Sometimes, Gratitude...

Once a week, for the past four years, I've taught a study-skills and test-taking seminar as part of my "real" job. The presentation method, as many who read this blog (or the articles which often come from this blog) might guess, is a blend of storytelling and instruction.

For the most part, I've enjoyed the time in the classroom; every group of 25-to-65 students - the vast majority young enough to be my child - presented its own unique "terrain" on which I take a brief 60-to-90 jaunt (back) into the academic world. Not every one of them needed to hear what I felt like saying. Strangely enough, some of them wanted to know a little more about road running or triathlon than how to beat a multiple-choice test.

This morning I received a note from the indoc staff. Curriculum additions mandated by the persons in charge of Navy training, only three miles down the street, left no room to add this (perhaps the last) hold-over from the Navy's Revolution in Training.

The change was eventual. I've been through three revisions, three cubicles, two commanding officers, two supervisors, a reduction-in-force, a defunct survey database, and a cycle in training delivery methods from instructor-led to self-paced...and back...since I started teaching this seminar. I have to admit a sense of gratitude that it is finally over.

Steven Covey, in "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People," says the first habit effective persons cultivate is to begin activities with the end in mind. I think he was talking "end state," not necessarily "end date."

Sometimes we complete a target event (marathon, half-marathon, triathlon, just to name a few) and between the time when the euphoria departs and the muscle soreness arrives we get the athletic version of the "existential dilemma": 'I completed a (blank)...now what?' Could this dilemma exist because we don't like empty schedules and blank calendar spaces? Mary-Chapin Carpenter, in "The Long Way Home," sings that many people are driven with the need to '...gotta go, gotta be, gotta get somewhere..." We don't take the time to appreciate what is now in our mental and emotional rear-view mirror; negative or positive.

So now it looks like I have an extra hour in my calendar. I'm not necessarily ready to fill in the blank with anything, at least for a couple of weeks. It's a little extra daylight time...something else for which I can be grateful.

Swedish Speed Work By Any Other Name

In order to delay inevitable shagginess, as well as the revelation of way too many gray hairs, it was definitely high time to put myself back in the barber's chair. There was a time when I looked at a visit to the barber shop with much the same dread as a visit to the dentist. However, I'm losing my teeth (only a little) faster than my hair.

I did have once upon a time what could be best described as an educated mullet, simply because I was an educated person. I didn't have the Joe Dirt thing going, not quite that serious a mullet. In fact, I never considered it to be a mullet. To me it was simply long hair. It was my thumb in the eye of society to have enough hair to pull it back into a (small) pony tail, put on my white oxford dress shirt and tie, and step into the classroom. There are a couple of photos floating around of me that way.

However, my wife cannot bear the thought of the man of her life having long hair. She considers it unnatural. I've threatened to grow it down to my butt in order to spite everyone...but I do like the regular income. Everyone says there's no such thing as a dress code with the federal government, but just try to get a promotion without being able to wear business attire. I don't care how smart you are, no one will listen to your smart ideas if you're wearing a loud-a$$ Hawaiian shirt and ratty jeans. As of last week I'm ten years out from my pension; after that, however, all bets are off on the hair limit. Of course, I might not be able to grow it that long by then. I wouldn't call the last two workouts fartlek by any stretch of the imagination. If you were or are a music enthusiast, it was probably closer to 30 minutes of rock and roll, followed by 30 minutes of a funeral dirge/death metal mash-up. Not pretty, huh?
It always helps on those days when you are running alone to be mindful of the effort...yes, listen to your body (and not the music in your Oakley Thumps). The music initially was there for entertainment purposes, keeping ennui at bay. I won't use them when I'm running with someone else, because it's unkind to not carry on a conversation with them. Yes, I know we're usually not carrying on a conversation during the latter half of the run, but it's nice to know we could always back off and have one if we really wished. And there have been days we have done so.
Effort is a relative thing, especially when you're five minutes behind the rest of the group at the outset of the run...I knew that second potty break this morning was going to come back to haunt me. However, I consider it better to have been five minutes back and hurrying like mad to try and catch up than to go out with the group and have one eye constantly on the horizon looking (desperately!) for the porta-potty.

And believe me, I don't think the Swedes were thinking about porta-potties when the term fartlek was coined.