Every step on the path IS the path

Today I ran 3.6 miles in 36 minutes. More on that later...

I no longer have the excuse of the newspaper business to cut in to my training. I've turned my back on the Fourth Estate to edit the University of Wyoming's magazine. Or, in the words of former UW sports information director Kevin McKinney, I'm now feeding from the government trough.

For once I'll have the right amount of time to train and money to help myself. I've always had time to train. Or at least I've always made time to train. I liked training in the morning and afternoon before work but now I'll have to adjust to a new set of work hours. It means swimming at the university pool during my lunch break and maybe working out in the predawn chill before work. And then I can have my evenings to sleep or eat or die or something.

That's why I skipped out of work early today — so I could run while the sun was out. It was a gorgeous, sunny day with that atomic high-altitude sun baking the snow without melting it. That's because it was 18 degrees with a 30 mph wind. I intentionally kept a plodding stride and leisurely pace even with the wind at my back, in deference to that vicious, omnipresent wind and the 7,200 feet of altitude to which I must acclimate. I used to live in Cheyenne, 1,000 feet lower, and it took me a full month of regular working out before I could run, ride and swim without feeling like my lungs were on fire.

From those three-and-a-half years, I know I can make it, though. And I'll be better off for it. Ironman Wisconsin is in less than nine months.

Gotta start somewhere

On Sunday, January 6, I awoke at 11-something to the sun streaming into my bedroom. I got out of bed and walked to the door to my ghetto crib, intending to pick up the paper. When I opened the door I felt something unfamiliar.

Warmth.

Serious warmth. It wasn't that stinging blow from the north shoving into my apartment and sending my boys running for the hills. No, this was genuine warmth. And I knew I had to run.

Indeed, I went to the fridge for a drink of water and noticed something I'd scrawled on the greaseboard: "Run today!!" Yep, this was the day, the first time in at least a month that I shook off the offseason slumber for a turn on the roads.

So I headed south across Kimberly, waiting three full minutes for traffic to clear and for the signal to be in my favor. And I jogged easily, wondering just what I'd been waiting for all these months. The breathing was natural, the stride slow, long, purposeful. And then I got to the Duck Creek Trail.

What wasn't covered by frigid snowmelt was covered by ice. And sometimes there was ice underneath a couple inches of water. At least my feet didn't hurt, in large part because they were too damned numb. But I spent more time with my arms out balancing myself to prevent a fall, thanks to the ice that covered roughly 20 percent of the trail. I went out and back, 53 minutes in all. I ended up at the corner of the path and Marquette, which in happier times takes me around 40 minutes round trip. 

My breathing was labored by the time I returned but what else would anyone have expected? I'm really blowing off about four months' worth of dust, making my last serious bout of exercise September 17, 2007, when I ran the Quad-Cities Half Marathon. Better yet, I was sweating, something that hadn't happened since then. I was in shorts and a long-sleeved t-shirt and I was sweating. You never know how good that feels until you spend a couple of months not exercising and eating crap, the better to slow down your metabolism and save money (odd logic, n'est-ce-pas?). The soreness and aching lungs feel way better than that. I'm in it for the long hall.

I'm starting from Ground One but you've got to start somewhere.