This slam

How did the slam go? I won.

What symmetry?

I won the first slam. I came in last in the second slam. I won the third slam.

More details to come.

Complete the equation

This is the poem I planned to use if I got to the final round. It makes me uncomfortable, but I did it. I got real close to a perfect score. (Five scores, dropping the highest and the lowest.)

---update ---

I like this poem. It got a great score. But I decided to lift it from the original post and put it in a comment?

Why? Because it's about math and it's mathematically explict. One of my co-workers was reading it at her desk and said she felt a little uncomfortable. So I wanted to add this little warning to the poem.
(I haven't quite figured out how to do those expandable blog postings where I would write click here to read more.)
Now, I know it can be a little off-putting to realize that some folks consider math to be nearly pornographic and almost sexually explicit but this is the world we're living in. :)
Anyhow, feel free to add more comments about the poem. I'm surprised at how well it went over.
People started laughing and ooohing and ahhing early.
It's good that it's a fairly short and fast moving poem because I was able to pause comfortably while the audience expressed itself.
Who knew that math could be such great fun?
I'm just glad it worked out so well.
I may pull it out in another final round if I need a surefire showstopper.

Slam number three

OK, it's about time for my third slam.

How do I feel? Excited, nervous, tired.

I'm excited about my opening poem. The message is the message of the blog. Enjoy life. Chase your dreams.

Of course, that's also the message of the second poem, which has gone through transformation on this blog in the past few days. I've made more significant poems to it as well. I like this final draft, but I've got to work on saying it a few more time.

It's always tough when writing a poem because you never know what someone will take away. But I'm hoping that the message is positive and the experience is good for the folks in the audience.

And I'd like to win, but I just want to empty myself on stage and have fun. I'll let you know how it goes.

Round two

So the marathon is tomorrow, he said.
Well, don't kill yourself, he said.
Don't kill yourself.

I reject this negativity, but it keeps coming and coming.

Crazy runner, in over your head?
Are you really ready?
Confident you can do it?
Well, are ya?

Am I? Hell, yeah!!!

I trained for months upon months,
miles upon miles,
up hills and down mountains.
I ran in the rain and in the freezing cold.
Early in the morning,
I ran from darkness to light.
I ran so far I got lost
and I kept going
and I lost 50 pounds
and I got found
and I lost some old baggage
and I found my way home
and I kept going and going and going.


And he had to say something discouraging.
Don't kill yourself.

Whatever happened to, no regrets?
Whatever happend to, make it special?
Whatever happened to, run for daylight, run like the wind, run for your life.
Give, give, give, give it all you got.

No, he's not a motivator.
He said, don't kill yourself.
As if I cared for bad advice.

Death doesn't even scare me anymore.
Death doesn't have anything to do with this.
Pain? Yes, I'm ready for the pain.
I will dance madly with pain in the rain
until we're both
soaked and dizzy and amazed that we remain on our feet.
Pain reminds me that I am alive, I can feel,
I can dream, I can overcome, I transcend.
I can run forever like a tantric master
lost in the moment, found in the moment,
lost in a moment founded on the foundation
of momentum that you think is crazy
but I shout that
insanity makes life interesting.
Insanity inspires artists to dance along
the ridge of the mountain
this fountain of blood and sweat and passion
pushes me forward so
don't tell me not to kill myself.

Because I believe
death is not the end of the story
I believe
death is not the worst thing that can happen
I believe
we see resurrections every day.

So sometime between the time that gun goes off
and I run across the finish line
I will be empty of everything
except the fire
fueling my desire
to keep on going
keep on running
keep on keeping on
until I finish strong.

Round One

Wake up, wake up, wake up.

Wake up, wake up, wake up!

WAKE UP!

If you even dream about beating me, you need to wake up, and apologize.

This slam, this slam,
This slam is God's slam
Do you believe in God?
The fool says there is no God.
Do you believe in God?
There is no God but God.
This slam is God's slam.
I bring knowledge of Islam,
the religion of peace,
from the same Semitic root
as salaam and shalom.
Peace.
It comes from fasting and prayer.
Struggle and understanding.
Please understand what he is saying.
If you even dream of beating me, you need to wake up and apologize.
There is no God but God and Muhammad is his prophet.
Rumble young man rumble.
Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.
I'm too pretty to lose.
I love life too much.
I trained too hard.
I am the people's champ.
I am a bad man.
I'm so bad, I make medicine sick.

Somebody needs to shut that colored boy up.

I ain't got no quarrel with no Vietcong.
I ain't got no quarrel with no Iraqi.
No Iraqi ever called me nigger.
No war for oil. No war for oil. No war for oil.

Somebody needs to shut that colored boy up.

War on terror. War on terror.
You terrorized my people in this country
for 400 years. 400 years.
You ain't right.

There is no God but God and Muhammad is his prophet.

The people in Zaire, they love me.
They said "Ali bumaye. Ali bumaye. Ali bumaye."
There is no God but God and Muhammad,
Muhammad, Muhammad
is against the ropes.
He's taking blow after blow.
That's gotta hurt. Gotta be lasting damage.
Wait. Ali's got life. He's moving.
Back up sucker, I'm dancing. Back up sucker, I'm dancing.

There is no God but God and Muhammad is his prophet.
I feel sorry for him.
He's a shell.
Been through hell.
Parkinson's.
He's got Parkinson's.
It's so sad.

There is no God but God and Muhammad, my prophet, said
Don't feel sorry for me. I'm still pretty.
Don't feel sorry for me. I'm still fast.
The places I went,
things I saw,
people I met.
I shook up the world.
I shook up the world.
I shocked the world.
There is no God but God and God has been so good to me.
Don't feel sorry for me.
Feel sorry for yourselves, if you don't love life.
Feel sorry for yourselves, if you don't chase your dreams.
But if you even dream about beating me, you need to
wake up and apologize!

Two hours

Well, it's time for the slam.

I've reached the point where I want to win, but I really just want to do my best and get it done.

I'm going to post my close to final drafts of my poems and then just try and get as focused as I can. I feel a little tired right now, but that's probably a good thing. Just as long as I stay awake.

Creatures of emotion

Today I was standing by the bulletin board at work while my food was cooking in the microwave. (Fava beans, mm mmm.) I flipped through some corporate bulletin on customer service and found the quote of the month.
It's on customer service, it's on motivation, it's on being a people person. Specifically, right now, it's also about editing slam poems to make them high scoring.

Here it is:

"When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures or emotion, creatures bristling with prejudice and motivated by pride and vanity." - Dale Carnegie.

Slam Thursday!

This morning I'll share a couple of quick thoughts on the slam.

"Somebody may beat me, but they are going to have to bleed to do it." - Steve Prefontaine

If you even dream of beating me, you need to wake up and apologize. - Muhammad Ali

I wish I could think like that about my running. Not yet. But I'm pretty confident about this slam on Thursday.

Focused on the slam

It's all about the slam for me right now. I'm not going to train this week. As I've written, my foot is somewhat injured and I know I must take some time off.

But it's time to shift gears and focus on the slam. I've typed in the one poem that fits best with them theme of this blog. I've typed up drafts of two other poems, but but some competitor could just google the words Well Fed Head slam and happen upon my stuff. And I've got to have some surprises, right?

But I have a good idea who my regular readers are. If you want to hear my other two poems, "Wake up" and "Complete the equation" before the slam is over, send me an e-mail.

Otherwise, I'll post those poems after the slam on Thursday and I'll let you know how it all turned out. Hopefully I will get to the final round this time. I don't want to focus too much on winning, but I do want to win.

OK, here's an edited version of my poem that I'm planning for round two.
---update ---
this post is being constantly edited to make this poem as good as it can possibly be.

So, the marathon is tomorrow, he said.
Well, don't kill yourself, he said.
Don't
kill
yourself.

You crazy runner, are you in over your head?

I reject this negativity but it keeps coming.

Don't kill yourself.
Are you really ready for this?
Confident you can do it?
Well, are ya?

Am I?

I trained for months upon months,
miles on top of miles
up hills and down mountains.
I ran in the rain and in the freezing cold.
While he was sleeping in his four-poster bed
I ran from darkness to light.
I ran so far I got lost
and I kept going
and I lost 50 pounds
and I got found
and I lost some old baggage
and I found my way home
and I kept going and going and going.

And he had the nerve to say something stupid
and discouraging.
Well, don't kill yourself.
As if I cared for bad advice.

I can't kill myself
if I don't let Death catch up to me.

But Death doesn't scare me any more.
Death doesn't have anything to do with this.
Pain? I'm ready for the pain.
I will dance madly with pain in the rain until we're both
soaked and dizzy and amazed that we remain on our feet.
Pain reminds me that I am alive, I can feel,
I can dream, I can overcome and I transcend.
I can run forever like a tantric master lost in the moment,
found in the moment, lost in a moment
founded on the foundation of momentum that
you think is crazy but happily
I shout that insanity makes life interesting.
Insanity inspires the artists to dance along the mountain's ridge.
This desire to run wells up inside me from a fountain
of blood and sweat
so do not tell me not to kill myself.

Because
I believe death is not the end of the story.
I believe death is not the worst outcome.
I believe we see resurrections everyday.

And sometime between the time that gun goes off and
I step across the finish line,
I will be empty of everything
except the fire
fueling my desire
to keep on going
keep on running
keep on keeping on
until I finish strong.

Rain, rain

It's raining today. As always when it rains, I want to go outside and run. I love running in the rain when the water mixes with your sweat and your shirt is soaked and you splash around a little bit. But I've committed myself to not running this week until Friday. I will intentionally work hard to not work out hard and let my foot/ankle/whatever heal itself.

I could go outside walking or go to the nature center and hike. But something about walking in the rain isn't quite as joyful as running in the rain.

I really noticed the rain today while I was in church. Kind of sad to see the rain and now I wouldn't be running in it today. But there was a nice song at the end of church, reminded me of the Hot'n'Hilly. It was called Sing to the Mountains.

Hot'n'Hilly

The Hot'n'Hilly 10K was today. I had a goal to at least get a pr which would have meant finishing faster than 56:37. This was not the course or the day for that to happen.

My foot's felt a little funny the last two weeks so I think I'm going to take some time off running, focus on Thursday's slam and cross-training in the weight room and on the rowing machine mainly.

But mostly I'll take some of the time from running and focus it on getting ready for the poetry slam. You may consider that redundant. I consider it part of my overall focus. There are some great comments up about one poem I'm planning on doing.

Other pieces are coming along. I remember watching the documentary SlamNation and Saul Williams said something about how when you think too much about winning, you lose your focus.

It also reminds me of something Cherie said before the race this morning. She talked about how she loved looking at the faces of the other runners. Some looked relaxed. Others looked deadly serious. I felt way too nervous today and I probably didn't get enough sleep. All in all, it was a pretty beautiful course. Hopefully my next race will be better.


---update----

The race results are now online. I should say congratulations in the blog to my friends and training partners Cherie who placed first in her age group and Mark who placed well in his age group.
Meanwhile, I've just got to train harder.

Race week excitement

Big race on Saturday. The first race since camp.

Unfortunately in training for the race, I've also somehow hurt my foot. It's not hurt so bad that I can't run on it, but it just feels funny/sore. After Saturday I may take a few days off or do cross-training on the rowing machine, exercise bikes or the elliptical trainers.

But first things first. I will run hard in the 10K this weekend no matter what. I think setting a new PR can be accomplished even though it's a tough course.

Well Fed Head Slam

It's about eight days until the next Well Fed Head Slam. I waver between doing new poems that aren't completely written yet and going back to the old familiar.

Here's a little something I'm working on. I think it's coming along but it still needs work.

So, the marathon is tomorrow, he said.
Well, don't kill yourself, he said.
Don't
kill
yourself.

redacted

He is the opposite of a motivator.
He is a short, Napoleon-like man
with a boundless fount of negativity.

Don't kill yourself.
Something awful just might happen.
Be careful out there.

redacted

I trained for months upon months,
miles on top of miles on top of miles
up hills and down mountains.
I ran in the rain and in the freezing cold.
When he was sleeping in his four-poster bed
I ran from darkness to light.
I ran so far I got lost
and I kept going
and I lost 50 pounds
and I got found
and I lost some old baggage
and I found my way home
and I kept going and going and going.

And he had the nerve to say something stupid
and discouraging.
He said, don't kill yourself.
As if I cared for bad advice.

I can't kill myself
if I don't let Death catch up to me.

But Death doesn't scare me any more.
Death doesn't have anything to do with this.
Pain? I'm ready for the pain.
I will dance madly with pain in the rain until we're both
soaked and dizzy and amazed that we remain on our feet.
Pain reminds me that I am alive, I can feel,
I can dream, I can overcome and I transcend.
I can run forever like a tantric master lost in the moment,
found in the moment, lost in a moment
founded on the foundation of momentum that
you think is crazy but happily
I shout that insanity makes life interesting.
Insanity inspires the artists to run along the knife's edge
to dance along the ridge of the mountain.
This desire to run wells up inside me gushing from a fountain
of blood and sweat
so do not tell me not to kill myself.

Because
I believe death is not the end of the story.
I believe dying is not the worst outcome.
I believe we see resurrections everyday.

So sometime between the time that gun goes off and
I step across the finish line,
I will be empty of everything
except the fire
fueling my desire
to keep on going
keep on running
keep on keeping on
until I finish strong.

Well, I hope you like that poem. How much do you like it on a scale of 1-10? I've got more stuff I'm working on. I'll let you know how it all goes after the slam.

10K truth

Well, it's time to get pumped. This weekend will be my first race since Camp Marafiki.

It's a really challenging race, the Hot'n'Hilly 10K.

Interestingly enough, I was looking back through old posts today and saw that I had a typo for my 10K PR. I updated the page but for the record, my PR from the Wichita River Run is a 56:37 from the Wichita River Run on May 13 of this year.

So one goal I have for the Hot'n'Hilly is to set a new PR.

Another goal is to run the race fairly aggressively and see how fast I can go when I go all out.

And ideally, that would involve a sub-50 minute 10K.

As always, the bottom-line goal is to have fun - have a good time if not a great time.

Also, they will have one of my favorite Steve Prefontaine quotes on the back of the shirt:

"Most people run a race
to see who is fastest.
I run a race
to see who has the most guts."

Nice and snug

Yesterday's run reminded me of one of those things we often take for granted.

It was a return to the hot'n'hilly course, a 10K with stark changes in elevation. Last week, a running partner and I attempted to do the course twice but we got lost.

Yesterday, we made all the right turns. Unfortunately for me, my underwear had trouble staying up with us. I was wearing what used to be one of my favorite pair of underwear, a nice comfortable pair of boxer briefs. During the first loop of the course, they stayed pretty snug. However, somewhere around lap two, the elastic basically completely went out. I don't know what happened.

While my running shorts stayed put, the boxer briefs started sagging like crazy. At one point I actually had to stop and just hitch them up as high as I could.

A new PR - of sorts

Today I set a new pr (personal record.) Unfortunately, it didn't have anything to do with a race and it wasn't particularly enjoyable.

See, today I must have run through more spider webs today than in any previous run. I lost count I ran through so many. All things considered though it was a good run.

I went looking for an unpaved trail to run on but first I got to the nature center and it was way too crowded with walkers. So I got in the car and went off to Ritter Springs Park. Very nice unpaved trails. And I saw cows and horses and birds. Unfortunately, it was hot.

So, it was a short run but I'll be back there at some point soon to do some more trail running. It was very enjoyable way to start off the day.

Movement toward the barely possible

What a week. Sunday, I got lost running a hilly course in the boondocks. Monday, my foot feels funny. Could I be injured? What should I do? Wednesday I woke up feeling a bit under the weather. I went immediately to the grocey store, bought some vitamin c, some clementines, some orange juice. It got worse throughout the day.
My thoughts went from I could just run two miles instead of four or six to Perhaps I'll just rest today.

Anyhow, all these thoughts about my body has reminded me of one of my favorite poems, taped to the wall near my desk. So I'll share it with you.


Letting the puma go by Stephen Dunn

I'll make a perfect body, said God,
and invent ways for it to fail.
- lines removed from the poem

He liked to watch the big cats.
He liked their beautiful contempt,
yet imagined how they might change
and love him
and stretch out near his feet
if he were to let them go.
And of course he wanted
to let them go
as he wanted to let himself go,
grateful for the iron bars, the lock.
He'd heard the tiger succeeds
only once in twenty hunts -
the fragile are that attuned
and that fast -
and was confused again about God,
the god who presided here.
He'd watch the tigers at feeding time,
then turn to the black panther,
its languid fierce pacing, and know
it was possible not to care
if the handsome got everything.
Except for the lions.
Hadn't the lions over the years
become their names, like the famous?
But he could spend half an afternoon
with those outfielders,
the pumas, cheetahs, leopards.
So this is excellence, he imagined:
movement toward the barely possible,
the puma's dream
of running down a hummingbird
on a grassy plain.
And then he'd let the puma go;
just before closing time
he'd wish-open its cage
and follow it into the suddenly
uncalm streets,
telling all the children it was his.

Becoming a leader

This year I've found myself reading lots of books on leadership.

First of course was the sports coach view of leadership, Lou Holtz's Winning Every Day.

Then I read a book by John Wooden and most recently picked up a John Maxwell book that had been sitting on my bookshelf: The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader: Becoming the Person Others will want to follow.

I think you could almost recast it as a running book. Change the subtitle to "Becoming the runner others will want to follow."

Well, maybe not. We each only have so much talent. But I strongly believe that you can't be your best if you don't want to be a leader. Being a leader in some ways means learning how to be your best and then helping others to achieve their best.

That oversimplifies things a bit, but many of Maxwell's qualities of a leader correspond directly to the qualities that a great runner has to have: commitment, competence, courage, focus, initiative, passion, positive attitude, self-discipline, teachability and vision.

Those are just the most obvious. I've now started another Maxwell book - The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership as well as a book that relates directly to my career: The Essential Royster; the Vermont Royster Reader, by a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. That's in addition to a couple of other books I'm making my way through at varying paces.

But everything I read contributes to my learning to be a better writer and hopefully, someday, a strong leader. I say someday because the third irrefutable law is the law of process. Basically a way of saying that great leaders aren't so much born and definitely not made overnight but they develop overtime through hard work and study.

Kind of like great runners.

A memory from camp

There were three kids at Camp Marafiki from a high school in Chicago. Benet Academy, I think.

One day one of them was wearing a cross country team shirt that read something like: We make Speedy Gonzalez look like Regular Gonzalez.

A cool shirt.

By the way I definitely don't adovcate gambling on high school sports... but here's a tip - don't bet against Benet.

Where's Lou?

Long-time readers of this blog will remember that I've regularly shared quotes from Lou Holtz. It's been a while since I did that so I thought I'd return to the little man with the big lisp.

I was looking through my Quotable Lou book for quotes on "pain" to share. None were listed, but here are two quotes on "participation."

"The only people who aren't going to be criticized are those who do absolutely nothing."

"Be a participant in life. Do not be a spectator."

Hillbillies gone wild

This weekend I saw the Springfield premiere of Homemade Hillbilly Jam.

It's basically about the hillbilly band Big Smith, which features a few friends of mine. Including Jody who has a blog that hasn't been updated in months. I think it was better when Jody posted as Pervious, a character who had escaped from the Matrix.

It's always odd to see people you know in a documentary film. This one worked out pretty well though so that's good. I strongly recommend you go see it if it comes to your town. Additionally, I recommend you get some Big Smith music. You can get a real feel for what it's like to live in these here hills.


By the way, in other old-timey music news, I recommend learning about my friend Bill Steber's band, the Jake Leg Stompers. Bill's a professional photographer with a great eye. He's spent a lot of time in the Delta and I hope he can have an opening for a show in Santa Fe the next time I'm there. I'm sure he'd make a lot of money because his stuff rocks.

Hot'n'Hilly

I had a great run yesterday, even though I got lost.

I was preparing for an upcoming 10K, the hot'n'hilly. I went out to practice the course with my good friend Cherie. I thought Cherie had run the course recently so our plan was to do two loops, a good 12 mile workout on some hills.

Unfortunately, we got lost.

It wasn't really that bad. We ran to Christian County - the wrong side of the Christian County line as the Big Smith song goes . We ran all the way to the town of Ozark.

I remember at one point I saw an interesting looking building. We got closer and realized it was a billboard on highway 65.

The process of being disoriented at the end of a hot day made it feel like we ran a bit farther than we did so when we finally got back to our car, we just stopped instead of doing another loop, especially since we didn't know quite how far we'd gone. Turns out it was only 8 miles.

The race is in two weeks so perhaps this Sunday we can do it again. Except this time we'll stay on course.

Doing great things

I was reading John Maxwell's book The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader this morning and came across a quote that really resonated with me.

"To do important tasks, two things are necessary: a plan and not quite enough time."

Maxwell didn't know the source of that quote, but it's so true. As people today we certainly don't have enough time. Working in journalism you're always learning to navigate deadlines. Yet, you can't ever let that stop you.

I'm always amazed at people who don't have time to do this or do that or who don't set ambitious goals. It's like they just suck the motivation out of the people around them.

My plan for now is to run the Rock N Roll marathon in Arizona on Jan. 15 in under four hours. It's a little hard to get excited about that right now because it's so far away, but my eyes are on it. The course map is on the wall next to my desk and I'm getting pumped just thinking about it.

Deep Play

Now that I've finished reading about gurgitators, I need another good book.

I just picked Diane Ackerman's Deep Play up off my bookshelf. I found the most fascinating quote at the beginning of Chapter Five. It's from Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman, whatever The Third Policeman is.

"...people who spend most of their natural lives riding iron bicycles over the rocky roadsides of this parish get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycle as a result of the interchanging of atoms of each of them and you would be surprised at the number of people in these parts who nearly are half people and half bicycles.... And you would be flabbergasted at the number of bicycles that are half-human, almost half-man, half-partaking of humanity..."

Horsemen of the Esophagus

Yesterday I finished reading a book called Horesmen of the Esophagus. It's about competitive eating.

I always stumble explaining that part to people. I mean do I say the sport of competitive eating. The competitive eating industry. The competitive eating circuit.

I don't know.

But truly, the eaters - or gurgitators as they like to be called - in this book are truly athletes. Like professional football players or professional marathoners, they do things that are truly mindboggling. I mean eating nearly 50 hot dogs in 12 minutes. Crazy.

And the book was written far better than the subject matter deserved. It was a compelling read although as I got to the end I thought to myself how it would be even better if it were a book about real athletes. Marathoners for example. As you get to the end of the narrative the author is clearly struck by the melancholy of what these men and women were doing to themselves and how they brought themselves to close to the edge for the glory of winning a title in competitive eating.

I suppose you can kill yourself running also. But somehow running extreme distances seems much less crazy than stuffing yourself with tons and tons of food.

Ali Bumaye

In addition to running, one of the things I did while at Camp Marafiki was brush up on my Swahili and my Arabic.

I also asked the runners about one of my favorite African words - bumaye. It's part of the familiar phrase, "Ali Bumaye."

It translates to "Ali Kill him" and it was made famous in the historic boxing match, the Rumble in the Jungle in Zaire.

In case anybody ever asks you, bumaye is not Swahili. It's from the language that people speek in Zaire. Sorry, I'm not sure what that language is called.

Poems revisited

I promised I'd repost links to some of my poems for all my new readers from camp.

Most of the poems I've printed up here came after my win in the first local slam back in April.

In round one I did a poem thatstarted off Kiss me and hallucinate.

In round two I did a definite crowd-pleaser, a poem called The bomb.

In round three I closed things up with a perennial favorite, the High Yellow Superhero .

Then they called me up for an encore and I did one of the first slam poems I ever wrote, Call me .

Now I've got to prepare for the next slam on Aug. 31 and I'm working on creating some good stuff. I may post some drafts here to get some feedback. Hopefully I'll find a little time to write this weekend.

the only place where we can run

I got a lot of tips on running last week from Mbarak Hussein. But I also got a non-running related tip. It was a movie tip.

We were discussing the decreasing amounts of snow on top of the mountains in New Mexico and how that affects the small amount of water they get. Could global warming play a role?

Mbarak had recently seen Al Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth" and strongly recommended it.

Last night I saw the movie at the Moxie and I have to agree Gore makes his case pretty well. There's only one place where we can run right now. That's on earth. Let's take care of it.

Check out the website for the movie and think about ways you can help.

Waking from a good dream

I almost feel like I'm going through withdrawal right now. Last week I was completely focused on running and relaxing. And while I write running, a better word would really be training. Ahh, the memories.

Now I've got my job to attend to and other places and people to see. I'm supposed to be at work by 8 every morning and that makes it hard to put in a good hour or so of running. Unless I go to sleep earlier and get up earlier. Unfortunately, that's not happening yet.

It's like waking from a good dream and I'd like to go back to sleep and be in New Mexico again. I'd be sore but I'd have nothing on my mind except running as hard as I possibly can at the next workout.

With this heat though, perhaps it's good that I pull back a wee bit. I can't really train but so hard when the heat index is in triple digits. But I know I'm going to be running really hard again sometime soon. I'm excited to apply what I've learned.

The humidity welcomes me home

Yesterday was election night so I was in the newsroom relatively late. But when I woke up this morning around 6:15 it was already hotter (with the humidity) here in Missouri than it was all last week in Santa Fe. Sigh.

Well it was a good week while it lasted. I'm headed over to the treadmill at the gym.

I can't wait until September and more reasonable temperatures.

Another great sports movie

Last night I saw another great sports movie at the Moxie, our local independent movie theatre.

The Heart of the Game is a documentary about six or seven years in the life of a charismatic girl's basketball coach at Roosevelt High School in Seattle and one of his star players. It could be used as a text in classes on leadership.

And as with all great sports movies you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll get pumped up, you'll want to go work out.


Here's a quote from the coach - Bill Ressler.
"Life should be fun. If your life isn't fun, you should change it."

The next slam and the blood of Christ

I was checking out my links on the sidebar and I noticed that the Well Fed Head has updated their slam site. You can see a picture of me from back before my new aerodynamic haircut.

The next slam will be Aug. 31. Slam fans can probably expect to hear a poem about being out of breath in New Mexico's Sangre de Cristo mountains.

Small detail. I know that I did not actually run in the Sangre de Cristo mountains last week. It's poetic license. I was in other nearby mountains. And I was definitely out of breath, gasping for air at very high altitude. And there's something about mentioning the blood of Christ in a work of awesome literary power.

The king of the buffet and the king of the mountain

You may wonder just how much weight I lost at the intense and extreme Kenyan Running Camp. Well, I didn't lose or gain any weight at all. At least that's what my scale says after coming back to Springfield. It's pretty much right where it was before I left.

But the thing is, I didn't eat the way I normally do. I ate at Chinese buffets. I ate lots at an opera tailgater. I ate lots more at the Jemez Pueblo feast day.

In fact, one of my fellow campers dubbed me "King of the Buffet." Quite the dubious distinction.

We met another king who is much greater than I. He's Steve Gapuchin, the King of the Mountain. Gapuchin, a Jemez Indian, is the first person to run up Pikes Peak. Also, he won the Pikes Peak marathon six straight times.

That about as amazing as winning Badwater repeatedly.

Here's an excerpt from the article I linked to above about Gapuchin:

The Jemez people see mountains as mystical, and see reaching the summit a spiritual endeavor....

Jemez Pueblo, settled by the Jemez in the late 13th century, is one of 19 pueblos in New Mexico and is located about 55 miles northwest of Albuquerque. The 2000 census lists its population as 1,953. At 7,880 feet, the pueblo's backyard, essentially, is miles of high mountain mesas and canyons. That's where they run, in the hills and baking heat, on the occasionally soft sand that strains calf muscles and lungs.

Running has been passed down, like a relay baton, through generations.

"When runners get old, there are some younger ones," said Gachupin, a retired janitor schooled in running by uncles and grandparents. "We teach them. We've been doing that for many, many years."

He grew up in the mountains. The tallest is 11,254-foot Redondo Peak. He'd run up it, then down.

"I was into mountain running," he said. "I chased animals."

There's hope

One of the best purchases I've made in a long time is India.Arie's new cd: Testimony: volume 1, Life & Relationships.

I bought it while in Santa Fe and I listened to it both days driving back from camp.
It's always a bit of a gamble when you buy an album you hadn't heard before. But I read a review of it that said the main criticism was that her message was too positive.

Now that I've listened to it, I can say that the message is just right.

There's hope. It doesn't cost a thing to smile. You don't have to pay to laugh. You better thank God for that.

The good pain

So before this past week at camp, I'd heard of "tempo runs." However, I'd never heard them described quite like the Kenyans described them.

A tempo run is a fairly short run at an intense pace. How intense? So intense that it replicates the pain you feel when running a race and thus your body adjusts to that feeling. And thus the tempo run is short so you don't overtax yourself. And so this must be the good pain.

Perhaps the reason I didn't feel any pain during the marathon is that I didn't feel any pain in my training. Next time will be different. I will train harder.

I'll remember this quote from legendary Kenyan runner Julius Korir: "There are no races in Europe as hard as the tempo races we do here."

Hakuna matata!

There will be quite a few posts about Camp Marafiki in the coming days.

But I think this one will be a good nutshell to sum up the most basic thing I learned.

It's a scene from the highway. I was looking for the change to pay the toll yesterday in Kansas and the guy asks me about my shirt. What is that? Where is it?

I explain that Camp Marafiki is a marathon training camp in Santa Fe with elite Kenyan runners.

I tell him that the word marafiki means friends. Like in the Lion King, remember the character Rafiki? His name meant friend. And Marafiki is the plural.

I said that a lot faster than I typed it. And so this dude, who had Hebrew letters tattooed on his forearm (we could have had an interesting conversation about that if I wasn't tired from a long drive) said, "Cool. Hakuna matata!"

Hakuna matata is also an actual Swahili phrase. It means, basically, no worries.

See, this is the lesson. I can't be worried that I'll run out of steam in a short race such as a 5K or a 10K. No worries. No fear. Just run harder.

Take for example, this quote from John Ngugi : "If I feel good then I fun faster no matter what the session. Don't waste good training time - if you feel good then run hard!"

In case you wonder, "Who is Henry Rono?"

A little more essential info on Henry Rono. Ben, one of the runners at Camp Marafiki, described him as one of the greatest runners of all time. Or did he say, "the greatest runner of all time."

I forget. I wasn't taking notes. But Ben, quite the runner himself, said that Rono was one of his heroes for the way he ran races from the front and won. He reminded us that we were in the presence of greatness.

This is the thing to remember about Rono: In 81 days in 1978, Rono set four world records: the 10,000 meters, the 5,000 meters, the 3,000 meters, and the 3,000 meter steeplechase.

Henry Rono

Every day, every moment here is a highlight.

One of the first was meeting legendary runner Henry Rono. Here is a link to his website, so I don't forget it.

More about him and about camp next week. I've spent too much time on the computer already.

Hills? No, mountains!

Hello. I'm still here at Camp Marafiki. Things are going fairly well. As I've posted before, I don't want to spend too much vacation time on the computer.

But here's an update. We haven't really been running up and down hills. We've been running up and down mountains.

I'm surviving and having a good time.

I haven't yet heard a jackalope or coyote or armadillo or rattlesnake start talking to me in the voice of Johnny Cash or Ossie Davis yet. I count that as a good thing.

Postcard from Santa Fe

Here I am at Camp Marafiki having a great time. And, of course, I won't be on the computer long today.

But picture this - yesterday at breakfast I saw someone wearing a t-shirt that said "Keep Austin weird."

It just seemed perfectly fitting to me.

More to come on the fun at Camp Marafiki.