Running for Your Life: Matt With a Touch of Bobby

How much younger is Penguins goalie Matt Murray now than the incomparable Bobby Orr was when the latter scored The Goal on May 10, 1970? Is it fair to point out that Murray – the clear favorite for Penguin MVP during the first two rounds of the Stanley Cup playoffs (if not the tournament favorite) – is from Thunder Bay, a Great Lakes-long drive from Parry Sound, the birthplace of Robert Gordon Orr? Do I jinx the young man by even mentioning how his poise and the aura of sport destiny evoked by his superb goaltending remind me of the great No. 4, arguably the best player that ice hockey enthusiasts have ever seen?

I’ve watched enough of these Murray games to hazard this opinion: There is more than a glimmer of Orr-style fortitude at Matt’s age of 21, just beyond boyhood. He’s 66 days younger than Orr (Murray won’t be 22 until May 25) was when he scored The Goal to clinch the Cup for the Bruins for the first time in 29 years.

It is going to be fun to watch young Murray. If you’re looking for a sports story of the moment to follow, look no further than the Penguins No. 30.

Next: Running for Your Life: Shoe Talk

Running for Your Life: Half Size It

It’s been awhile since I set and accomplished a running goal. Not since summer 2014, when K and I traveled for races in Nova Scotia. She ran the half-marathon and I started my eighth marathon (finished six of them, the last five in a row). Foot and knee injuries kept me out of the running for months last year, and stirred doubts about just how much more long-distance running I could do.

Thankfully, 2016 has been a different story. And while I’ve yet to feel comfortable about getting back to marathon training, the past few weeks have been promising, in terms of returning to one-hour-plus training sessions.

All of which is to say that I am planning to train for a Brooklyn-based half-marathon in October, four days shy of my 61^st birthday. That would be the riverside Bay Ridge Half, out under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

So I’ll be half sizing it, for now. We’ll just see, once this race is done, whether I’ll be going back to supersizing my training regimen. Time will tell, but after more than two years am thrilled to be able to set a running goal that I feel I can reasonably achieve.

Next: Running for Your Life: Shoe Talk

Running for Your Life: Live Tree or Die II

Just because I read this poem by Jean Sprackland in the London Review of Books, April 21, 2016, here’s an eloquent verse version on the above theme:

April

Jean Sprackland

machine of spring with all your levers thrown to max 
clouds in ripped clothes and sheep trailing afterbirth
where last week’s buds sucked blue juice from the dusk
now the branch is swollen     priapic 
cherry bling and hawthorn sex-bed smell
motorway hedgerows on thrust      electric rapefields

your levers are jammed and nothing can pull them back 
not now      not frost       not squall 
city gutters clogged with blossom
muddy ponds spuming with cannibal tadpoles
the long blinding days      your bashed clock 
the violent small hours      magpie clacking at the robin’s nest

and us lying open-eyed all night
breathing in the white noise of pollen
hearing the long bones of the trees stretch and crack
wondering      will you ever power down or is this it now
wondering      what can any death among us mean to you

and will we make it through to summer or is this it now

Next: Running for Your Life: Half Size It

Running for Your Life: Live Tree or Die

It’s spring! Time to enjoy your trees, and the trees close to you!

Got a spare $20, or so? Scoot on down to your closest independent bookstore and buy (or order) “The Hidden Lives of Trees” by Peter Wohlleben, a German-born forester. http://nyti.ms/24jBVYB

If you think the twist on the famous patriotic line above is an accident, think again. With the prospect of Hillary Clinton running against Donald Trump in the presidential election, independents and deep-thinking political folks in the US are going to need a new hobby during the next several months, now that country and patriotism have been co-opted by the likes of these two.

So, how about trees, instead? Reading Wohlleben and you will never see a tree the same way. Or view its roots, the role of fungus (of all things), even the positive side of death (when it comes to a glorious communitarianism – not Communism!) that we impoverished human beings can learn more than a thing or two about.

Next: Running for Your Life: Half Size It

Running for Your Life: Don’t Smoke Your Joints

I’ve become a believer in joint respect. When it comes to running, that means knees, hips and ankles.

So what to do? Well in two words: stretch and strengthen.

To his end, I have to thank my friends at One on One Physical Therapy on Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn. They turned me on to the most simple but effective exercises that I’ve been doing every other day without fail since late last fall.

That amounts to lunges (watch that the bent knee does NOT go beyond your outstretched foot) and squats (similarly, work to thrust the butt back in such a way that the bent knees do NOT go beyond your outstretched feet), and leg raises that focus on both quad and buttock muscle strengthening in order to take even more pressure off the knees (and consequently your ankles, which will benefit from a softer foot strike on run). Other exercises too, but this is the core of my treatment method.

As to hips, I always end my exercise workout with a series of hip stretches to keep them limber. Hamstrings too, which need special care as we age.

So, do yourself a favor. Don’t smoke your joints. The benefits will be amazing. When you’re deep into a pain-free five-mile run, you’ll thank me !

Next: Running for Your Life: Live Tree or Die