Farmer Blow & Getting Hit by Age

This entry could be titled "Farmer Blow Getting Hit by Age Random Thoughts While Running Twelve Miles in the Rain on Okinawa" but I thought that might be a bit much!

So there I was, as I said, running; I've been doing quite a bit running lately as I'm training for the Okinawa marathon in February.  By the way there's a decent chance that I'll be off island for work during the month of February, so if any of you are going to be in this neck of the woods and want to buy my registration I'll sell it to you for half price.  Back to my run.

I was around the three-mile mark (of twelve), and I found myself in need of a handkerchief.  So. For the first time in my life, I performed what is commonly called the "farmer blow."  For those of you that have never had the pleasure, a farmer blow is when one places one's finger on one nostril to close it, takes a deep breath (as much as one can while running), and blows hard out of the other side of one's nose; thereby expelling anything lodged in said nose.  Usually much to the vexation of anyone who happens to be running near (especially downwind) the person performing this classy maneuver.  Fortunately there was no one around that night.  Well, as I was contemplating this act, it hit me like a rock to the side of the head: "This is the first time I've done this, and I'm thirty-two."

I got to thinking, I've been running about half my life and that is about sixteen years!  I've been running over twice as long as my eldest son has been alive.  I started soccer in my middle-school years, continued until my freshman year of high-school, then I started cross-country and track.  So I've been running since my '91-'98 school year.  Yeah, see I'm old, I graduated in 2000!  Wow, that seems like such a long time.  Doing simple math in my head as I run really makes time go fast when one is on a little over two hour run.  Reminiscing is rough though, it leads me down memory lane and it reminds me of how slow I now am.  Not really bragging, just remembering; In high-school I could run about five-minute twenty-second/mile, and now, I struggle to do ten-minutes per mile.  Even just a few years ago when I was in language school in California, I had just finished my first (and only full marathon), and I was training for more marathoning.  At that time I was running about seven-minutes forty-seconds  per mile, and I was up to eighteen miles at a time.  So, I went from high-school times around sub-nineteen minute 5K to somewhere around twenty-three minutes.  Though of course I was working on much longer distances.  I often wish I had the camaraderie of a team and the knowledge of a coach to get me back to faster speeds.  I read a Runner's World article many years ago that a distance runner's prime is usually in his/her thirties.  I've never forgotten that article, but life has gotten in the way so much over the years that I don't think I'll ever get down to those times again.  It's kinda sad, but hey, life goes on.

Anyways, I've enjoyed this little break from heavier topics, may God bless you this Christmas season.