Running column returns, on new platform

For those of you who are not on Facebook (where I recently posted) and who might be interested in this topic (which was covered in a recent blog post here), the weekly running column (“On The Run”) that I wrote for the Poughkeepsie Journal (and which was cancelled a few weeks ago, as posted here) is returning on a different platform and format. After mulling over several different options and strategies, I settled on Substack, which is a newsletter/blog Web site populated by famous and not-so-famous writers (I most definitely fall into the latter category!). It is a subscription-based model = $5 per month or $30 per year. I’m not looking to get rich on this venture – far from it! It will provide another, continued outlet for writing about local and regional running, something I had enjoyed doing for several decades. As you will read in my initial post, I am asking for your support in subscribing to the column, so that I can make a sustained effort out of it. Here is a link to my first post, where you can read about the format of the new column as well as subscribe to it on a monthly or yearly basis. Thanks, in advance, for your support of this new writing venture.

Wagner Invitational (for a few)

A few men’s track athletes are opting to race on Friday afternoon at Ocean Breeze. These guys are providing their own transportation and just looking to get a jump-start on 2023 racing. Order of events is below, with bolded events the ones in which some of our guys are entered. Small crew to start. Practice begins next week and our season resumes in earnest on Saturday night, Jan. 14, at the Armory for the TCNJ meet.

 

Wagner Invitational

Ocean Breeze Athletic Complex

Staten Island, NY

Friday, January 6, 2023

Time schedule/order of events (men/women)

1p: 60 hurdles prelims

1:25p: 60 dash prelims

1:50p: Mile run

2:30p: 60 hurdles final

2:40p: 60 dash final

2:50p: 400 dash final

3:15p: 500 dash

3:35p: 800 run

4p: 200 dash

4:40p: 3,000 run

5:20p: 4x400 relay

Wings

This family photo is a snapshot of where we’re at as 2022 merges into 2023. It was taken on New Year’s Eve night at our aunt and uncle’s home on Long Island. Four of us were about to drive back home to Hyde Park in a warmish rain, the old man behind the wheel fueled by caffeine and an ancient NYE Grateful Dead concert on Sirius XM radio. The tallest among us, the sharp-looking young man in the middle, would not be making that trip north with us. He was staying on Long Island in advance of an early-morning flight back to points south, where he is stationed as an active-duty member of the United States Air Force. We all wondered aloud (some through tears) when we would see our oldest son again in 2023. I reminded everyone that San Antonio is a relatively easy flight away (unless, of course, one chooses to fly on Southwest = yikes!) and that there would be occasion(s) for us to get together again. But you never know how these things work. Weeks become months and inertia is difficult to overcome. We must make the effort. Families growing into adulthood with scattered locales … this is nothing new or unique to our family. But when you live it, you live it, and as a result we must cherish these moments together and a photo like this to commemorate us all being under the same roof. Something we used to take for granted but now more the exception rather than the rule. Until our flight patterns intersect again … Happy New Year and onward to 2023. OK.

Happy flu year

It’s called “Covid-19” because that insidious virus was first recognized or discovered or whatever in … you guessed it … 2019. Which, for those keeping score at home, is three years ago. This idea that we are “done with” Covid and that Covid is “over” is pure silliness. Are we “done with” or “over” the common cold? Uh, no (well, maybe “done with” because, really, who likes the common cold?). Covid-19 is a coronavirus, and coronaviruses are stubborn little buggers that don’t magically disappear. OK, I’ll stop with the highbrow medical lessons, because in this realm I am most definitely not qualified. Anyway. As we enter 2023, another year, that persistent virus from 2019 is still with us and still part of our lives. We can deny that all we want, but people are still getting sick. You hear and read everywhere about this tripledemic – Covid, flu, RSV. It’s winter, and more people get sick more often in the winter. My friend Eric has all the Covid vaccines – five shots in total in his arm over the past few years – and he still got Covid a few weeks ago. This is not an anti-vax comment, far from it! At 65 years old, Eric needs all the protection he can get. His symptoms were mild. Like (dare I say it?), a cold. He’s fine. Hopefully, we’ll all be fine. But, that’s not how the world works. People are getting sick this winter, in some cases, more severe and more prevalent than others.

On Friday night (December 30), I was supposed to have gone to see my favorite band, Gov’t Mule, at NYC’s Beacon Theatre. One of our JTR bus drivers used to drive for rock bands back in the day and he still has “connections” and he had two eighth-row seats for the Mule on Friday night. He knows I’m a huge Mule and Warren Haynes guy, and he graciously offered to drive down with me to see the show. The Mule’s New Year’s Eve run features three shows – Dec. 29 in Philly, Dec. 30 and 31 at the Beacon. The shows are long, featuring special guests and themes. This year’s theme was to have been Black (Sabbath) and Blue (Oyster Cult). Black and Blue, cover songs from those two iconic bands. As you might be able to tell by these sentences, the shows were postponed at the last minute due to a “medical emergency.” I’ve been scouring the internet and social media to figure out why, and I think I uncovered the truth on a Facebook post by a fellow musician who collaborates often with Warren (the founder and leader of the Mule, and by far my favorite musician of all time). Apparently, according to this post, Uncle Warren (as some fans like to call him) has been laid low by a pretty severe case of the flu. Again, this is hearsay and given this blog’s low readership I’m not exactly “breaking news” here. But if that is the case and that is true, while it’s a bummer to have missed the show – and many other fans had invested far more time and energy into seeing the NYE run than we did – it’s a sigh of relief that it’s nothing more serious. Not that the flu is not serious, but I would hope that a full recovery is likely. Warren is not young (62 years old, to be exact) and he is one of the hardest-working musicians out there – touring constantly. So a severe case of the flu is enough to derail an iconic musician (and band) like this.

What’s the point of these ramblings? Not sure. I guess it’s that, as we enter a New Year, it’s a reminder that it is winter and that we’re going to get sick in the coming weeks and months. Take whatever precautions you are most comfortable with taking – whether it’s vaccines, flu shots, wearing a mask in public places, using hand sanitizer … all, some or none of these things, just putting it out there. See you in 2023!

Talking in Ovals podcast!

 

Check out this link for Marist Running alum Alex Cuesta's track-related podcast called "Talking in Ovals" ... episode #19 features women's head coach Chuck Williams. Highly neat!

Merry Fitness

 

John Ignacz (left, aka "Jiggy") and Gabe Rodriguez, after a Christmas Eve long run in which they covered far more miles (Jiggy = 15, Gabe = 14) than the temperature in central Jersey, where they ran. Gabe sent to me via text, asking if this photo was "blog worthy." Clearly = Yes. Merry Christmas (Merry Fitness!) to all.

Christmas ’round here

After all these years, the stop-and-start nature of what we do is still startling. When preseason cross country started in mid-August, it was a mad dash of frenetic, daily activity for more than three months. Daily practices, a few away XC meets, getting the track-only athletes going, recruiting calls, recruiting Zooms, recruiting emails, recruiting visits. The days and weeks go by in a blur during this period. A few days’ break around Thanksgiving, and then we cranked up the machine again for the first few indoor track meets. A side trip to Colorado for much-need reconnection with alums (and, oh yeah, that convention thing). And then? Back home to an empty campus and no practices and no meets for several weeks. Pffft. Just like that, the seemingly constant motion of the late summer and fall has morphed into the stagnation of early winter. Which, of course, will cede into the even more frenetic action of indoor track, which blends right into to outdoor track. It’s difficult to remember to take a breather around this time of year, knowing full well that when we get things going in January, it’ll be four-plus months of daily activity again – practices, track meets featuring endless bus rides and generic hotel rooms, more recruiting (always, always with the recruiting), teaching Public Presentations classes again (oh yeah, that was in the fall as well!)… on and on, the days and weeks will fly by until … until we get to around Memorial Day, and then we pump the brakes and slow back down again into summer mode and a reduction/elimination of daily activities involving our world. After more than three decades of this, and probably a few forgotten blog posts like this one, you’d think I’d get the rhythm of the routine down by now. But every year, it always seems new and fresh. Christmas ’round here looks to be quiet. All the kids will be home (hopefully, pending the crazy upcoming weather and its impact on inbound flights?) and we’ll just do a few day trips to visit family members in New Jersey and Long Island. Otherwise, no major plans. Enjoy each other’s company, recharge the batteries, and plug in and get the engines whirring again for the year that will be labeled 2023. Merry Fitness!

Something to say

For those of you not connected with me (or my wife Heidi) on Facebook and/or who do not live locally, you may have missed the following “announcement” that was posted about the cessation of my weekly running column in the Poughkeepsie Journal. Here is that announcement:

Dear runners of the mid-Hudson Valley: For more than 30 years, I have written a weekly column (“On The Run”) in print and online for the Poughkeepsie Journal. Each week, your stories have informed and inspired, and it has been an honor to be your messenger. The Journal has decided to discontinue the weekly running column. For the first time in decades, I sit at a keyboard without a weekly writing deadline. It is an unusual and unsettling feeling. Through this column, I have made lasting friendships and I’d like to think I have grown up as a writer. I will miss telling your stories. Thank you for reading through the years. The road goes on forever …

The end came abruptly, without much warning, in the midst of yet another round of layoffs within Gannett. Since exiting daily print journalism more than a decade ago (for those keeping score at home? … that was the summer of 2009!), I have obviously been immune from the constant shedding of layers of jobs within the industry. I have been on the outside looking in, but still as a sort-of active participant – filing my weekly running column each week. This weekly column dates way back to the mid/late 1980s (see one of my original column logos), at the nascent stages of my journalism career. Its sudden end has affected me emotionally in a far greater way than I imagined. It really became part of who I am – you know, the guy in the newspaper (or online) every Thursday. Two of our three children were born on a Thursday, and I remember how cool it seemed to me at the time that one of my articles appeared in the newspaper on their actual birth date.

Yes, much of journalistic content has drifted over to digital, including the running column, but the print version stubbornly continued to appear each week. I know for a fact that there are old(er) men and women who still would read my column in “analog” form – you know, the old hard-copy newspapers that have fallen so much out of vogue. I wish I had a way to say goodbye to these loyal readers (alas, the Journal wouldn’t allow a “farewell” column as they felt it would seem to self-serving, and perhaps they have a point). Mostly, I wish the column didn’t have to end. Admittedly, there were weeks when it was a chore to come up with an idea and/or carve out the time to write and file (send it, via email) the column each week. However, during the pandemic, my motivation and inspiration to keep the column going – and keep it fresh with stories of newer runners – was greater than ever. Through virtual races and other individual and group challenges, stories of runners I had never met and who joined the sport later in life began to sprout up each week in the column. It was fun to tell these stories. It’s always fun to tell stories, especially about the endless stream of interesting people in the local community and beyond.

I feel like I still have something to say. Well-meaning commenters on Facebook have urged me to seek a new outlet for this writing, create a blog or add to this blog, explore podcasting, or maybe even write a book. There’s an audience out there, they reason, and it’s just a matter of finding a new home for my content and for that audience. While I appreciate the thought, and I will consider whatever the Plan B might be, there still needs to be space in my mind to mourn the loss of more than 30 years of daily/weekly journalism deadlines. I will continue to write, here and elsewhere. Other doors will open, as this one closes (as many commenters have been fond of saying … and I actually think that’s neat). But still … but still, the end of this column is the end of a really long chapter of my life, one that has followed me like a shadow through the entirety of my adulthood. It will take me some time to get used to its not being there anymore.