Cold Call

On a beautiful day for running, I set out to log 21.6 miles. Alas, I dropped out at 15. I've been fighting a cold all week and halfway up to the Elmer Smith Bridge felt woozy, ready to pass out. (Of course, having my nostrils clogged didn't help.) This would've been my last big mileage before the marathon. Maybe if I rest up and get over this bug, I'll squeeze in one more long run.

Talked to my agent re. Dummy Fever. She likes the outline and wants me to write up a few chapters. That shouldn't be too hard since the story's been marinating in my fine Irish head since May.

Selling Old Dreams

Yes, I've sold a book! In fact, I've sold four books: two on film lighting, one on fillmmaking, and one on defensive football. I also set up a consignment sale for a pair of Alesis MI Active Biamplified reference monitors — a fancy term for speakers used in sound editing. They're a leftover from the days when I had tons of money and thought I'd make my own digital films for a living. Ah, but the real gold lies in cyberspace — at least until I run out of possessions to sell.

Game Day

Runner parking scuttled at the Rose Bowl this AM in order to make room for tailgaters. And they were there, too, in their RVs at 7:00 AM for a 3:30 PM game. (UCLA vs. BYU.)

Ernesto hurt his calf muscle Thursday and rested. So I ran 16.2 miles. Wearing my Disneyland Half Marathon tee-shirt proved a real conversation starter. It seemed half the runners I met, including non-TNT chums, had been at the race Monday and had a story to tell about the stinking heat. I mentioned seeing runners sitting down on every available curb space because it was too hot to warm up. They looked like forlorn passengers waiting for a train in Bangkok.

Took an ice bath after today's run —fifteen minutes in a cold tub with several pounds of ice cubes rattling around. Climbing out, my legs felt like frozen drumsticks. But, ah, the blood does return, speeding up the healing.

Finally got my lap top back this week. The techs weren't 100% sure what was wrong. I told them to swap out the hard drive and transfer all the data. That worked just dandy and I can now survey my dwindling fiances with the flick of a button.

Happiest Race on Earth

At least that's what it said on my finisher's medal. And what a medal! But I'm getting ahead. The Disneyland Half Marathon was the second hottest race I've ever run. (2005 Honolulu Marathon was first, but not by much.) It was muggy at 4:30 AM and only got stickier as dawn approached.

A quick digression: I believe the afterlife may well be modeled after Disneyland. They certainly know how to move large numbers of people quickly and efficiently.

Back at the race, many runners entered the spirt of the event and wore mouse ears or Minnie Mouse outfits. A lone Japanese guy wore a hat with faux flowers growing out of the crown. During the race, many runners took the opportunity to stop and have photos taken with Alice in Wonderland, the Mad Hatter, and some giant thing from Monsters. (The one that was voiced by John Goodman.)

In any case, the temperature was high enough that the park issued a red flag warning. Interesting choice on Labor Day. Apparantly, communists would shoot runners who finished ahead of anyone in a lower economic class.

Red would be followed by the most extreme temperature warning — a black flag. Not only would it be blazing hot, but anarchists would hurl bombs into the crowd as well as assassinate selected elite runners. Once the race was destabilized, they could introduce autonomous trade unions and a runners' collective, using strikes to compel the race director to step down and allow the development of spontaneous running events without formal organization.

But that would also mean no big, fat finisher medals shaped like the Magic Kingdom.

Happy Labor Day!

Disney Half Marathon, and Risky Ventures

A day off today: from a long morning run, that is. And like most off days, filled with activity. I drove down to Anaheim early this morning and picked up my race number for Monday's Disneyland half-marathon. Then I dropped off my powerbook again to have a new hard drive installed. Gassed the car and now am preparing to write all day on Dummy Fever while awaiting word on where to meet wife and in-laws for dinner.

Ernesto is in New York for a friend's wedding. Next Saturday he'll run 12 and I'll do a mere 16.

Already a hundred degrees and it's not even noon. I'm fortunate not to be running today.

Another fortunate man was Risky Ventures. You can read about his luck at Products of a Diseased Mind. Then scroll down to absorb the cautionary tale of "Roscoe: The Sensible Sniper."

19.3 Mile Run, Going Broke, and King Kong

19.3 was Saturday's long run. (An odd number of miles, but satisfying nonetheless.) It included three laps around the Rose Bowl (9.3 miles) and a run up to the Elmer Smith Bridge (10 miles round-trip). Ernesto ran the Elmer circuit, then met me at various scenic spots with an ice cooler. As the temperature was in the balmy 70s, I finished on pace and feeling good.

Speaking of running, I'm running out of money. While my darling wife has gotten more work, the medium-sized dollars that sustain us are drying up. Two more checks coming in, but nothing lined up after that. A tense time, but opportunities have a way of appearing. I need to avoid getting so negative and filled with self pity that I fail to see them.

Tomorrow I learn the fate of my hard drive.

Finished the second draft outline for Dummy Fever. I'll polish it up this week and send it in to my agent.

I tried watching Peter Jackson's King Kong Friday night. Beautiful CG backgrounds, nice score but the story was so overwritten, filled with bloated, easily-cut moments, that I lost all interest and turned on Modern Marvels. Of the two major remakes— Jackson's and the 1976 laugher — there was a tendency to remove "the beast" from this Beauty and the Beast tale. The original Kong had sympathetic moments, but also killed people in horrible, unprovoked ways. You never forgot he was a big animal. Plus the 1933 film moved like lighting. Once Fay Wray was kidnapped, the story hit the gas and never slowed 'til "twas beauty killed the beast."

Thus endth my thoughts on giant monkey movies.

Computer Woes and Track Practice

Tapping away, transcribing Dummy Fever into a back-up computer, rewriting as I go. My powerbook lanquishes in tech hosptial with no word due until Monday. Mostly, I'm concerned with losing financial data. As it is, I'm reconciling bank statements the old-fashioned way — by hand and math. It's like having to suddenly use a typewriter or an analog phone. (The kind with a dial like you see in movies.)

Ran 800 meter repeats last night at the La Crescenta high school track. Football practice occupied the field for most of my workout and I had to slow at times to avoid getting thumped with a field goal try. (Ah, it all brought back fond memories of hot August days with a hoarse coach hollering at me to stay low on tackles.)

Each track seems to have its own evening rhythm. In La Cresecenta, it's the Grand Promenade. As the sun dipped behind the Verdugo Hills and the football team headed off to shower, couples and kids and families and groups arrived to walk around the track.

Strollers clearly outnumbered runners. I had to dodge and weave quite a bit. For some reason, I was reminded of the scene from Midnight Express where Brad Davis winds up in a Turkish madhouse. Inmates are made to walk in a circle all day. At one point, he turns and walks against the grain, upsetting his fellow mad, who grab and clutch at him. For a fleeting moment, I thought that might happen to me.

Still, the run was good training for a crowded race like Chicago.



Or a Turkish madhouse.