On Buffalo and Ferraris

Days to Marathon: 147

Weight: 182.1

Body Fat: 21.%

Total Kms Thus Far: 0

Best 1 km time: faster than treacle, but just slightly slower than molasses.

Kms Today: how far is it to Starbucks?

Average Pace: Languid

Cheese o' The Week: Buffalo Mozzarella.

Ah, the Italians. You wouldn’t want one to fix your car (see Germans), manage your money (see Swiss), or swear their undying fidelity (see, um, maybe the Amish?), but when it comes to the lost arts of looking aloofly sexy while holding a cigarette, working three-hour days, and generally sucking every last bacchanalian drop of life out of the day-to-day grind, their supremacy cannot be disputed. Italians: the inventors of Ferraris, espresso, the Roman orgy, Amarone, Sophia Lauren, Armani-clad waiters, and - the source of my eternal gratitude - mozzarella di latte di bufala. Now, let me be clear - I’m not referring to the desiccated abominations that line the local supermarket refrigerators like pale wads of leftover superball rubber, nor to the leathery plastic that congeals like an oily scab on American pizza. Real mozzarella (a physics-defying solid/liquid that Stephen Hawking once exclaimed was ‘proof of God’s love’) will make your heart clench with delight, can only be served on the day it is made, and, once tasted, will make you forgive the Italians for that whole Mussolini thing. The name mozzarella is said to be derived from “scamozzata”, which means “without a shirt” and refers to the fact that these gooey confections have no hard covering typical of a dry-cured cheese. Oh, and let’s be clear on something that should be obvious, but obviously isn’t: Buffalo Mozzarella is made from the unpasturized milk of the water buffalo (those of you who hadn’t figured that out please just put your heads on your desks and be quiet for the rest of the class).

Running update: I’m still sick as a proverbial dog (of course, my dog has never been sick in her blessed life and seems entirely immune to the ill effects of viruses, bacteria, and the gastronomically-questionable and socially-mortifying practice of eating goose feces).

The upside is that I believe I have the first incontrovertible evidence of the fallibility of the first law of thermodynamics: my nasal cavities have developed the capacity to spontaneously generate mucal matter without consuming energy. Naturally, I have a call in to Al Gore - if we can harness this seemingly limitless renewable resource, we can unshackle ourselves from the yoke of our foreign oil addiction. He hasn’t called back yet. I’m sure he’s just busy.

A History Lesson

Days to Marathon: 151

Weight: 182.6

Body Fat: 21.5%

Total Kms Thus Far: 0

Best 1 km time: shut up.

Kms Today: 0

Average Pace: Torpid

Cheese o' The Week: Stilton. Not to be confused with Danish Blue, Stilton is a creamy English gift that can only be legally made in six dairies on Earth (none of which are in Stilton, BTW). The dairies are subject to surprise audits by an independent inspection agency. I’m led to believe that the penalty for quality infractions involves force-feeding of Kraft processed cheese slices. Good with port and, bizarrely, celery.


Well, I made a cardinal mistake last week. Ignoring my better instincts, I succumbed to peer pressure and got a flu shot for the first time in my life. Naturally, I immediately became phlegm-tastically, cough-er-ifically, I’d-prefer-if-you-slept-in-the-other-room, sick. Having not had the flu in six years, I find the timing unsettlingly coincidental and am forced to conclude that my previous blogs regarding the political sniping within the US Center for Disease Control did not go unnoticed or, it appears, unpunished.

So, I have done little in the last five days but wheeze, make bull-walrus-like barking sounds, and be generally cantankerous. With the current lung capacity of an asthmatic, chain-smoking guinea pig, running was about as likely as Barack Obama sweeping a landslide victory in Arkansas. Silver-lining: I haven’t had a drop of alcohol in a week and I’m making a point of staying hydrated. Also, my ab (for now, I just have the one) is sore from bouts of coughing so violent that I was walking around for a while with my lung hanging from my mouth like a deflated meat-balloon. I reckon that’s the equivalent of several hundred crunches.

So, since physical exertion wasn’t in the cards, I focused on marathon research...

HISTORY

As it turns out, the genesis of the modern marathon is a legend about a Greek named Pheidippides, a soldier at the battle of Marathon where a few hundred Greeks triumphed over thousands of Persians in 490 BC. Unconfirmed reports suggest that Pheidippides – referred to not-so-affectionately as “Dippie” by his comrades – was a young recruit and not a stranger to practical jokes. Well, apparently Dippie had irritated his superiors enough to be selected for the dubious duty of running all the way from Marathon to Athens to tell the Senate that the Persians had been defeated. There were plenty of horses around, mind you, but, the commander explained, they were “tired”.

“See how fast you can do it,” he said. “I’ll time you - go!”

I am also reasonably sure that his sandals did not have thermoplastic arch shanks.

Evidently, Dippie ran the entire distance, burst into the Athenian senate and declared “Masters, victory is ours!” before collapsing and dying on the spot in a fluttering shower of PowerBar wrappers and nipple-tape.

The senators had no idea who he was.

However, the news of the war sparked a raging debate between those senators who thought they should celebrate the victory, and those who thought the killing of the Persians was a war crime being perpetrated by the olive oil companies and that they should oppose the war but ‘support the troops’. Ultimately, the political rifts created by the debate over what color ribbon should be used to demonstrate solidarity would lead to the fracturing of the senate and the fall of the Greek empire.

True story.


BIOLOGY

Oh, and here’s an interesting little piece of science:

Runners use glycogen to fuel their muscles during the race.

The human body can store about 8 MJ worth of glycogen, which is enough to run 19 miles.

The marathon is 26.1 miles.

You do the math.

The Kit

Days to Marathon: 156

Weight: 186.1 (that's 13.29 stone if anyone's keeping track)

% Body Fat: 22% (ouch)

Total Kms Thus Far: 0 (hey - I just bought my shoes)

Best 1 km time: um, say, 15 minutes

Kms Today: 0

Average Pace: Let's say 'sonambulant'

Cheese o' The Week: Camembert (A French delight from Normandy, which was apparently issued to French troops in WWI and was 'inspired' - i.e. totally ripped off - by a priest from the village of ... wait for it... Brie.)

Consumption: Coffee (6); Sushi lunch (16 maki, miso, tea); steak with ceasar salad; about fifteen leftover Halloween-sized Caramilks (what? Are you a saint?).




Okay, so I'm now the proud owner of two (one left, one right) NIKE Air Pegasus shoes, including laces. As I now know, exposed thermoplastic urethane arch shanks add torsional rigidity and support under each arch for stability and roll-resistance, while the BRS 1000 rubber crash pads on outsole heels add durability and extra shock absorption on hard surfaces. I suppose it practically goes without saying that the rubber outsoles with motion-engineered flex grooves offer reliable traction and great toe-off (counter-intuitively, 'toe-off' is good).

I feel badly for people without thermoplastic arch shanks - I suppose it's better that they never know what they're missing, but still.


They also have matching laces and swooshy thing in a blue so intense it makes your eyes water.


I also bought the Nike + iPod device, which allows my shoes to talk to my iPod wirelessly, communicating and recording my 'fitness progress'. I can only imagine the conversation would go something like this:


Shoes: "This is so embarrassing."

iPod: "Yeah - this pace isn't even registering. He's gonna blame it on me, I know it. He's gonna call tech support and blame it on me."


Shoes: "It's humiliating. Did you see that little kid snicker when he whizzed past on the Big Wheel? I have exposed thermoplastic urethane arch shanks, for cryin' out loud! I'm better than this. Look how blue I am!"


iPod: "You think that's embarrassing - you should see what he's got in his "Old Faves" playlist - c'mon, the Backstreet Boys? Seriously. Can you make him trip and drop me? With any luck, I'll be smashed against the sidewalk."


Shoes: "Play something faster - maybe it'll inspire him to get his ass in gear. Do you have Eye of the Tiger?"


iPod: "Very retro. Maybe I should play Born To Run, but ironically."


Shoes: "More like Born To Stroll."


iPod: "Heh. It's more like a 'sashay', or maybe a 'sidle'."


Shoes: "What? We stopped. Are we home already? Are you kidding me? Did I mention the BRS 1000 rubber crash pads? Look how retina-blisteringly blue I am!"


iPod: "I guess I'd better queue up the Good-For-You-For-Exercising-Self-Affirmation-Crap playlist. Why can't Microsoft have made me - then I could have a fatal OS error and end it all."


Shoes: "See you next month."


iPod: "Whatever."




Oh, and never one to have a retail experience that didn't involve at least one willpower-buckling moment, I purchased cushioned NIKE running socks that are specific to each foot. I'm sure it will make all the difference.


OK, so let's see:


Shoes, epilepsy-inducing blue, one pair of - check.
Sock, designed specifically for left foot - check.
Sock, designed specfically for right foot - check.
Running pants, black, one sassily-tight pair of - check.
Running shirt, blue, evidently perspiration-wicking - check.
Running jacket, blue, highly reflective with bum-splash-guard - check.
iPod, loaded with bass-laden, overtly misogynist techno-rap - check.


I'm all set.


Here we go...

The First Step

So this is a blog, huh? It's cold in here. And they said there'd be cookies. Bastards.

While I now know what a blog is, I confess that I'm 38 and I'm slowly developing the what-the-Hell-are-the-kids-talking-about worldview. I'm up to about 45 words a minute on my Blackberry, but I still believe in old-school punctuation in email and I still have to Google the IM abbreviations used blithely by anyone born without first-hand memories of Welcome Back Kotter (UYNWARH = up your nose with a rubber hose, for you confused young 'uns).

Honestly, it always struck me as rather self-absorbed to post a blog - who on Earth cares about whether Jenny thinks the US foreign policy is off-course, or whether Johnny thinks blue cheese is not really cheese or that Bruce Willis is the antichrist (as if anyone who has seen Die Harder could doubt this)?

Then it occurred to me - the singular and undeniable value a blog provides: self shaming.

Naturally, every hyper-caffeinated pseudo-journalist madly pecking out his pontifications in his basement in the maternal glow of his PowerBook believes that his posts are eagerly awaited by thousands, that Presidents and Prime Ministers ponder his razor-sharp insights (perhaps even taking credit in this afternoon's Chiefs of Staff meeting), and that if only Jimmy Carter would return his letters, he could help with that bloody Middle East mess. I, however, harbor no such illusions (anyway, if the letter with a lock of my hair couldn't get Jimmy's attention, nothing will).

My goal is less grand: I intend to use this blog as a source self-discipline.

It'll be like walking down the beach if you're out of shape. It's likely that no one is paying attention, and those that are probably don't care, but the idea of waddling my tuna-belly-white self down the sands of the Internet where anyone could be looking will be motivating. Well, could be. Maybe.

To wit: today, on a whim, I registered for the Vancouver Marathon.

Today is November 28, 2007.

The marathon is in 157 days.

Oh, I should mention - I don't know how to run.

Well, I know how to run. If something clawed and toothed and scary (or even, truth be told, mildly menacing) were pursuing me with culinary intent, I would doubtless respond with the manliness and fortitude of a six-year-old girl and scarper with the best of them. What I don't know how to do is run recreationally, or at least not without the cardiac equivalent of an epileptic frog hurling itself against my ribcage.

A bit about me:

I am currently living in Toronto, but have accepted a new job in Vancouver, where I'll be moving January 1. So, for the time being, my efforts will be painful and embarrassing and cold. However, after December, my efforts will be merely painful and embarrassing and wet. I'm roughly human-shaped, prefer Betty to Wilma, Jack to vodka, red to white, and Guinness to pretty much anything else. What I know about sports could be written on one side of a napkin that's been folded in half, I have a no-tolerance policy with stupid, rude, or just oblivious people, and I believe that people that just step off of escalators and stop need to be slapped. Hard. I haven't stubbed my toe in years and feel vaguely superior about it. I believe that musical theatre is the artistic equivalent of swallowing your own vomit, am on a campaign to bring back the word 'cockamamie', and, although there are apparently a multitude of methods, I wouldn't even know how to begin skinning a cat.

In addition to my observations about running I intend to post a few key health facts here each week (or, at least 'periodically') - weight, body fat, miles logged, and favorite cheese. Much like Bridget Jones, only with fewer references to sweets (candy), stones (14 pounds - what is it, btw, about the British and the number 14? See 'fortnight'), and lorries (trucks). The theory is that these statistics should improve. There will, however, be posted for your amusement and to feed your sense of cardiovascular superiority periodic descriptions of my social humiliation that, with any luck, will be primarily related to running.

Today, at lunch, I'll be beetling over to the NIKE store to weather the commission-fueled smiles of sales people as they mask their smug disdain at my wretched state. If all goes well, I'll emerge with a pair of shoes, some socks, and a totally unjustified and artificially-inflated sense of confidence.

Of course, the odds are badly stacked against me. As any runner with Internet access knows, training for a marathon can take place in 16-20 weeks, but that's assuming you have a solid "fitness base". Bah! I have something better than a "fitness base" - I have moxie. For a while there in the '90's I even had chutzpah. And now, against my better judgement, I have a blog.

What could possibly go wrong?