THREE SHEETS (AND PEOPLE) TO THE WIND

“But now I am cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in
To saucy doubts and fears.”
—Macbeth (ACT III, iv)

No, I’m not having second thoughts about whether I should go with bolognese or marinara for my pasta dinner tonight (“saucy,” get it?), but rather, like Shakespeare’s infamous Scotsman, I’m haunted by a decision and course of action I took 6 weeks ago. No, I didn’t commit regicide. I’m referring to embarking upon 21 weeks of marathon training. I’m up to Week 6 now, and I feel older than Methuselah—my legs hurt, my knees hurt, my head hurts (well, I can blame beer for that last one).

My Dad once told me that he didn’t raise me to be a quitter, but since I didn’t meet my father until I was 31 (he abandoned my mother and I two hours after I was born, and reintroduced himself to me solely because he needed my passport and one of my kidneys), he REALLY didn’t raise me, so I have no issues with quitting. In fact, I’m quite good at it. Let me give you a rundown of this last week, and maybe you’ll better understand my dilemma.

Flashback to Monday:

Although I treated myself to a couple of growlers of Captain Lawrence Double IPA and their 2008 St. Vincent’s Dubbel on Friday and Saturday, I, like God, rested on the seventh day, and abstained from sex and alcohol on Sunday (I didn’t really have much say about the former). Louise was on vacation with her boyfriend Bob in California, and the weather in NYC, for the second Monday in a row, was bad. The Perfect Storm was brewing, the clouds above an ominous black as furious and wrathful winds exacted their vengeance, forcing panicked pedestrians to flee for safety—and their very lives. A violent, lethal shower was imminent. Impending death was guaranteed to any audacious souls foolish enough to brave the elements. And fools there were. Three of them: Pete, Susan and myself. We would represent the depleted Team Tiger tonight. Laughing in the face of death, this trio of racing warriors stepped out of the Blind Tiger and into a turbulent…


Enough with the purple prose. The weather sucked, the three of us put up with the wind and getting wet for 40 minutes, and then we returned to the Blind Tiger for some beers. So maybe I was exaggerating for effect a little bit. If you think my description was misrepresentative, you should check out my on-line dating profile. So I hit the Tiger with Pete and Susan (including 1 beer before the run; I was running late, so I didn’t have my normal cocktail trifecta), and then later on met up with some friends to get pie-eyed at the teneleven bar on the East Side.

Tallies for Monday:

RUNNING:

5 miles

DRINKING:

11 BEERS

• Lagunitas Censored Ale (12 oz)
• Bear Republic Racer 5 IPA (16 oz)
• Captain Lawrence St. Vincent’s Dubbel (6 oz)
• Smuttynose IPA (16 oz)
• La Caracole Nostradamus (12 oz)
• Arcadia IPA (12 oz)
• (2) Brooklyn East India Pale Ales (24 oz)
• (3) Lagunitas IPAs (36 oz)

SLEEPING:

4.5 hours

I finished my last beer at 2 a.m., went to bed at 2:30 and woke up at 7 a.m. on Tuesday to go to work.

Once again, my wordy post is becoming long-winded. (“Wind” seems to be the theme of this post.) I will get to Tuesday’s misdeeds tomorrow. Auf wiedersehen for now, my friends.