A couple of skateboarding kids had also braved the chill.  I didn't think they'd last very long since the track is really knobby and not very favorable to skate wheels.  They were there longer than I was though. 

My wife and kids came along with me this time.  They were bundled up several times over.  After I gave up, I jogged with my son on the artificial turf and he noted the numbers on the field, "10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 40, 30, 20, 10, again!"  So we jogged back and forth two more times and headed home after that.

Spoke to my brother on the phone.  He's in rehab for a busted knee from a car accident last year, new years.  He's been in a wheelchair and on crutches for a while now.  He has a book he'll send me from some marathon runner who advocates walking for 30-60 seconds after each mile jogged so you don't burn out.  I think I like that idea.  Maybe I'll review the book for you guys.

Another book on another topic that I'm reading for fun is one called The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure.  I was listening to the radio down in So. Cal. over the holidays when I heard the author plugging it.  His son was heavily into heroin and he had figured out a treatment program that cured him of it.  He even started a rehab center called Passages in Malibu and has a documented 80%+ cure rate.

That's right, cure, no relapse whatsoever.  The thought was so intriguing that I had to get the book just to read the story about the cure.  I'll let you guys know about it when I get through with it. So far it's a pretty inspiring story.  The guy's got a lot of common sense that flys in the face of the established beliefs about addictions.

Back to jogging.  There was a family of four at the track and a lady with headphones.  The family was casually enjoying the general area of the track, the football field, the high/long jump area, while the lady with headphones was jogging along.  I started my stretches and one of the sons of the family, couldn't have been more than 4 was running around the track in the opposite direction. 

He had selected my lane though to run in.  On our first near collision, he yielded.  On our second, he sat down in the middle of the lane and I jogged around him.  I think he figured he'd be safe since I was jogging so extremely slowly.  After that his dad took him off the track and raced him around the infield. 

After the mile and a quarter I celebrated with a stretch.  I  felt really relaxed on the drive home.  I think I'll keep up the post exercise stretch from now on.

I laughed a lot at this one guy's serves - he was good.  He was serving primarily to one guy in particular on my team who also had good serves. 

The guy on my team had been serving really low ones to the other side, pretty much to everyone and without showing any real emotion about doing it.  It wasn't really showing off, but it could be taken that way if you really wanted to. 

This first guy though - the one making me laugh - had a pleseant, but wide ear to ear grin on his face the whole time he was serving.  His serves weren't as tough to return as the ones our guy was serving, but try as he might our guy just couldn't return the volley.  And it was obvious the first guy was aiming at our guy who was taking it good-naturedly.  Maybe you had to be there. 

My brother-in-law Pat told me his girlfriend has a training schedule I could use.  He'll email it to me sometime next week.  I'm going to use it to train to run the half-marathon in San Jose later this year. My step sister and her family ran it last year so I'll have some good company with me.

It's thirteen miles long and will give me more incentive to keep up this pace of exercise.  I've been trying to run a mile and so far have only managed a half mile.  So this past Monday, new year's day, I slowed it down some... way down in fact.  I could walk faster than I was jogging.  But I figured I was going through the motions of jogging so it still counted as such. 

I managed three quarters of a mile jogging and one eighth sprinting.  For the last eighth of a mile I walked.  I felt like an old car, sputtering for breath!  Well maybe I'll make it a mile on Wednesday. 

Needless to say (but I will anyway) the track and field was deserted on new year's day.

I walked the other half mile.  I'm feeling the strength return to my legs.  Back in my day, these limbs used to be super buff.  I played soccer for eight years of my childhood.  It's nice to feel them start to wake up again. 

There were more people at the track this time.  There was a guy a bit older than me and stronger.  He laped me at least once.  Glad I could be of motivation to him.  Probably gave him something to brag about when he got home, "Hey wifie, guess what. I laped this young guy!"  Happy to help. 

Another couple of people showed up after my first lap - dad and his 4-5 year old son.  They warmed up with calesthenics.  Then a guy with a dog came by.  He was on skates.  They stayed off the track because of the dog prohibition signs posted.  Another couple, husband and wife showed up with three dogs.  I started thinking - what is this, a dog track?  But they took off as soon as they saw the signs.

Yeah, I went jogging yesterday at the city's sports complex in my town.  Wow, what a nice cushy track.  It's new, olympic sized and built over a reservoir with an artificial turf football field in the middle of it. 

I got a jogging jersey for Christmas this year from my mother-in-law and decided to take the hint.  I bought me some nice running pants to go with it, laced up my sneaks and headed out to the track for the first time.

Maybe it's because everyone was vacationing this Christmas, but it sure was deserted there.  I went in the evening and it was pitch dark but I like being  out in the elements when I jog so I didn't mind.

I tried jogging on the mills at the gym for a few sessions but just couldn't get into it.  It seemed too mechanical, sterile even for me a programmer.  But that's just me.  I flourish when I do something that doesn't remind me that it's work to do it. 

When the elements are breezing by me the goal is not to get fit, it's to get around the track four times.  Now that's something my motivated mind can latch onto.  I think it'll help me if I sign up for a half marathon at the end of next year too.  Then my goal will be to make it through the marathon in one piece.  13 miles flat running.  I'm just jogging for now, hoping to get my legs together to the point they'll last one mile let alone 13.  But outside jogging seems to be the best excercise for me so far.

On the other hand, half an hour for me on a tread mill going nowhere with the digital display of the lights going around the bird's-eye-view-track is scarcely entertaining, let alone motivating.  No matter how hard I try I always end up watching the lights move forward through the disconnected relationship. 

There were TVs around me too.  I've tried to watch them through my mile run but I can't help thinking, while I do so, that if I'm doing something that I think I need to be distracted from it's probably not worth doing.  That really helps boost the old motivation. 

When it's all said and done, I'd rather be the lights going around that track.  In my imagination, I'm supplying all the work, the lights are having all the fun.  And I can always watch TV anytime on my couch. 

So I made it around the quarter mile track - if that's what it's rated as; being olympic sized and all - four times, twice jogging, once gasping and once more relaxing.  Don't know if I'll try again today.  I'll let you know later.

-Joe