Runner’s World
Good morning, y’all. Another glorious day in the mountains. The twits at channel eleven keep scoring the days as 9’s and 10’s on their WIZZOMETER. Somewhere in the great scheme of things I think they believe that a perfect day is in the eighties, not the seventies. I guess that’s their adjustment for global warming, just add ten to the optimum temperature and call it perfect. Sort of the weather version of sixty is the new fifty. People that believe that haven’t been sixty yet, by the way.
In celebration of a bunch of positives in my life, I’ve decided to try to turn back the clock a little by exercising. I guess I should say I’m trying a little exercising to see if I can turn back the clock, but you get the point. The ability to wander the full oval here at TackyToo gives me the ability to walk around the park and complete a mile after two laps.
I figure in light of my sobriety, my improved attitude on life, and a ready made “running” path, I should try to regain some of the luster of my youth. I mean, the worst that can happen is that folks will talk and make fun of that “crazy old fool Bud”, but they do that already. I might just as well get something for myself out of the public scrutiny. Who knows, I could wind up in one of those “Masters” thingies if I live long enough. That might actually be the key, by the way. I mean, once you hit ninety, who is left to compete with? You might say time and genetics are on my side.
One of the big decisions about starting an exercise program is determining whose clothing and shoes you’re going to advertise. I chose Under Armour and Merrell. I know most of you are saying, yeah, Under Armour, I get it, but who the heck is Merrell? Turns out Merrell is a mighty fine little shoe company that makes an assortment of zero lift shoes. For the uninitiated, zero lift shoes are what we are supposed to be running in as opposed to those high heels manufactured by Nike, Brooks, New Balance and so on.
Old timers like me remember when the experts at Nike ignored six million years of evolution and decided that we humans needed to run striking our heels first. Each new Nike model came out with a more pronounced heel to facilitate the “perfect stride” of landing heel first and rolling to the toe for the next push off. Ignoring countless knee, back, and ankle injuries, Nike continued to sell more pronounced, more padded designs. Because they were the number one shoe company, Nike drug the competition along with them. All of the sport shoe manufacturers were caught up in the obsession to teach man to do something he’d been doing correctly since climbing from the primordial soup. Nike is now giving up a big mea culpa to runners everywhere for their wrongheadedness, and, they too sell zero lift shoes. Too late for me, I’m afraid, I like my Merrells.
Anyway, I’ve started on my program. Don’t know where it will wind up, but, I know I’ve miles to go before I get there. I will end my procrastination with an oldie, I bet I can keep the beat in my head for a couple of miles: