biding my time

It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops.

                                                      A. Bartlett Giamatti ~ The Green Fields of The Mind

With the dust settled on the 2010 baseball season I have struggled to add purpose and meaning to my life. Much like banging your head against a wall, it hurts not to have baseball around. All this talk of free agents, arbitration, and winter meetings is doing little for me. All talk. No action. It is not disguising the fact that there are still over 3 months until it begins all over again. Alas, life goes on. Or so I'm told. I must do something to  bide my time. Give me a moment to think about this...

OK. My thinking grenades are used up. This off-season I could:

1. Grow A Mo. 
In the spirit of MOvember I could grow a moustache. Like this man, Rollie Fingers.
Ya, no. While I am all for supporting charitable causes, my stache would indeed be trash.

 2. Learn to do The Dougie
Ya, still no.



3. Run. 
OK, getting warmer. I like to do this. It hurts, but I like it. We might be on to something.

4. Eat food. 
Warmer still. I like to do this. A. Lot.




5. Come up with my own cologne. 
It worked for Gustavo Chacin.

6. Blog more. 


7. Pen a Sonnet. HUH?!


Only 7 things to do over the next 3 months. It's going to be a long off-season.






  

World Series Pumpkins

This is something I started a few years ago - Carving pumpkins of the teams that are in the World Series for Halloween.
Here is the collection to date...

 2011
St Louis Cardinals vs Texas Rangers











2010 World Series
San Francisco Giants vs Texas Rangers

2009 World Series
New York Yankees vs Philadelphia Phillies

2008 World Series
Tampa Bay Rays vs Philadelphia Phillies

2007 World Series
Boston Red Sox vs Colorado Rockies

2006 World Series
St Louis Cardinals

iRun

This time of year marks an anniversary of sorts for me. It was about two years ago that I became a runner. It was not so much out of a yearning desire to push my body to the point that everything hurts but more a matter of not wanting to have to shop at Northern Reflections.

My progression towards XL Nate was slow and gradual as most can attest to. The weight gain creeps up on you. Sure their were spurts of consistency at the gym, but they were too often offset by greater periods of consistency on the couch. Couple that with a lack of proper rehab from surgeries to both my elbow and shoulder and the number on the scale read more like my career batting average (also bad). It was the fall of 2008 that I had booked surgery #3 for my shoulder and knew that if things progressed I was soon going to be making calls to Prince Fielder's tailor. Something had to be done.

 With surgery I've come to learn, it's not so much the procedure itself, but your dedication to the rehabilitation afterwards that dictates the effectiveness of it. I knew there would be months afterward where physical activity would be reduced to a minimum while I healed. In order to prep for this, my plan of attack became getting myself in the best shape possible whereby I could afford to eat bonbons on the couch. I had roughly 8 months to do it in. So, I signed up for the Mississauga Half Marathon. Daunting? Yes. Impossible for me in my then present shape? Somewhat.

At first it was a goal I kept to myself. However, being a reasonably self-aware person I knew that if it remained a private thing I'd return back down the mountain I'd set out to climb. So, I started telling friends and family, one by one. Accountability. It was then that this goal became that much more tangible. It's much easier to let yourself down than it is those around you.

Eight months later race day had finally come. The hours in the gym, kilometres on the road, and forgoing of Baconators had paid off. I had lost 40lbs in the process. I was ready, yet nervous. I don't remember sleeping much the night before. Maybe 2 hours at the most. If memory serves, it was around the 14km mark that the running became more mental than it did physical. Physical preparation is one thing. Mental prep is a whole different ball of wax. Without ever having done a race of this length before I didn't know how to mentally prepare for it beyond saying "I think I can, I think  can, I think can." My legs started to feel heavy and I could feel some of my toes going numb. I was buoyed by reminding myself that with each plodding step the distance I had run grew greater while the distance I had yet to go shrank. And roughly 2 hours later it was all over. I crossed the finish line in almost exactly the time I figured I would. I was happy.

  To think of myself as a runner is still weird. Being asked for advice about it even more weird. I come from a baseball backround. Baseball players run in 90 ft bursts. I try to help out others where I can with the disclaimer that I am by no means fleet afoot. In fact, there are very few things in this life that I do at a high rate of speed. Nonetheless, running will always be a part of who I am now. Certainly not to the degree that baseball is, but still a part.