Beating a dead horse

(or nearly so (dead that is, not beating(multiple paranthesis alert)))

I’m gonna’ get in shape. Boastful words, spoken in jest or in vain, mistakenly, or as a downright lie at least 1000 times more often than as a sincere, well thought out statement of intent. A vow usually made with no more capability of being carried out than the oldtime song title, “Honey, all night long.” Still, I’m gonna’ get in shape.

I make the statement in public as a motivational device. There is at least a minimal chance that someone will read this and observe that I’ve failed miserably (if I do) in a few months and will seize upon the opportunity to mock and humiliate me more than my acquaintances usually do when I meet them in public.

Why bother at this late date when I’ve one foot in the grave and the other on a slick spot?

For one thing, I am simply curious about what degree of physical ability I have left at this point in my life, one of the questions to be answered as part of my 10 good summers. Back in my 30’s when I was a recreational distance runner, I could maintain a pace of 5:30 per mile for a 10K run (6.2 mi.) It’s been 20 years since I have trained in any meaningful fashion, so this will be a start from just about ground zero. It takes 3 to 5 years to train for maximum performance in a distance race, and I seriously doubt that I will want to work that hard. 90% of the results will come in 12 to 18 months, that might be a little more reasonable.

Another is that I have developed a fascination with flatfoot dancing, an interest that was strongly reinforced a few weeks ago be seeing a live performance by Ira Bernstein. Holy crap, the man can dance. I have quickly discovered that a performance quality flatfoot dance is about equal to an all out sprint of ½ mile or so. That ain’t going to happen without flagellating the old body a bit.

And finally, it just feels good and I like it. Everything is better, you can get up earlier, stay up later, do more of whatever, and to paraphrase Davy Crockett, dive deeper and come up dryer. Best reason not to do it is stupidity. (Which has been sufficient for me the last 20 years or so.)

So I’m gonna’ run. Almost all distance runners are fanatically detail oriented so I will run 4 times, 3 miles each, 10 minutes per mile or faster the first week. I will add one mile per week for 12 weeks and bring the pace down to 9 minutes over that time. I will then take 1 week off and resume by adding ½ mile per week for 12 more weeks which will bring me to 32 miles per week. Pace at that time will be 8:30. Another week off, then 12 weeks to work the pace down to 8:00 or better per mile. Thus will run 32 miles at below 8 minutes per mile the week of Nov. 12, 2006. At that point, I will take a week off and decide between maintenance at that level and preparing for some age group racing in 2007. I will be more physically fit than 98% of the US population.

The first two weeks are done, 36 weeks to go. Deal is off in the event of serious injury, death, dismemberment, capture and beheading by fundamentalist Methodists, high speed collision with a deer in the road without benefit of car, you know the possibilities. We shall see.

10 good summers

A few years ago, I was sitting in a small back yard jam session with 3 or 4 other folks. I was a nice summer evening and all was fine with the world. One of the other musicians was a good friend, a little over 60 years old. He made a statement that caught my attention at the time and that has stayed with me since. He observed that he hoped to play a little more music that year than in the recent past. He finished by saying, “I’ve only got about 10 more good summers.”

I don’t know all the details but from what I was able to hear he suffered a serious nervous breakdown shortly after that and was hospitalized for some time. I’ve seen him possibly twice since then but as far as I know he doesn’t play at all any more. I guess he didn’t have any good summers left at all, at least in the context that he was using when he made the statement. I’ve often wondered if he effectively ended his musical life because of the stress of worrying that it wasn’t going to last much longer.

So here I am turning 60. In my mind, I already have. I am looking at the world and re-interpreting it through the eyes of a 60-year-old man. Maybe I’ve only got 10 good summers left.

Now I gotta’ take time out for a couple of disclaimers here. First, I have no idea if I will live until June 21 any more than anybody else does. My dad was not a fountain of wise sayings, (he was however, often a fountain of very profuse, eloquent, and incredibly diverse profanity, something for which I have always admired him) but his response to inquiries about the future was often “Hell, I ain’t promised tomorrow.” Nor am I, nor are you. Disclaimer two is that I fully expect to live a little over 100 years and I expect all the summers to be good ones.

Still, the odds shift a little more in the favor of the reaper as the years pass. The terrain gets noticeably more treacherous after 70. Not very many of my family seem to get to make it through the following decade.

60 seems like a good time to take stock and consider what things should be done during a respectable life and which ones are superfluous. 10 good summers is a manageable number. Nobody can really think in any detail about 20 years of life and nobody can possibly foresee what 20 years will bring. There is no sense of urgency, if you embark on a course of action and fail to carry through, 18 or 19 years is still plenty of time to correct your course. 10 years is different. An enterprise postponed is likely an enterprise abandoned at this point. Plus, a decade is short enough that plans can be made with reasonable hopes that the fundamental conditions of life will not be completely altered before the plans can be carried out.

Now 10 years is 10 years regardless of age. I regret that I did not internalize that fact sooner, but maybe it is impossible for the reasons above. Still, I intend to set goals and make plans with no regard to my age. I will proceed based on what I see as the inherent value of certain activities and accomplishments, just as if I had been assigned 10 more summers at age 21, 35, or 50. I suspect that 10 years of well planned effort toward well established goals would be more effective than the 60 years that I have expended to this point. Not promising that, but I can fantasize.

Thus I do not see 10 good summers as a limit or a reason to stress out and fret about a decline to dotage. I see the limit as a way to focus on getting as much reward and enjoyment as possible out of those summers and I will be giving a fair amount of thought to ways and means in the next few months. Suggestions welcome.