When I lift my shirt and look down, especially when I am running and use the bottom of my shirt to wipe the sweat from my face, my gut sticks out bilaterally just below my belly button. Not very far, but enough to make the two raised humps look like a little booty. Couple that with the hair that grows north to the belly button and I have the cousin to the much larger version around the corner. Can you imagine that this is all I can come up with as I'm trudging around the golf course for my second to last long run before the first event for my fortieth year? That is the deep, contemplative thought I have when I am spending endless hours by myself trying to find out what I have learned over the previous 40 years and how I can make the next forty that much better. This is going to be a long year...
At 2a on a Saturday, I awoke and put on the running shoes to start the 20 mile trek I wanted to get in before everyone woke up. I'm still trying not to let any of my aspirations get in the way of my family life as I think its highly unfair to everyone else. Do you think its strange that there is a grown man running the streets of a planned community at 3a? 4a? 5a? 6a? If you don't, the KGB does. For four and a half hours, the security guards (KGB) of said community followed me like I was in Rocky IV. I kept picturing myself doing wind-sprints through the snow in an effort to try and lose the KGB from watching my every move. I kept thinking that my run had such meaning to this country that armed men needed to be aware of my intentions. What it looked like though was me slowly sauntering around manicured lawns in a partial daze, effervescent and freshly planted flowers permeating through the recently sprinklered landscape that was making me whiplash with each new house as I strolled by, and limping past newly purchased Jaguars and Bentleys as they sat in their driveways like they were two best friends happy to have finally found their soul mate. Maybe that is why the KGB wanted to know why a 39 year old man is awake and running by himself through "Fantasy Land" in the dark. I ultimately took it as a compliment because I wanted to feel like I was highly intimidating to someone. Silly rabbit, tricks are kids.
I finished just as everyone was waking up and my wife was really wondering where I went. It seems that her husband forgot to tell her that he wanted to run that morning, so when she spent the night in an empty bed, she ultimately wanted to know where I was. Who's being selfish now? I was sore, tired, chaffed in highly uncomfortable places and happy that I was able to run 20 miles. Now I just need to double that and run the first half uphill and I'll be totally fine.
I've also made some headway with some exceptional people to interview this year. While my journey will be an interesting one, I am more interested to hear how others have fared on their walk to 40 and what they may have accomplished before, during and after this potentially arbitrary number. I have two interviews with some superstar athletes that have accomplished so much in and out of their sports by the age of 40. I'm excited to find other people as well who can really add to the mix; so let me know if you know if anyone...they don't have to be famous...but maybe to you they are.
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