Loy Norris HS looks fairly new, and I thought that the track might be locked, but there was an open game by the gym side door. One person came out and walked the track while I was running, but no track practice, so I was able to get in a good run. The bleachers had 5 sets of stairs. When available, I run each set of stairs twice, one as I make my way down the bleachers, one on the way back.
The track was in great shape – very springy. And very blue. That offset the proximity of the freeway, which was only a few hundred yards away. I was listening to music, of course, but it is the pollution I do not care for. I once worked at a business that was right next to a freeway. We had a layer of brake dust on all surfaces all the time. No bueno.
The weather was dismal – cool, rainy, and windy. But I had opted for a nap the day before when I got to my hotel in Mr. Pleasant, so I felt rested and had a good run. I think that will be my weekly ritual now: run on Monday and Tuesday, nap on Wednesday, run on Thursday, walk at the airport on Friday.
Kalamazoo has an industrial feel to it, like Saginaw. I did notice more greenery. I would have looked for a running spot away from the freeway, but this was close to the hotel and the track was new and accessible, a combination sometimes difficult to find. Loy Norrix was a former superintendent for the school district, and I would imagine his name was the most memorable quality he had, though that is not really fair to say, since I did not know him.
I had planned on running at the track at Valley Lutheran High School, but the little Lutherans were out practicing their track skills in the cold, windy, rainy weather. There was a paved path through part of the soccer complex, but I stuck to the grass as much as possible, until I hit some marshy spots. I ran the perimeter mostly, and there were only occasional piles of dog crap to avoid.
Saginaw is pretty dreary, and even more so in dreary weather. I did some cold-calling, which I do not often do, and everyone I talked to was pleasant and not dismissive at all, which makes it a little fun. I drove up from Detroit and through Flint – 9 stops in all, which is more than I usually can fit in. I felt tired an unenergetic for the run.
I accumulate ideas when I am on the road. I listen to albums for tracks I want to run to, and I add the songs to my running playlist. On the plane I listed to the “Sleep” playlist, and I added almost all of the artists to my list of artists to check out. Then I listen to a rotation of the artists that are on the list, and if I add one of their tracks, I move on to the next artist. I am in the process of going through the artists with tracks on my running playlist, listening to their entire catalog for additional songs to add. So I only need to add one track from a new artist, and then eventually I will listen to their entire catalog and add every song I like.
Workplace shaming.
I also have 40 podcasts I subscribe to. I go through and listen to the oldest one of each in a rotation. The only ones that I listen to outside of the rotation are Fresh Air, Public Health on Call, and Best of Car Talk. Fresh Air and Best of Car Talk cycle out their old episodes on the feed, so you have to stay caught up, or you lose one. Public Health on Call I like to stay current on, because it deals with a lot of timely subjects. So each day I start with one Fresh Air, one Public Health on Call, and one Best of Car Talk, and then I pick up the rotation where I left off the day before. I also rotate podcasts and albums – one podcast, then one album, and so on.
Most of these strategies I have implemented to take decision-making out of the daily routine, so that I have the appropriate level of mental energy and willpower to make the important decisions that come up throughout the day.
Back in the Motor City. Romulus is where the airport is, and also where we have four distributors, so today’s run is industrial in nature. It is a nice day for a run – warm with a breeze. The middle school setting is a little sketchy – the track is old and wearing out, and the only open gate looks like the lock has been broken, but no one bothers me while I am there. I run the steps on the rickety aluminum grandstands.
Work has been very hectic. We converted to a new ERP system last month, and it has led to an avalanche of turmoil and mayhem. During the days on the road, I pause multiple times to read and answers emails. When I get to the hotel, or after my run, I spend a couple more hours going through emails. Then I have prep for the next days and random projects to catch up on. It is usually around 11 pm before I have a few minutes to read or watch the latest “This Old House” episode on the laptop, then to sleep.
A common rule in business is the 80/20 rule. There are variations, but the one I am most familiar with is that 80% of the people do 20% of the work, and vice versa. As I witness more corporate activity, I also think that 20% of the work force is qualified to do 80% of the work, and vice versa. Just because someone is above you on the corporate ladder does not mean they are more qualified to handle complex work than you are. You cannot trust that anyone knows what they are doing, unless you are working in close proximity to that person, and you see evidence of their competence.
Explaining the incompetence of your coworkers to your customer is one of the most difficult tasks a salesperson faces. It is wise to be diplomatic, but it is unwise to lie. No one likes to be lied to. People feel respected when they are told the truth, and many prefer to work with those who show them that respect, and to not work with those who do not. However, the incompetent coworkers do not like your transparency, and if the incompetent coworker is your supervisor or their management cronies, God help you.
Snake River Elementary; 54:28 running time + 1-lap kick
This track actually was asphalt. Apparently safety and skeletal protection are less important for elementary school age children. It was close to the hotel, and the sunlight was disappearing, and the traffic was light and far away, so I made do. For more than half of the run, I ran on the grass around the perimeter of the fenced area.
It was a long day of driving at the beginning of a long week of long days of driving up from Utah, across Idaho, through Northeast Oregon, across Eastern Washington, over to Western Montana, and back down through Eastern Idaho to Utah. It was generally beautiful and sunny, though not for this run, but the weather was relatively mild, and the wind and fresh air felt absolutely great.
I have history in Nampa. I was married at 18 and moved to nearby Caldwell, where I lived and worked as a pizza delivery driver for two years. My ex-wife still lives in the area, I believe. On my last trip through Idaho, I drove to the houses, duplex, and apartment we lived in there, and I reminisced about a relatively carefree and lost portion of my life. Although I was not acting appropriately at that time of my life, my memories are overwhelmingly fond.
I honestly wish that all of my travel for work was through Rural America. It is invariably beautiful, and Idaho/Oregon/Washington/Montana/Wyoming is particularly so. I love the wide open spaces. I challenge you to drive across Montana and not think the sky really is bigger there.
So good to be back out on a track, even though there was barely any rubber left on the asphalt surface, and there were large cracks. Definitely not track meet-worthy. But the weather was beautiful, and the sun was just approaching the horizon, and my legs and lungs felt great, and I finished in the dark at the beginning of a wild work week.
I have been track running and trail running at home, with an occasional sidewalk run in the neighborhood. They just locked up the track at Payson High School, however, so track running at home is likely out for now. My trail was covered in snow for a couple months, and now it’s covered again. I have also done a fair amount of treadmill running on my sales trips. The length in inconsistent. I won’t run in a fitness room with unmasked people, even if I mask. Not worth the risk.
Still improving from the concussion and post-concussion episode, feeling better consistently. I don’t always feel strong and inspired when I run, but my gait feels more natural, and my mind is right, which makes a hell of a difference. I heard an interview with Thich Naht Hanh recently, and he talked about how breathing is the connecting force between the mind and the body. The deep breathing of running is the best part of it for me.
The winter weather was tough for travel. I appreciated the early spring warmth of this day, and I am looking forward to more of it. There has not been much chance to run outdoors while on the road, especially at -25 F in Edmonton, or 1 F in Sioux Falls. I actually wore long underwear on two trips.
As my mind clears, I start to remember more feelings from my youth. Not events and facts, but how a clear, sunny morning felt, or what it was like to ride in the family car, or someone’s smile. I am enjoying good music and good movies and good books more, which is a bonus at this age, I guess. The next twenty years should be interesting.
A long hiatus from track/trail running on the road. I had some difficulties probably related to the Vegas Fall when I traveled to Baltimore for a trade show in November. I became disoriented, felt nauseous, had cognitive problems, and had extreme difficulty communicating and performing familiar tasks such as sending a text message. It was very scary. Fortunately my youngest son Christopher was with me and shepherded me through it.
So here I am back in Maryland – this time a training session at the corporate office of my employee, followed by a company holiday party. First night I ran on the treadmill, then I explored two connected trail arrays that were close to the hotel.
Brain injuries are unpredictable, it seems. After I got home from the Baltimore trip, my wife got me in to see Lauren Ziaks at the Park City Physical Therapy Center. Dr. Ziaks is a Concussion Specialist. She ran me through some tests and put me on a program of daily exercises. The turn-around was quick and profound. I had no idea that recent problems with reading comprehension and mental focus were related to the Baltimore episode – apparently they were. Within a couple of days of starting the exercises, I was reading with more comprehension and focus than I have had in years, perhaps more than I have ever had. Many of the exercises involve core muscles, so my strength and balance improved.
I took a break from running just to make sure things were going to be alright. I started doing some walking instead, and I waited for my follow-up visit to Dr. Ziaks a few weeks after the initial visit before I started running again. I did a full weekday track run at the local high school near our home in Utah, and that went well (other than sore muscles). The treadmill run went better than most treadmill runs, and these two trail runs were good. My calves are stiff and sore. Asphalt, of course, is not ideal.
When I was in the midst of the fog, I really had very little idea what was happening to me. I had been having trouble focusing, and I had been unable to think of some words, and it got really bad when we landed in Baltimore. At the rental car facility, I could not remember the name or location of our hotel, and I also could not remember how to look it up on my phone or laptop. I finally managed to find it in an email, and we got there somehow. The next day I drove Christopher to St. Johns College to visit his friend Amado, and then the wheels really fell off. I could not figure out what to enter into the mapping app, or even really how to use it, and I should not have been driving at all. I somehow got on the right freeway at some point and followed the signs to Baltimore, and once I got to the Inner Harbor area, I circled around endless blocks until I found the entrance to the hotel parking garage.
I was supposed to attend multiple trade show events, and I was unable to attend any. I also could not communicate effectively. I sent blank emails and texts to multiple recipients. Phone conversations with my wife back in Utah were painful and scary. I think I might have gotten a glimpse of what some symptoms of dementia are like to experience. Being unable to think of a word is terrifying. When it happens frequently, you feel helpless and hopeless.
I am relatively confident now that it was all related to recent and previous concussions, and that the PT program Dr. Ziaks has me on is leading to long-term fix. Still, though, I wonder what might trigger the same type of episode, and how to handle it if it happens. I am hoping that my body can help my brain stay on the right track, and running will continue to be part of that. It’s good to be back on the track/trail.
Lucky break in the weather for this run. It had been raining on and off that day, and it rained hard all the next day for my drive into and around Indianapolis. But this cool and breezy afternoon run was a joy. I pushed the pace harder than normal.
I was double lucky in finding a proper track to run on. The big city high school was across the street, and there was some kind of band or drama activity (or combination thereof) going on at the track. I punched in the coordinates for another high school several miles away, and then I saw this track at the middle school. They also had multiple ballfields, which is always a good sign.
Halfway through a second consecutive week in the heartland, and I was getting hardening of the arteries. Road life is both liberating and tedious. I work more hours when I am on the road, because driving is part of work. After I get to the hotel and then go for my run, it’s 3 or 4 hours of laptop work to stay caught up on emails and messages and sales reports.
There seems to be a lot of water in Indiana – standing water, or just below the ground surface. When there is a break in the flatness, there is often water. On the edges of lawns, corners of fields, in gravel parking lots where I have to park. It doesn’t seem like there has been enough recent rainfall to have created a groundwater excess, but maybe there was a monsoon the week before I got here.
Fort Wayne seemed a pleasant mid-size town. It doesn’t appear to have suffered from its loss to Hickory in the 1953 State Basketball Tournament. Go Huskers!
I am not sure what a Fractional High School is, but this one seemed Whole. It was a large campus, with a lot of activity. I got there a little earlier than normal. Football practice was in session, but not in the stadium. However, some runners came out and started doing some stretches and sprints, so for about half of my run, I exited out of the stadium and ran around a large grass area on sidewalks and parking lot edges.
It was sunny for most of my run, in spite of what this Weather screenshot indicates. I had flown into O’Hare the day before – what a clusterfuck that was. Try to find your way to the rental car center using existing signage – can’t be done. Myself and this other wayward traveler found ourselves at a skybridge dead end. I finally got some second-hand advice from a guy waiting for a parking lot shuttle and made my way to the third-world terminal and squeezed onto the rental car shuttle.
I visited a few Chicago-area accounts during the day. One is a good account, but the main purchasing contact can be very surly – to the point of verbally abusive. Not in person, but on the phone. I brought in milkshakes – 3 chocolate and 3 vanilla. I highly recommend milkshakes on sales visits. I got the idea from Gayle King, a tow truck salesman at Golden West Towing Equipment. I was there for a week once working, and one afternoon he brought in DQ milkshakes for everyone in the office. It was like working in Nirvana for the rest of the day. People could not stop smiling.
In Sales, when they say, “It’s you they buy, not your product,” what they mean is it is your milkshakes. Or your donuts. Or your pizzas. Or your cookies. I also brought in some decent looking chocolate chip cookies to go with the shakes for this customer. People are busy – they don’t have time to go to a lunch or a dinner with a supplier. If they do, you probably don’t want to spend your time with them. Just bring them a goddamn milkshake! It will make them smile.
Once again I risked the relative safety of a running track for a concrete trail. This one wound through the woods alongside Clear Creek in Coralsville, IA. West High School was actually within running distance at the end of the trail, but it was a late run, so I had to turn around before I got there to make sure I got back to Grandma’s house before the Big Bad Wolf came out.
It was a picturesque setting, even in the duskness. The path cuts across University of Iowa grounds, so even at this hour there was a fair amount of foot and bike traffic, including some recreational cannabis smoking. I am not sure what is legal in Iowa, if anything.
The weather looked rather ominous as I finished my run, but it never got worse than a strong wind. I managed to stay upright even in the darkness, and there were several hills to navigate. I also saw four deer as the sun went down – the only live deer I saw all week.
Olive Garden was right next to the hotel, so I had a wonderful soup and salad for dinner. Curbside pickup was the only option, so I had to drive the rental car 200 yards to get my food. The signature salad was enormous, and after the soup and a beer, I did not even have room to eat both pepperoncinis they gave me. Tragic.
It was a bleak day in North Central Iowa, and this structure near my run captured the mood perfectly. Although I wondered if those were turrets up on the roof, or some other Mad Max prop.
I was planning to run on the local high school track, but the drive across town was too depressing. Plus there were fields nearby, and a rather wide sidewalk that ran east-west along 9th Street, so I ran back and forth a few times. I have wanted to avoid sidewalks after the Vegas Disaster, but it seemed relatively safe.
About 35 minutes in, damned if I didn’t fall AGAIN. I don’t even know what I hit – an imaginary crack, I think. This one was much less tragic. I wasn’t wearing sunglasses, I was wearing a hoodie, the concrete in this sidewalk seemed more forgiving, and I now run with headphones, and you can’t lose one side of a headphone. They fell off, but they still work. I just got a couple of scuffs on the outside of my right knee. I engaged in a rather graceful tuck and roll this time, and no head contact with ground.
Believe it or not, we have 3 large customers within 30 miles of Mason City, including our largest customer, who I went and visited the next day. It seems that the people of this region are very industrious, and some of them are quite assertive and self-assured, when it comes to business at least. None of them are turkeys, but here is a photo of some turkeys feeding next to my hotel.
I will be back this way regularly. And I will stay off the sidewalk, I promise.
Don't Make It a Habit. Make It a Ritual. 