The Battle of the Bulge has nothing to do with waist lines

Monday, June 7, 2010

We were driving to the state meet in Columbus Friday and Jimmy had brought along a trivial pursuit game. I guess he was worried about uncomfortable silences since I don’t allow the radio to be on in the car. I don’t like the competition when I want to speak. Anyway, he asked the question “what percentage of American college students correctly answered the question ‘in what war was the battle of the bulge fought?’” The answer was 20%, which means four out of five didn’t know the answer.

I had three college students sitting around the dinner table on Sunday and repeated the question. They came back with two civil wars and a ‘huh?’ If you add Holly’s ‘you must be kidding if you think I’ll know’, then the table was 0 for 4. Holly’s dad, a WWII vet ended the mystery for them. I’m a history nut and so I guess I don’t count. Besides – I’d seen ‘Patton’ about 10 times and of course the movie ‘Battle of the Bulge’ when I was a wee tot.

I know…I know…there ought to be a point. Too bad…there isn’t. I was just thinking and started writing. I should never do that and I’ll try to get back to just writing without thinking.

Either I’m getting faster or the rest of the running community is getting really slow, but I passed a couple of runners on the trail today. In fact, I passed them three different times and this got them to wondering just where the hell I was going that they weren’t.

“I’m a stalker. I run off into the woods and circle around behind people. Just to see if I can,” I said.

They looked at me like I was strange – more than just running strange and said “oh”.

As I completed my sentence, I was turning off again on some unmarked trail. I was running the stretch of trail between the Polo Fields and Miles Road in the South Chagrin Reservation. There are cool, seldom-used hiking paths that are right on the river and so much more interesting to run than the bridle trails, which are full of horses and horse shit…lot’s more than the North Chagrin Reservation. I’ll run there once in awhile for a change of pace and I like to explore these trails. I’m think Rick and Dawn (the two runners I was stalking) never get off the bridle trails and don’t know about them. They’re missing some really good running.

I ended up with another 1-hour run. It’s amazing to me that I can do these things back to back to back now and I’m loving it. The problem is…I’m becoming too one dimensional. All I do is run. I could have easily done a bike last night, but I didn’t want to miss my run. Maybe tonight? Maybe both?

Run duration: 60 minutes.

Training Heart Rate: 140.

Calories burned during workout: 1020.