Boldly running where I've never gone before

….can be anything but boring.  Once in 2266, they picked up this kid named Charlie who was the lone survivor of a crash on the planet Thasus.  Before they managed to get rid of him, he wreaked all variety of havoc with the special powers he had, but at least he turned the meatloaf into turkey.

However I digress.  With today also being Thanksgiving here in my little corner of the space time continuum, I will be joining my family in Chicago for a lovely restaurant meal.  No, Mr. Spock won’t be there to play his Vulcan lyrette.  But I will be dining with my husband and son, both of whom are guitarists.  If that counts.

The weather is fairly pleasant for late November:   currently 42 degrees with a high in the upper 50s predicted for the next couple of days, before the arrival of freezing rain this weekend.  This gives me a two-day window to get out for my next run and I am certainly thankful for that.

Since my last post, I have drawn up a training plan for the snowshoe event in 10 weeks and gone back to a structured exercise program.  And frankly, I realized I missed it.  Having an obligation to get out of bed and get moving in the morning seems to suit me.  I’m still dissecting the experience of marathon training this past summer and why I hated it so much—even though it was self-imposed—and one glaring failure I can see is that there was not enough “fun factor”.  This is a mistake I do not intend to make again.

I’m really thrilled to have discovered anew (in my old age) the joy of running, bike-riding and climbing hills like a child.  And I am deeply grateful to be yet able to do so.  Therefore on this day of reflection and gratitude, I have decided to thank my body.  Despite all the destructive forces with which I have assaulted it over the years—stress, bad food, bouts of laziness, partying, too much weight, scanty sleep—it still shows up every day and carries me forward with barely a squawk of protest.  Yes, there is some stiffness now where it used to be supple and cracking sounds from joints formerly silent, but it has not yet given up on me.  Not even a best friend would be so reliable.  And if you ask my mind, it will tell you that my body and I still have far to go with many plans and goals ahead.  I can’t imagine the body being unable or unwilling to enact the dreams which the mind conjures up.  Others my age and even younger are not so lucky.  Or so blessed, depending on how you look at it.  And thus it follows that in order to truly embrace the spirit of gratitude, I ought to be kinder to this old body because it has been more than kind to me.  I believe that is a goal as worthy as any other I may have on my agenda.

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Training the past week:

Nov. 15 – 19:  Sick with a bad cold.  Rested.
Sunday, Nov. 20 – brisk 4 mile walk around the neighborhood
Monday, Nov. 21 – 40 minutes weight training:  back, lower body and core
Tuesday , Nov. 22 – off
Wednesday, Nov. 23 – 30 minutes of walk-run intervals outdoors; 10 minutes flexibility
Thursday, Nov. 24 – 40 minutes weight training:  chest, shoulders and core

Weekend plans:  another run on the pavement, upper body weights session, 5 miles brisk walking in the forest preserve with some hills

Having not run the marathon or having run the non-marathon or however I plan to remember the Boondoggle in Berlin, I have been in a bit of a quandary as to what to plan next.  Thoroughly burned out and unwilling to do anything even remotely resembling scheduled training, I have spent the last 6 weeks living like a normal person:  sleeping late, going for walks, doing yoga or the occasional Zumba class, even wearing shoes without laces every day.  It’s been a nice change.  Milling around without a particular goal — in a holding pattern one might say — imparts a sense of freedom and spontaneity.    A lack of obligation and direction can be positively liberating!  At first anyway.  Until it gets boring.  And that’s pretty much where I am right now.   So it’s time to get my ass back in gear.

It’s pretty late in the year to expect any exciting events in this area, being almost December and all, so I set my sights on 2012 and the upcoming snowshoe racing season.

I’ve never been much of a winter sport enthusiast but I decided to banish the winter blues last year by planning one race per month from January 1 until April.  On a whim, I signed up for a snowshoe 5k on 1/29/11 with my dear friend Pam who is always up for outdoor adventure and actually owns a pair of snowshoes.   I didn’t think it could be that hard, so I ordered a pair online and stomped around the garage in them for about 10 minutes before deciding I was ready for anything.  The day of the race we headed out to beautiful Glacial Park in Ringwood, IL for the Snowshoe Stomp.   We had a blast!   Once I learned how to walk in the damn things without catching the front crampons in the snow and toppling forward, I did great.  Of course, I fell a bunch of times first but that’s just part of the fun, right?

So I am dusting off the old training journal and getting busy.  There is a race in Barrington on January 29 called the Frozen Zucchini 5k and I just registered for it.  I have 11 weeks to train and I’m pretty confident I’ll be ready.  Forward motion, as in walking or running, is a given.  The added legwork of taking larger and wider steps while trekking up and down hills can be practiced in the woods near my home.  And the best part is this:  since I’m not actually a “snowshoer”, I don’t have to worry about speed.  I don’t have to be fast.  I don’t have to be good.  Hell, I don’t even have to run.  I just have to strap those contraptions to my feet and remain upright for the better part of 3.1 miles.   I think I can handle that.

Captain Picard, update the mission log!

So the Berlin Marathon has come and gone and I did not die.  I didn’t run the whole race either.  But I’m okay with that.

On September 21, the day we left for Europe, I woke up feeling healthier than I had felt in over a week.  We boarded our flight at 5pm and arrived in Amsterdam 7 hours later (midnight Chicago time) at 7:00 am.  Our room was not to be ready for another five hours and I had not slept on the plane, so sleep for that night was an impossibility.  Instead I enjoyed the people and the walk around the neighborhood, along with a couple of beers and a sandwich.

The next day, we enjoyed an Indonesian rice table and a visit to the Albert Cuyp outdoor market with some friends along with more walking.  My plan to try to run a bit was thwarted by the unbelievable crowds of people and bicycles on the streets and sidewalks of Amsterdam.  Plus, I was pretty tired.  We took the night train to Berlin that night.

On September 24, we arrived in Berlin at 5:00 am.  After maybe 3 hours of sleep on the very bumpy train ride, we were fortunate enough to be able to get in to our hotel rooms for a mere 25 Euro extra per room and attempt to get some rest.  After about a 2 hour nap, I headed over to the Marathon Expo to pick up my packet.  It was a nice long walk past Checkpoint Charlie, the old Berlin wall, and a lot of different ethnic neighborhoods.  The Expo was very large and interesting.  I’ve never been to one that had its own beer garden before!  On our way back to the hotel, the inline skating marathon had begun and we got to watch a lot of the skaters whizzing down the streets.

It dawned on me at that point that “hey, I’ve barely slept in 3 days and was sick for like ten…..am I really going to try to run 26 miles tomorrow?”  And I decided NO.  I’m too tired.

Sleep total for September 21 = 0 hours.
September 22 = 6 hours
September 23 = 4 hours

Not a good idea to go for the whole race, that’s for sure.  So I decided to make it a Fun Run instead, hoping to make it a a little more than halfway by running as far as the Rathaus Schoneberg where JFK made the “ich bin ein Berliner” speech in 1963.

The morning of September 25, after indeed a lovely sleep of about 9 hours, I ditched the timing chip and headed over to the race (about 2 miles from the hotel) some 30 minutes before the gun went off.  I got there in enough time to join my corral, still waiting to be allowed across the start line, and headed out with the rest of the pack.

From the area near the Brandenburg Gate we wound around the Tiergarten, past the offices of the Chancellor and the Reichstag (Germany’s Parliament) through United Nations Square and then south, up to the halfway point at Potsdamer Strasse and to John F. Kennedy Platz .  And that’s where I finished my race.  I WAS TIRED.  Having dragged myself, with as much walking as running, through 14 miles of the marathon I then made my way slowly back through the streets to the hotel.  It seemed almost anticlimactic after all the preparation and drama over the summer, but I was certainly glad to have it over.

Afterwards, my husband and I had a nice dinner and a couple of beers at a cafe and then set about to enjoy the rest of our vacation.  We left Berlin the next day and headed down to Munich for three days of Oktoberfesting before returning to the States.

And so I have settled back into my life at home, not yet a marathoner but happy to be here.

So, I’m sitting on the sofa today with a cup of hot tea and a box of Kleenex when it occurs to me how eerily similar this scene is to another in recent memory.  It was 1997 and I had been studying for the med school admission test for months on end while attending college full time and working night shifts at a law firm.  A good score on that test was one key to the door of my future, and I devoted myself to my studies with a dedication befitting its gravity.  Whether reading on the El train, walking the floors at home with flash cards late into the night, or poring over books kept on the toilet tank, I studied like it was my religion.  About a week before the exam, I came down with a snotslinger of a cold like I’d never had before.  I remember showing up at the testing center feeling frail and depleted, toting my bag of Hall’s drops and box of tissues with a heart full of hope and a prayer on my lips.  Hacking and wheezing my way through the 6 hour exam, I figured it was both rotten luck and  a coincidence as rare as a lightning strike.

Yet here I am again.  After pounding the pavement month after month preparing for the Berlin marathon, I am sidelined at the eleventh hour with another ridiculous rhinovirus.  I needed to be running this past week instead of wondering why I was tired and all my bones hurt.  I would have loved sprinting along through this delightfully cool weather instead of shooting free throws at a wastebasket with crumpled up Kleenex.  And I would so much rather be writing about how race ready I feel at this moment instead of yet another angsty post rife with real or perceived inadequacies.   But we are where we are and there’s no escaping reality.

So this is how I’m going to handle it.

Unlike the last time I found myself in this situation, my future does not hinge on what will take place over the next few days or miles.  Nothing significant will happen if my running sucks.  In fact, no one will even care.  I haven’t constructed dreams and aspirations around a certain outcome and nobody is depending upon my success.  Self-image could take a temporary dive, but it wouldn’t be the first time I was less than thrilled with myself.  I’ll get over it.  And considering the fact that I got talked into doing the marathon in the first place, it is beyond illogical to give the end result undue importance.  Therefore I am going to quit worrying about it and let the chips fall where they may.

This may very well be the first time I’ve talked sense to myself in about 6 months.  Fascinating.

I will always remember the summer of 2011 — a season gobbled up by marathon training like the Crystalline Entity chewed up planets then left their essence trailing behind in clouds of electromagnetic flatulence.  

The Berlin Marathon will take place in 2 weeks and I will be there, ready or not.  At this point on any training plan it is time to taper, and taper I must — even though I never reached the magic number 20 miles for my farthest run.  The 18-miler done on Labor Day will have to suffice as my longest outing before the event.

I’ve never run a race I felt prepared for.  I’ve always worried about being last, fattest, slowest or oldest.  This season’s emotions have run the gamut from excitement to dread, confidence to despair, and anticipation to apathy before settling in to the current theme:  simple readiness.  This is not readiness like an elite athlete who calmly strides to the start line and prepares to break records.  I’m just ready to be done with this shit and get it behind me.

Training since the last post on August 28th (the day of the 16 miler):

August 29 – off
August 30 – yoga
August 31 –  3 mile easy run
September 1 – awesome 5 mile tempo run
September 2 – session with personal trainer
September 3 – 5 miler on a day that I’d planned to do 7, but it got too hot too soon
September 4 –  off
September 5 – 18 miler on a beautiful cool Labor Day morning (and it took ALL morning to do it)
September 6 –  intense lower body stretching routine followed by some half-hearted corework
September 7 – 4 fast miles, the first three with negative splits  —-  booya!
September 8 – session with personal trainer
September  9 – 5 easy miles
September 10 – off, unless you count some 12 ounce curls at a picnic
September 11 – off  (maybe should have done 20 on this day but my back hurt and I was tired so I did the smart thing and rested)
September 12 – yoga

What remains now in the last two weeks of training is to continue running enough to maintain the level of endurance earned thus far without being injured and then rest a couple more days before the race.   I’ve gone as far as I can go and all that’s left is to show up on Marathon morning and get it done—whatever “it” will be.   I can’t predict how it’s all going to unfold but I do know this much:  Like the Crystalline Entity, I’ll be out there for 42 kilometers chugging along,  gobbling up miles and farting stardust.

“Encounter at Farpoint” was the pilot episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.  Farpoint Station was thought to be an outpost constucted on the planet Deneb IV by a race called the Bandi.  Instead it turned out to be an entity which they had enslaved and disguised as a starbase.  It occurred to me during my 16 MILE LONG RUN yesterday that this marathon quest is similar to the Farpoint Mission.

First the name:  quite obviously the farthest point to which I will ever have raced.  And then the more subtle facet:  this race as not just a destination or an event but an entity, one that has seemingly swallowed my summer.  And the last bit — just like the Star Trek episode was the first for a new generation of characters on the Enterprise — I will also join a new crew:  the 0.15% of Americans who have run a marathon.  But honestly, I will still be so glad when it’s over!

I have never run 16 miles before.  Having walked it a couple of times when training for the Avon 2-day walk back in 2008, I had no doubt I would get it done but I had no idea what it would feel like.  My “running” which is actually run/walk intervals, even as wimpy is it may seem to those who regularly bust out 7:00-8:00 minute miles, is still more strenuous than a walk.  It challenged me and there were times (at 5 miles and at 8 miles) that I thought, “oh screw this…..what the hell am I doing this for?” and wanted to quit.  But I didn’t.  There were moments in that last mile that I was really tired and starting to get achy and counting the steps until I was done.  But I managed to keep going.  Thinking that I still have to find a way to make it 10 EXTRA MILES beyond that 16 is just a bit daunting at the moment, but I know I’ll get there.  So I’m glad the weather and I could finally mesh our schedules to make that run possible.  It was a character-builder and a confidence-booster.  And I’m only a teeny bit sore today.  Nice.

T minus 4 weeks and counting to the Berlin Marathon.   Next goal:  a 20-miler.

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Training in the last week:

August 21:  5 miles
August 22:  off
August 23:  8.8 miles (would have been more but interrupted by a thunderstorm)
August 24:  Yoga
August 25:  3 miles
August 26:  personal training session
August 27:  off

On the training table:  less junk than usual but still not stellar

… I have jumped back into marathon training with both feet and am scrambling to make up for lost ground (how’s that for a bunch of puns?) because the Berlin marathon will take place 5 weeks from today.

The heat wave which rendered outdoor activity about as much fun as a barefoot tango on a comet’s tail has gone, hopefully for good, and I have been training again for the past week and a half.  I took a full seven days off at the last of July and first week of August,  then did indoor cross-training for a couple more days before venturing back to the pavement on August 10th.

I was supposed to have peaked at 16 miles for my longest run by the end of July but did not do so and therefore have retooled the training program to make up for lost time.  Having crammed for tests all through college and med school, I am no stranger to the concept but physical endurance does not lend itself to the same compressibility as mere data.  Of course, it wouldn’t be me if there wasn’t some crazy challenge, so off I go.

On August 10, I did 4 miles of run/walk intervals and was not impressed with my performance, having walked quite a bit of the distance.

On August 11, instead of cross-training, I decided to run again (a rare event for me and my 55-year old knees) and ended up with a nice 6 mile outing.  It was interesting when at mid-run approximately 3 miles from home I felt the….umm…..call of nature quite insistently and had nowhere to go.  I considered some bushes but it seemed to be landscapers day everywhere I turned.  I found a bank but it wasn’t open yet.  I was about to ring a stranger’s doorbell when I spotted a small building I hadn’t seen before and approached it.  A dialysis center.  Great!  And it had a ladies room.  They saved an extra pair of kidneys that day for sure.

On August 12, I had a session with the personal trainer:  more strength/balance/core and a challenge to run a 1/2 marathon over the weekend.  I had signed up for Rock-n-Roll Chicago on 8/14/2011 but didn’t feel like making the 100-mile round trip drive into the City.  So in order to skip the event with no guilt, I was to run my own 13.1 miler instead.

On Saturday, August 13, I ran and walked 13.2 miles around the neighborhood (and some on my treadmill).  It was a good test of how well I’d built a training base.  It was tough to finish, having not gone that distance since June 25 in Seattle, but I felt great within an hour afterward and that gave me confidence.

Sunday, August 14, I got ambitious and planned a two-hour bicycle ride.  I got a late start and was only able to complete 1:45 before leaving to go to the movies.  I got 18.9 miles done.

Monday, August 15, I ran 5 miles.

Tuesday, August 16, I WAS SO EXHAUSTED I didn’t do anything athletic at all!  Well, there were those 16-ounce curls at the Plainfield Tap House….

Wednesday, August 17, I ran 3 miles.

Thursday, August 18, another session with the trainer.

Friday, August 19, I ran 3 miles again.

Saturday, August 20, a bit of lifestyle exercise was on the agenda:  tilling and weeding in the garden.

Sunday, August 21, 5 miles of run/walking.

The plan for the upcoming week includes the 16 mile long-run which is at least 3 weeks late, a couple of shorter runs, and a bike tour in Chicago with a cycling group.

The plan for the rest of the month:  build miles, stay healthy, avoid burnout and cram, cram, cram.

In the 22nd Century—long before the days of Captains Kirk or Picard—when the Enterprise was under the command of Jonathan Archer, the first shore leave was suggested by First Officer T’Pol, a Vulcan, when she noted a 3% drop in efficiency among the mostly human crew.  Taking a lesson from T’Pol (and a suggestion from my trainer), I have decided to do the same.

I love running.  It makes me feel like the primate that I am, connecting my body with nature and my inner beast as it frees my soul to blend with the ether of the cosmos.  And ever since my first 5k when I got a prize for placing in my age group, it has given me something to strive for.  Whether to go longer, faster or through a path strewn with obstacles, the current goal always gives me a way to make myself better at something.  In other words, it gives me hope and a sense of future—something an aging human often loses but nonetheless desperately needs to avoid slipping into the backward-looking malaise of old age.

Of course, it wouldn’t be ME if I didn’t find some way to turn joy into duty and pleasure into stress which is what I’ve been doing lately as the insane weather of the past two weeks has caused me to fall behind on my training schedule.  After a recent outburst of why-do-I-hate-my-life frustration, my husband noted, “Your business is doing fine and the only thing you’re probably stressed out about is running.  I think after this marathon, you need to take a break.  I mean, when are you going to do some NORMAL running again?”  That’s when a light bulb went off:  “Normal running?  Wha?  Oh, yeah.  Normal running.”  That’s what the problem is.  I’ve lost the fun of running by infusing it with the bitter tincture of work.  After consulting my trainer we both concluded that, since training feels like a job right now fraught with deadlines and pressure and angst, it’s time to chill out for a couple of days.  Live like a normal person.  Then get back to it.

There are roughly 8 weeks between now and the Berlin Marathon.  What’s a few days difference going to make if it means regaining my joy?  So what if I don’t get as far as a 20 mile long run before the race?  So what if I even have to walk much of the 26.2?  So what if I’m miserable that day?  I’m not a quitter.  I’m still going to do it.  I’m going to finish the marathon, get that big honkin’ medal, and join the group of crazy people constituting less than 1% of the population.  I will be a marathoner and nobody will ever be able to take that away from me.  It’s probably going to suck at some point during the race no matter how much training I do.  So why be miserable today?   Take a break. Refresh body-mind-and-soul, and then get back to the training.  Seriously…..even Jean Luc Picard took a vacation now and then.

Training completed in the past two weeks:

Running:  7 mile was the max in distance, a couple of 3 milers and a walk or two
Biking:  a 15 miler and 20 mile ride
Strength/balance/core:  twice-weekly sessions with the trainer
Flexibility:  not enough

Eating:  controlled chaos

I am located on Terra, third planet from the sun in a system on the inner edge of the Orion-Cygnus Arm of the Milky Way galaxy approximately 27,000 light years from the galaxy’s center, where I am presently engaged in training for the Berlin marathon.

The events of the past few days are as follows:

Tuesday, July 12

The weather did not choose to cooperate with my plans for double digit miles.  It was hot and sunny from at least 7am onward.  I figured I would do the best I could for as long as I could and see what happened.  I got outside at 6:30 in the morning and knew in rather short order that I wasn’t going to make it for the long haul.  The sun was set to “high broil” and seemed focused squarely on my head.  Sweat was rolling down every possible crevice after the first mile, and I was about to start in on my litany of gripes about summer running.  “This is why I don’t run in the summer!” I said to myself.  Then I realized:  wait….it’s mid-July and I AM running.  In fact, I’ve been running fairly consistently this entire year — all of winter, spring AND summer.  So I guess then as of 2011, I do run in the summer.  Maybe not long and maybe not well (yet) but I DO run in the summer!  And that’s cool.

Therefore, no matter how bad the weather is or how short the distance must be, I have decided to be damn proud of the fact that a summer has come and has NOT found me sitting on the couch.  I may not be running as long or as well as I’d like, but I AM running in the summer!  Not bad for an old broad…

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Wednesday, July 13

Yesterday after my short (3.22 mile) run, I came home and had breakfast.  I wanted to get in at least 2 hours of training so I decided to let the food settle, then go downstairs and do some step aerobics.  There may not be much forward motion but step is a great workout for quads, hams and glutes.  I did a 45 minute session total which was effective enough that I felt it today, and I liked that.  I love the feel of DOMS in the morning!

Today’s a.m. weather was cool, grey and windy — almost autumnlike.  I got on the bicycle around 7:00 and pedaled at a brisk pace for an hour around the neighborhood.  There are some decent hills (for Illinois anyway) and so I managed to work up a bit of a sweat, especially when riding into the wind.  I was tired and had to talk myself through the last half of the ride, but I pushed on by repeating “five more minutes” and then five more after that until the hour had elapsed.

The bike is suggested by many coaches as a good cross-training exercise for runners.  It does work many of the same muscles in a non-impact fashion, but I believe my workout vids bring me to a greater state of cardiovascular fitness.  There’s something about doing step or plyometrics while lifting light weights or reaching overhead (the way so many of the FIRM, Cathe Friedrich or Gilad workouts direct) that helps me get stronger.  And climbing the 14-inch box on those old FIRM workouts cannot be denied as a stamina-builder.

Thurday’s forecast promised a perfect chance to try for big miles in the morning.  I set the clock for 4:45 a.m. and hoped to have a good two hours to run before heading back home to prepare for the workday.  I always need an hour to get completely awake, so I planned to run from 6 to 8ish.  It’s a great idea to geta minimum of eight hours sleep the night before but getting to bed early is never easy for me!

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Thursday, July 14 — Bastille Day

On this day in 1789, Parisians stormed the Bastille seeking to gain ammunition and gunpowder for the Revolution.  222 years later, I stormed the subdivisions and blasted the crap out of my recent inability to rack up some distance.

The weather was great, I actually got out of bed at 5:00 and was out of the house by 6:15.  I did ten miles of run/walk intervals and it was AWESOME!  I even had energy for a full day’s work at the office afterward.  Love it, love it, love it!

Right now, not even a trip to outer space could be better than this.

Risa, the pleasure planet, is a class M Federation planet about 90 light years from earth within a binary star system, which means it has two suns.  Before terra forming made it the hedonistic vacation retreat of Starfleet officers as well as other species, it was said to be quite a  miserable place.  I simply cannot imagine what it would be like to train for a marathon with not one but TWO suns beating down on your sweaty little head.

Since returning from Seattle two weeks ago, advancing the requisite mileage has been an interesting task.  Being relatively slow to begin with, my “long slow distance” runs always last at least two and as much as four hours.  Out here in the land of new subdivisions with young trees yielding very little shade, this means either getting out super early or preparing to skitter across the pavement like water on a hot skillet.

After resting a few days at the end of June, I got back to work with a handful of short runs, one completely awesome and excellent speed session, a few bike rides of gradually increasing length, and the usual strength/balance/core hours with the personal trainer.  Last weekend, I also put feet to pavement early enough for a relatively comfortable 9-miler on Sunday morning before enjoying a sumptuous family brunch that promptly replaced every spent calorie.

After a similar week, the plan was to run 12 miles this weekend.  Ummm…..I haven’t quite managed that yet.  My body requested the day off yesterday and having learned the need to heed these messages, I took things easy.  After a decent night’s rest, I headed outdoors this morning at about 6:45 and got six miles done before the bombardment of sun and humidity brought the session to a close.  In looking ahead on weather.com, it appears that Tuesday—my usual day off work—may be my next best chance to score double digit mileage.   My goal is to do at least one 16-17 miler before month’s end.  I have my eye on the weekend of the 23rd for that attempt, with next Saturday or Sunday being hopefully a 15-mile outing—weather permitting, of course.

Otherwise, life has been moving in a  positive direction and I feel fairly content.  My native restlessness, a state which had previously served to propel me forward before recently morphing into bitter self-defeating discontent, is settling back into its usual demeanor.  Hence, I am able to regard myself with the same courtesy I would bequeath a fellow passenger on a city bus.   The homefront is in its typical state of tranquil monotony, and a stressful issue on the job quite surprisingly resolved itself.  I’m still eating too much and not stretching enough but I’ve begun peace talks with myself in an effort to table the issue of perfection and construct a workable plan for progress.

I came across this great book called “The Mental Athlete” by Kay Porter.  It addresses the notion of attitude and mental imagery as a training issue.  I need to read more of it before I’ll have enough to say in this journal, but thus far it seems very promising.  I have believed for a long time that the bulk of our “problems” are either created or amplified in our own minds, and my own is no exception.  Taming the beast within the brain may be a formidable task but the rewards will likely be immense.  And it can’t be too much harder than marathon training in July under the beating suns of binary stars.