No Bad Days?

My TV broke.  It's been nice not having it around.  I think my son killed it with his affinity for all things Wii.  The lamp burnt out, and it wasn't just the lamp; the plastic casing around the lamp melted and I'm sure there is an analogy in there somewhere.  I ordered a replacement that night, I pulled out my netbook (actually it was already out because that is where I found the instructions on how to remove the lamp), and I did a quick search and found the best deal I could on the replacement and I even paid a little extra to get it shipped 2nd day air.  I'm regretting that decision as 5-7 day ground would have been nice.  The kids and I have been playing outside more, basketball and baseball the last three days and it's a little different without the Wii motion control, but my son is working it out.  One drawback is that I have missed out on the whole Olympic Fever, and all the patriotism and getting excited for sports that you only see once every four years, but I would have liked to see Shaun White ride.  I also would have liked to see and hear the conversation with his coach before the gold medal-winning run.  It went something like this (even though I don't have TV, I still have internet and the highlights were awesome):

"What do you want to do?" asked Shaun's coach.

"I don't know, man, ride down the middle?" answered Shaun.

"No, man," said his coach, "Relax, have some fun."

"Drop a double mick at the end?"

"Yeah, drop a double mick.  You send that thing.  And make sure you stomp the shit out of it."

Which was poetic and beautiful and Shaun White stomped the shit out of it and pulled off the McTwist 1260 which I can't really get my mind around, but when you watch it, it's unbelievable.  There are these moments in sports where time slows and warps and you see everything clearly.  Television does this for us now, high definition, slow-motion replays of these twisting, stretching, pushing the limit feats of athletic achievement and even spectating seems slower, like your eyes and brain need that extra time to process the greatness of human form and athletic motion.  I don't watch too much of the Winter Olympics, or I should say I wouldn't watch too much of it if my TV wasn't broken—there is only so much speed-skating, curling, and Johnny Weir I can take, but I love the idea of the Olympics; I love seeing countries put aside their political differences and then try to demolish each other through sports.  However, I love the Summer Olympics and in the spirit of the Olympics, check out the video below - I could watch it over and over and over.

Seriously, watch this video.

There is a moment there where Tergat and Gebrselassie are running stride for stride, right before Haile makes the pass, that is just beautiful.  Some days I feel like that, easy, relaxed, running half as fast as a Kenyan, but feeling fast, hitting the runner's high and then hitting another one and another and...today was the exact opposite of that feeling.

I ate at Jorge's, one of the top 3 Mexican food restaurants in the world, and instead of the usual delicious Texcoco chicken soup, I decided to splurge and go for the adobado burrito.  The process of making the adobado burrito goes something like this—take a mature pig to the back of the shop, cook it, shred it into delicious morsels, smother it in onions and adobo sauce (which is Spanish for you aren't getting any action for the next couple of days), and roll it in a huge flour tortilla and eat it over a bowl so you can drink the greasy, chili-peppery drippings as a soupy dessert.  Try to run after that.

I gave it two hours and headed out, and if I wasn't doing the 100/100 challenge, I would have taken a rest day because my legs were tired, and the post-race buzz had fizzled.  I also ran hard with a group last night where I had a moment of clarity—when you are running with a group of guys that don't have any kids and are a lot younger and cooler than you are and if you see a rabbit cross the path ahead, you don't need to say, "oh look, cute bunny."

Anyway, my legs were tired, but I didn't want to break the streak (currently at 67), so as I started I kept thinking to myself, these are the days that make those other days, the multiple runner's high days good and coming back for more.  That didn't make me feel any better, in fact, I kept thinking about my daughter's N.B.E. (near barf experience) story that she told me yesterday about the kid in the cafeteria who choked and spit out all his cafeteria spaghetti and milk and she kept telling me how hard it was for her to see that and try to hold it in, how it was right here (she made a gesture in front of her mouth) and she had to just push it back down by sheer force of will, and that was how I felt, just hold it together for 30 minutes.

These are the runs where nobody smiles, nobody says hi, your legs don't wake up from that dead feeling, your mouth hangs open and as you pass the pit-man with the pit-bull, he loosens the grip on the industrial-strength chain and I can almost hear him thinking "look at dem neon yellow shoes, don't dey look like yummy little chicks, go git 'em, go on, git."  And I want to explain that no matter how much I run in the mud, the neon yellow always shows through, but that is why they were so cheap; I could have spent the extra $20 and bought the black, stealth version, but I'm married, so it doesn't really matter what I wear anymore.  The hills that I normally take with ease all of a sudden seem never-ending and much steeper than usual and the loop that usually takes 28 minutes stretches to 30 and beyond.

It almost doesn't seem worth it.  But it is, because these are the days that suck and these are the days where your body is tired and telling you to stop, but these are also the days that make the good runs great and once in awhile, thanks to the accumulation of bad, not-so-bad, good and great days,  you stomp the shit out of it.