Half Baked

Well, yesterday’s run didn’t completely kill me.  I was hesitant about heading out today but once I shuffled about half a mile or so, I felt alot better and managed to put in four miles.  So, four days in a row.  In itself, this won’t exactly get me to the starting line but if I can keep it up for another several months I’ll at least make a dent in the fitness situation.

I started listening to audio while running recently.  It used to be that I only listened to audio if I absolutely couldn’t get myself out the door otherwise.  Then I would crank up some tunes . . . either mostly bad 80’s music that provides an initial burst of energy but gets annoying after a while because it’s just bad music, Motown, or in some cases, chill out to some jazz.  Lately though, I’ve started listening to either audiobooks or podcasts on the way home and gotten so enthralled that I’ve taken them out on the run — and even end up running farther just because I want to get more into the book.  Today, it was The Year of Reading Dangerously by Andy Miller.  It’s a memoir of a English man who has a rather mild midlife crisis  — no red corvettes, blingy gold chains, or anything like that, but rather, a sense of disappointment with some aspects of his life that he has passively settled into. He begins to desire to “improve himself,” makes a “list of betterment,” with books that he has resolved to read, and sets out to read about a book a week, and writes about his experiences with these books.    Some of them are classics such as Moby Dick, Pride and Prejudice and Middlemarch.  Others are books he became interested in for one reason or another.  In one of the most memorable sections, he relates the experience of reading Iris Murdoch’s The Sea, The Sea.  From what I gather, the protagonist of the novel is a rather pompous and disturbed retired actor.  Food plays a major part in the novel, and Andy Miller’s relating of some of these dishes is ‘laugh out loud” funny!  What’s even funnier is, not knowing much about cooking, he attempted some of the recipes of the novel’s protagonist himself, and got to experience firsthand Iris Murdoch’s irony.  Anyway, now I need to put The Sea, The Sea on the reading list.

My wife is at class tonight so it’s reading time tonight.  Another book and a half of Plato’s Republic with taking notes to get ready for class Monday.  Need to keep moving through Paradise Lost because I’m teaching it later this year and feel woefully underprepared.  Of course, I’ve taught the Republic for eight years now, but it’s so rich that every year, I feel like I’m starting all over again.  Then, I’m hoping to get into something that I’m not reading to prepare to teach a class.  So, that’s the daily wrap-up.

What tricks have you used to get yourself out the door to exercise?  Is there a particular kind of music or audio that is helpful?  I’d love to hear about it!