FIRST FULL WEEK OF RUNNING

Now I know why I never tried running before...because it totally sucks. But I'm coming around on it. It would probably help if I took the advise of Wil and actually ran at an hour when it wasn't 95 degrees out. The sun has a way of completely taking it out of you and dripping it down into your sock. The sun is a complete beast when you're on the street. Jay Z is my soundtrack this week. Better than the first week when I was listening to Company Flow and only found three tracks listenable while jogging. Amazing how some things make perfect sense at home with the headphones on, but you try to take them on the trail and the recording just turns to mush. I'm waiting on Fear of a Black Planet until I really need it and that would be the last part of August when I start ramping up from the steady three which I'm trying to achieve right now. I'm at a steady 2.00 to 2.25. I could probably do three if my skin wasn't melting off of the bone.

Avoiding Sportscenter this morning because I don't want to hear how the Red Sox blew a 10-1 lead to the Orioles...again.

I'm finding it very difficult to balance my time with "training for a marathon" thrown in there. For a married man who has a demanding job, likes to write and puts together two-hour mixes of obscure Beatle covers, throwing in there "running four nights a week" is tasking. Nonetheless, I push on. The lovely wife has been supportive, but maintains that I need to get the ankle inspected before I get too far. Ankle has been feeling good. I ice it as a precaution, but it feels pretty solid.

Every once in a while, I'll see someone else out on the trail in an exhausting jog/run and I still think that I'll never consider myself one of them. I don't fit the mold of fitting the mold. I don't see myself as one of those cats that will want to talk about marathoning after it's all said and done. I just wanna do it. Some of these cats are so captivated with this running thing. I mean, I'm not wearing the daisies with the splits up the side yet. No headband. If you see me running it pretty much looks like me running for my life after just getting my ass whooped. It helps when Kool Aid joins me because then it appears to be a controlled jog.

Listening to EPMD this morning. Man, that hits the spot. I've been up since 4:45 and really don't have any clear explanation except that I was absolutely freezing. I didn't know that our air conditioner had the capability to drop to 45 degrees.

Wish I could take my dogs on the jogs with me, but three miles at a time might be too much for them. They need the exercise, though. Dudes act like they wanna run, but you get about a mile in and their bodies begin to fail them. Reminds me of a conversation I had with someone and they were telling me that very few animals are made to comfortably run 26 miles and a human is not one of them. Hell, a horse isn't even built for those distances. And dogs run more than three times the relative distance as a human so running three miles with me is like ten to them.

You see the tentative Team Root Down design above. It might need a little work still, but thinking about getting some pressed up on a limited level. It'll have the logo running up the back starting at near the bottom and then having the shoe print on near the top right shoulder. The wrong will carry some sort of slogan. Need some help with that, though.

"I know you got sole."
"Don't sweat the technique."
"Run on."
"Can't knock da hustle."
"Ain't no half-steppin'."
"Who stole the sole?"
"And y'don't stop."
"Renegades of Run"
"I run this."
"I ain't no joke."
"Steady mobbin'."
"Gotta get mine."
"I wondered, why not golf?"

The creative doesn't come as easy as it used to.

Michael Jackson means sales. I mean, geez, people are picking up those old crappy Jackson records that were on Epic. It's like anything that dude put out is straight right now. We have conversations up at work from time to time about what artists' deaths would be best for business from the perspective of people flocking to the stores to buy product. I've always thought that Bob Dylan would be probably the biggest. Maybe Willie Nelson, Mick Jagger or Paul McCartney because of the expansive catalog alone. I think Trent Reznor or Jay-Z. These are not people I really want to die, but when you see the reaction in sales that you did with Johnny Cash or Ray Charles dying, it gets you thinking about whose death would chart the highest. I didn't really think about Michael Jackson. Dude didn't have a ton of great records. In fact, in my humblest, he only had two great records, but he did so much volume on those records alone that, hell, almost everyone owned Thriller. I was watching his old Motown 25 performance of "Billie Jean" the other day. Holy cow.

Dude was killin' it. When he goes into the moonwalk for the first time, it sounds like someone in the audience pulls out a gun. I heart this video.

Hit me with your suggestions on the shirt in my inbox or comment field. One last cup of joe before I go to work. I'm gonna need it.