Soft Baller - 8.22.09

On Saturday morning, I played softball. Given the general theme of this blog, however, it was not without a run. Roughly 8.1 miles from house to home, as it were.

I started at 6:30am as 8 miles usually takes anywhere from 55 minutes (when I’m feeling it) to 1:05 (when I’m not). It was 78 degrees with 80% humidity and a dew point that was equally disturbing. My plan was to arrive around 7:45 at Normoyle Park, wipe down, cool off, and get swinging. I planned the route the day before at work – the normal St. Mary’s route through Downtown, out and about in the King William district, and then the West Side. What a story. Ha.

As the sun had barely crested the skyline, not a lot of folks were up. It was quiet. I saw quite a few runners, but they had opted to take other routes. I was alone on the road I chose. Given the high number of abandoned dogs, buildings, and cars, things came to the West side to die. Or biodegrade. Whatever.

The dogs were a bother. Oddly enough, the most prominent breed (if this term even applies) to give chase was the Chihuahua. Scary little things. I never ran without two or three rocks in my hand, but then again I never needed to throw them. Most of the wild dogs were either emaciated or bloated – natural world’s version of the have and have-nots I suppose. It was easy to discern which were female; their swollen nipples hung low and swung in synch with their apprehensive strides. Forced to bear life, but perpetually scared of most living things. Man, that was sad.

After turning on Theo St., I knew it was around 2 miles of boring straight. I dropped the pace to around 6:50 to make it to the softball field in time. Perhaps a part of me needed to leave that area as fast as possible. Regardless, I made it with plenty of time to spare. I was received with a bit of fanfare: “You ran from where?!” – “Not the entire 8 miles, right?!” – “And you can still stand?!” As it was Japanese people asking me these questions, I did my best to downplay my achievements and even apologized. There are reasons I had to do this, but they won’t be included in this entry.

I changed into some dryer technical stuff and put on the soccer cleats. Wrong sport, but they work just the same. As I began the walk from the parking lot, I noticed that another colleague also was wearing a red Adidas top, with black shorts, and white shoes. Damn; I’m going to hear it, I thought. I did.

Despite wide smiles and booming laughter, a Japanese ex-high school baseball players’ seriousness is crystal clear. Drop a ball, and you’ll hear it. Make a good play, however, and you are showered with reserved praise. It’s a rollercoaster and the ride can easily make one sick. After making some plays that ranged from bone-headed to Mantle-esque, I decided to get off – lay back a bit. I don’t like team sports. Never have. Reviewing what I’m good at (track & field, golf, fishing, running, tennis) I realized I didn’t belong on the field. Heck, I was wearing a running top, tennis shorts and soccer cleats. I was all wrong in right field.

Still, I play for Maki. As an ex-captain on a Japanese softball team, she lives for this stuff. Teamwork. Double plays. Single homer to left. I like to talk about it and even believe I have an advantage (given the abilities gained from individual sport), but I’m just not warming up to softball. It doesn’t help when the captain of the Japanese team lined up the players to pick and eventually placed me with the ‘tard’ team. It’s not that I can’t play, but because I’m not Japanese. Conveniently, though, I’m not American, either. This way, he assumes I won’t take the under the bus throw as harshly. Underhanded as it may be.

I played on a team with other Americans. We have a game scheduled for this weekend: Team Japan vs. Team America (f yeah). Some players from the other team came to get a bit of practice in. Although I enjoyed their attitude, some are more serious than others. I hate losing, but I’m not good enough to consider myself immune to it. Still, I made some plays. Left my mark, as it were. I tripled once, got on base a bunch of times, and played defense well enough. Sadly, though, I was making the more impressive stops at the expense of Maki. She likes to yank down the foul line. I stood there waiting like a glorified lamp post.
Here are pictures. Of M and myself. I’ll post later about the results of the “Friendship Match” between countries.

Give or take a couple of days, I got 13 weeks left.

The San Antonio Rock ‘N Roll will be my second marathon. Although it doesn’t boast an impressive elevation profile like Big Sur, 26.2 flat miles measure the same distance. Still, I haven’t slacked off too terribly much. Excluding the week after Big Sur and the burnout week two weeks ago (I’ll get into this later), I have never dropped below 26 miles per week. Overall, I am averaging 33 miles with a high of 49. I have posted five 40+ weeks after Big Sur and would have continued with this trend if not plagued with a recurring injury. In contrast, I only ever breached the 40-mile mark twice during the spring. Point of departure, I call it. On to bigger and better.

Immediately after the marathon in April, I ran several races of varying length: 25K trail, 10K paved trail/road hybrid, and 4-mile road/sidewalk. I was looking for diversity and I found it. Although I was somewhat happy with the trail performance, every other race fell short of expectations. I just didn’t have it when I needed it. In fact, this string of sub-par performances compelled me to question if “it” was ever in my possession to begin with. I hated this feeling.

This probably led me to abandon the heavy race schedule I had laid out immediately after Big Sur. And then came the heat. Like a righteous plague from heaven, it consumed everything. Merciless in its quest. I became as fragile as a flower exposed to nuclear fallout. Any excuse to opt out of a run or race and I jumped on it – too much wine; not enough wine; date night; night of fighting; Tiger Wood’s leading a tournament; early-morning golf; post-golf frustration; laundry; grocery shopping; picking up antibiotics for my dog’s urinary tract infection. I could have opened up a business creating excuses.

Running is, by its very nature, a self-centered endeavor. Or so my self-pity led me to believe. Around the time that I thought I would never get my groove back, Bob and I began running together. We then joined a marathon training group at a running store. Although I used to discredit these sorts of things (cool people like Clint Eastwood never needed to go on group rides), I discovered that my resolve was stronger than ever. It became much easier to define my individual strengths and weakness in this collective context. Another runner friend of mine mentioned, “I don’t believe you were looking for validation, but calibration.” Point of departure, I called it. Perhaps it’s really just as simple as the old adage asserts: “Misery loves company.”