I'm Writing Slowly Because I Know You Can't Read Fast

Morning Workout
RUN
3 very hilly hours, consisting of both kinds: the excruciatingly steep up and the ankle-biting, knee-jarring down varieties.

Random Comments: Cat and I decided to go for a nice trail run this morning through the beautiful Malibu Creek Park which, by the by, is where they used to film the TV show M*A*S*H. Of course all that's left of that classic set is a rusted out army jeep and a sign that says MASH Site That-A-Way. It always breaks my fragile little heart seeing that because I was such an enormously huge geeky M*A*S*H fan when I was but a wee lad. I used to watch the show three times a day every day: 5 o'clock, 7 o'clock and 11 o'clock. I couldn't get enough. I've seen every single episode of M*A*S*H, probably at least twice. I even still have that special Time Magazine issue that came out the week of the final episode. What a painfully sad week that was for me. Now here I am twenty-odd years later feeling quite a different pain as I run by the filming site of the show. This pain probably has less to do with the end of a TV show and more to do with the 2500+ feet of rocky trail climbing that we'd been doing over the first 6 miles of this run. What part of my legs weren't tired out from yesterday's run, swim and 85 miles/6200 feet of climbing on the bike, got partially destroyed in the first 6 miles of today's run. And then what little ounce of muscle was left at the peak of this run, got demolished shortly thereafter. It's all downhill, you say. Yeah, well, let's see you run this ridiculously steep downhill without hurting. And that is what hammered the proverbial nails into my not-so-proverbial legs, which at that point felt very similar to proverbial concrete coffins. The thing is, we were running right along the tippy-top of the breathtakingly gorgeous Santa Monica mountains. The dark blue ocean was sprawled out to infinity in front of us, and the lush green undulations of hills stretched as far as the eye could see in every other direction. In fact, somewhere around mile seven, about 5 minutes before I completely hit the wall, I told Cat that despite my overriding agony, I'd probably be referring to this as a "great run" shortly after we finished. So, guess what I'm about to say... Yep, you got it...it was a great run. Of course, I'm in a tremendous amount of pain right now and could probably use a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital if one were nearby. But Hawkeye, Hot Lips, Radar and Trapper John aside, I'm damn glad I did it.