Beets and I usually duke it out for the world title. I have beaten him three or four years in a row, depending on how you count them. He wasn’t in the water for the 2014 race but since I was, in some sense I was the winner.

Throw an odd race in here or there and that pretty much forms my athletic year. I do Adventure running, just me and Buddy Bones out for fun and fitness. Mostly we do this during the winter, building up after the Suck. And of course I train year round, for fun and fitness.

The Great Noxapater Journey Run is still in the back of my mind. I am much more fit now than when I attempted the run in 2014. The big issue is logistics. I don’t want to depend on someone to bring me stuff, and I can’t carry enough on my own. I’ll work it out. Sometimes. There are several reasons I enjoy these types of runs. One is I have to take care of myself. Having to rely on my fitness and wits to get by is something I find exciting. A second reason is the adventure aspect. Having to take care of myself is part of the adventure but only part. Seeing new sights and going new places is just plain fun. Putting myself on the line and pushing myself physically is something I need and it seems to do me good. But mostly I like to be alone and not have to answer to anyone for anything. This is something I crave, and it is one of the reasons I don’t do many formal events. For me, running is an intensely personal experience that I am willing to share with others only infrequently. I know some guys and gals who race almost every weekend. God bless them. If that works for them, great. But for me, the nature of running changes when it is a group event. I enjoy that change now and then, but only now and then. For the most part, I want to be left alone with my thoughts, footfalls, and fatigue. I want to explore my limits on my own, go at my own pace, follow my own path. That’s just the way I am.

Besides the training, I hope to improve in some other areas during the upcoming year. I need to repair a bunch of stuff around the house. I need to lose some weight. I need to read more. For so many years, I craved the time when I would be out of school and could read whatever I wanted. Now I mostly read training books and blogs, nothing intellectual at all. My spiritual life also needs a rebound. Centerville Baptist is a place where that can happen.

Slow Start to a New Year

The year 2014 is here, and I am off at a snail's pace. A slow snail. Who can't crawl well.

But things could be worse. People who know me probably think I am most likely a frustrated and dangerous man right now due to my forced inactivity. Actually, I am a frustrated and dangerous man right now, but not as frustrated or as dangerous as one may have thought. I've surprised myself in that I have taken things in stride and done what I could without pulling out the rest of my hair.

But what I could is not much. I've watched a lot of quality television, like Moonshiners, Finding Bigfoot, and Ax Men. And college football. I've watched a ton of bowl games and as a huge SEC chauvinist, it's been pretty nice until last night. DO NOT mention the Alabama game in my presence unless you want to find out what frustration and danger is all about.

I've also read some, which I don't do nearly as much as I once did. My latest book is A Certain Tendency of the Hollywood Cinema, by Robert Ray. This is an analysis of the changing cinematic and thematic emphases in the American movie industry from the 1930s until 1980. Pretty good stuff, but it's worn a blister on my brain.

Physically, all I've done is to lift weights a couple of times per week. About all I can manage alone in the back yard gym is bench presses, seated rows, and a move I call the swim pull. That may not be much, but its the core of my upper body work for swimming. Last night, I did make it to the pool for the first time in several weeks. I drove myself and hobbled in on my crutches. The pool was set up for long course!!! I think there was a high school meet there recently. Slim chance it will stay that way, but I love long course because I feel like it's much better training for the kind of swimming I do (triathlons, a long charity swim, and the Suck, a ten-mile race), and for my injured leg, I don't have to do nearly as many flips and pushes off the wall. I fear I will forget and push off with both feet after a flip turn. We swam

1,000
8 X 50 as 4 @ 25 fast/25 easy and 4 @ 25 easy/25 fast
8 X 50 as 4 @ breathing 3 and 5 by 25 and 4 @ breathing 5 and 3 by 25
4 X 100 as 2 @ first and third  25 fast and 2 @ second and fourth fast
100 easy
Total: 2,300 meters.

It felt good to be back in the water, and I want more. The leg is improving and the doc wants me to gently ease into putting some weight on it as I walk with the crutches, comfort being my guide. For you who may not know, with a stress fracture the bone is not cracked all the way through. If you don't take care of it, a stress fracture can become a full fracture. But on the flip side, you often can regain your feet much faster than with a total break. His hope is that I can gradually wean myself from the crutches to the walking boot alone by my next appointment a month from now. I've been doing that, and to put even a little weight on the leg makes ambulating a thousand times easier. My hope is that in a week or so the woumded limb will be good enough that I can work my way into my wetsuit. There is a lot of tugging, pulling, and straining involved in getting into a tight neoprene body-wrap, and right now I would not even attempt it. But at the rate the tenderness is disappearing from my lower shin, I feel that it won't be long before suiting up is a possibility. If I can get into my suit, I can crawl from the truck into a fish pond, and crawl out again. Then I will be back in business.

All in all, my prospects for the Chicot Challenge look good. Our four-day work schedule is still in place, and with the tentative schedule my sister has set up for Mom's care, I will have time to train. The stress fracture itself may even be a blessing. I need an off season, and this year I have had one. Another blessing is I have decided to run much less when I am able to resume shuffling. Last year, there was an problem with the two sports due to my volume of swimming and running. The two activities actually complement each other, and they don't present issues with specific muscular recovery. However, my overall fatigue level was way too high for way too long. I shall be much smarter in my training this year with the emphasis, through the completion of the Challenge, on the swim.

Looking back, 2013 was a good year, athletically at least. I

swam 743,258.09 meters = 461 miles, and I
ran 1,236.95 miles.

I set a number of personal records in swimming: longest swim (16 miles), 200 short course, 400 short course, 500 short course, 50 long course, 100 long course, 400 long course, 500 long course. It's nice to still be improving at something at the age of 57. Also, I beat Randy Beats at Swim the Suck Ten Miler for the third straight year. I even beat his whole relay team at the Heart O' Dixie Triathlon. Life is good.

I set no records running; those days may be past, but I was able to be on my feet for more miles last year than in any of the previous four. I did a few one day runs, and I set out on The Great Noxapater Journey Run. Although that effort ended in pain and failure, I had a lot of fun while I was out there. I'll do it again.

Last year was also the year my dad died, and even that should motivate me throughout 2014. Since his passing, whenever I swim or run, he is constantly on my mind. He left me a legacy that goes all the way back to my boyhood. I can't escape it, nor do I desire to.

I don't have any New Year's Resolutions, only some goals: I want to do the Chicot Challenge again and swim even farther this year. I want to set some more personal swimming records. I want to make my Film as Literature class even better than last semester when it was the best course ever taught on a college campus in the history of the world.