02.05.10
Still Hunt
The little story surrounding this picture is over at Queer New York Blog
08.17.09
I ran all night and day, I couldn’t get away
NYC Half Marathon 2009 Start
I competed in my first big competitive race yesterday morning, running and finishing the NYC 1/2 Marathon. The fact that I can say and not be lying that I finished the race while still actually running is something. I’d planned on finishing it that way and felt I’d finish it that way up until about mile 9 when my thoughts started to betray me and the idea of just stopping and walking it piped up. By mile 11, I’d had it and it was only the voice of a good friend who coached and mentored me in the ways of running that put me through. But I finished in 2:10 or just over 10 minutes a mile with each successive mile actually improving in time or what I now know as a negative split. The heat and humidity wasn’t anything I was used to running in and it beat me down brutally until there wasn’t much left to drag across the finish line.
The course itself was something pretty spectacular. It was 13.1 miles that looped around Central Park and then spit us out on 7th Avenue where we ran down to Times Square, the entire avenue blocked and lined with spectators, bands, the gay cheerleaders, cops and firemen. That was a shining moment where you can’t help but get a huge kick of adrenaline and I did…but then we turned the corner and ran down 42nd Street through Disneyland and out onto the West Side Highway. To look down that sun-spotted stretch and know that there were four looming miles knocked the wind out of me but I pressed on as did the 14,000 people running along with me.
My email to people who’ve asked today how the race went included two milestone events that were paramount to me in this race: “I finished” and “I didn’t poop myself”. The second one seems to take people by surprise and I’ve thrown off more then a few people from ever running by explaining that shitting oneself during a race isn’t unheard of. Jubilee Chris, Voice of the Lord, Hand of Light, and Power Tool of the Good Carpenter, also ran with me and regaled me with tales of how the front-runners in the race, those of whom each second in the run matters, often wait until just before the start and then pee, having deferred to their mental conditioning being the priority rather than a potty break. I would like to have said I scoped out said puddles of urine when I finally got up to the starting line but by that time I was already at the 5:00 minute mark and I wanted to make sure my fancy-schmancy shoe timer RFID thingy made as close as contact to the starting mat so my times would register so I missed the pools of urine.
Overall, I’m happy to say I ran it, clapped for and whistled at the cute gay cheerleaders, got to run through Times Square like a returning champion, and finished the race. I can’t imagine feeling the way I did and knowing that I was only half-way through if this had been the full marathon so it got me re-thinking that whole idea. I imagine I’ll do it again next year and know for sure I’m going to keep up training and working out and that’s the win for me: not letting how absolutely brutalized and beat down I felt at the end ruin the feel I get from running.
06.28.09
Parading Around
It was Gay Pride in NYC this whole past week and as part of the festivities, I opted to skip going up to the house to lounge around the deck and weed through my burgeoning garden and flowerbeds for staying in the city to have some fun. I participated in the 5-mile Pride Run through Central Park on Saturday morning with about 3000 other runners through the sunny, warm morning. We wound our way from the Upper East Side over and down the West Side, cresting at the bottom of the park where the Essex House and the Plaza rear up into the New York skyline and then back up the East side.
I’ve mentioned before that I find the run in Central Park to be a particularly difficult one though I can’t figure out the reason. The hills aren’t close to what I’m running back at home and I’ve conquered the distance some time ago but never the less, I’m really working to finish a circuit through the park and yesterday was no different. I managed to almost live up to my stated pace that placed me in the first third of the running heat and finished with an overall pace of 8:30 per mile. I was trying to be in high geek fashion by running in my all cotton “Rage of the Red Lanterns” t-shirt rather than my usual running gear of wicking this and moisture barrier that but as a novice, I am quickly learning fashion doesn’t really fly and it’s all about comfort. I was thoroughly drenched by the end of the run and almost over-heated. More importantly though completely unsurprising, not a single person noticed or commented on the shirt and so I am now that much smarter in leaving my Geek at home and sticking with the routine…unless Nike starts making comic-inspired running gear. And then I’m all over it.
Today I’m marching in the Pride Parade, having been invited by some pretty esteemed bloggers to join their blogging group. Even though I’ve inadvertently evolved over to micro-blogging through Twitter more than actual blogging these days, it’s still great to be invited into a group who I’ve respected and been reading for years so I’m pretty excited. We’re in section 8 behind Club Atlantis (so I’m assuming lots of loud music and go-go boys on a float which will be fun), carrying a huge sign of the New York City Gay Bloggers & Digital Activists with the logo above and all wearing similar white t-shirts with logo and our names on them. I’ve only ever attended the parade and never marched after all these years so I think this is going to be a fun day though I can imagine after hauling our asses down from 54th street to the Village, there are going to be some tired dogs. But then that is what the Pier Dance after is for, to dance some life back into them so I might pop up there.
And to think that all this came out of a bunch of pissed off, abused, and feed up queens who took to the streets 40 years ago this month at the Stonewall Riots and ushered in the Gay Rights movement. Sometimes I think 40 years seems such a short time ago and then I think about it and realize there has been so much work done to provide rights and protections and we’re still not there yet. Closer, for sure, but not there yet. So we march and we stay visible and we hopefully change one mind at a time by being our authentic selves, taking pride that as a group, the GLBT community is a diverse mix of great individuals that doesnt’ have to go mainstream or gentrify to fit in if we don’t want to. We were born out of a sexual variation that created and followed it’s own organic growth to where we are today and the colors and people and attitudes and life styles on display at the parade testify to that. So I’m taking pride today and reminding myself that these are all my brothers and sisters and we’re people of the world that count and make a difference, in big and little ways alike.
Happy Pride!
04.22.09
Running again
Dookie
As I’ve beaten this horse to death weeks ago to anyone who will give me three seconds, I’ve was easily arm-twisted into putting my name in the lottery for running the NYC Marathon this coming November. I’ve been running on and off now for just a year and had no desire to run a marathon at all…not with all the stories of scabbed over nipples, lost toe-nails, and the very real-not-an-urban-legend about marathoners pooping themselves during the actual race. I am clear that having to pull off to the side to puke is one thing I can accept but making a dookie mid-stride for me is a big ol’ un-un. Just sayin.
Anywho, I’m in full force training, gleaning tips and advice from better men than myself and trying to figure out how this is actually going to happen and how I’m going to divert/trick/talk myself through those miles when I want to quit which right now is about mile one, three, and five.
Additionally, because it was such a hit last year, I’ve taken out my new video cam with me on a run this morning. Nice to see nothing has changed…I’m still running the same hills and still so out of breath you’d think I had emphysema and an impending heart attack. On the other hand, I have some new running threads that I think work for me.
Please do enjoy: Early Morning April Run..with hills! (Quicktime, 15.5MB / 3.5 min / music: “Running Up That Hill (Street 45 edit)” by Levy 9)
07.17.08
Me….running up the MF’er Hill
Just because I know there is general interest in my exercise habits, I provide for your amusement and entertainment, “Me…Running the MF’er Hill: The Video”. 10 minutes (Surrrrrrsly) of me yapping while I’m running, talking about nothing and giving you a blow by blow running commentary of my physical discomfort. The most amusing part? You can hear the slap-slap-slap of my size 12 clown feet the whole time! Enjoy.
UPDATE: Jeff says he’ll never get those ten minutes back so be warned.
Beau Takes on That MF’er Hill (Quicktime, 31MB)
06.17.08
The Face of 38
I turned 38 this past Sunday and though wishful thinking because of the potential hot twin boffing we could do and video for x-tube, I am not his twin. Though in general, I’d regard 38 as one of those birthdays that is a blurry slide into 40, this one is interesting to me for several reasons. First and foremost, my father, when he was this age, had a debilitating brain aneurysm that quite literally shattered and change irrevocably the lives of many, many people. I’m certainly not pointing this out because I’m all doom and gloom about the task of actually trying to live through 38 unscathed but rather, the stangeness of now being the age of my father and being able to see for the first time how much of his life he had in front of him.
At the time of his aneurysm, I was 14 and he was my parent so what did I know about it? Now I have a much different perspective. I’m just starting my life and finding it’s groove. The home life, the home, the man, the work, the friends…all things are really, really good and I can only see better days ahead and I’m sure that is how my Dad must have been too. His masonary business was taking off and he was venturing out into investing into finanicial partnerships that were going to make him even more successful than he had been. He was known for the quality of his work and the integrity of his work ethic. All this ended the moment he blacked out and came crashing down to the sidewalk where a stranger found him. And so there is some heaviness about being 38 that I didn’t quite grasp so fully before. I often think about all the things my Mom I and would talk about now if she was still alive and I think she’d be shocked and pleased at the understanding I’ve come into. I completely get how young they felt and how young at heart they were.
Related, but much more Me!Me!Me! is that idea that at 38, my parents had four sons, 19, 14, 10, and 9. I can’t even begin to fathom having kids and what it means at this age, let alone to have four, two of which were adolesents. Jeff and I are spoiled and rotten and if I don’t get my weekly comics, I’m grumpy and distressed so what did my parents give up so that we could be taken care of? The mind reels. I told Aunt Pam, who spent so much time with my parents along with all the cousins at that time, that the big secret I think I figured out is that not one of them had any clue about parenting and were really no different then I am now at this age…they just had to fake it and make it look like they knew what they were doing. They did a good job, by the way, in that we’re all still alive and kicking and generally happy and most of my cousins and brothers and their families are having their own babies and whatnot so what’s old is new again. Still, my mind reels.
And so 38! I actually had a hard time believing I wasn’t going to be 40 this year and a little disappointed too. I have a total hard-on for the 40+ crowd and don’t even get me started on the hotness of salt-n-pepper hair so to think I still have two years to go is just something else. I’m not the most patient of people but nothing I can do about it other than just continue to enjoy the good days and work on being better.
The whole sha-bang though, was clarified for me this morning, as I was running a practice 5K in the Central Park this morning, getting ready for the real deal NYC Corporate Challange coming up on Thursday. I’m in no way the hotness of him, or him, or him, or her, or the others who continually inspire and push me to pass on the bread at dinner and get up at 5:30 to go running but it’s a good first step for me to run the 5K. I’ve been on the treadmill for months but there isn’t anything like actually running outside and this morning was SPECTACULAR. Cool and low humidity, the sun was out, and I was reminded the very best of NYC is being able to run through Central Park, looking at the museums, and the Dakota, and the Bethesda Fountain and the Jackie O Resevoir, or finding a statue of a crouching panther hidden in the blossoming hydrangeas along the east side of the Met that I hadn’t ever seen before. I was just banging out a fantastic run when I totally got cruised by a hot bearded guy running the opposite direction. My gaydar pinged so hard I just HAD to turn and glance over my shoulder at him one more time and totally caught him doing the same thing! I’m 38 and I still get cruised. I mean, please. How much better could today have been? Perfection or endorphins, it totally doesn’t matter cause I’ll take the cloud I’m rocking on right now.