Come on, Dad, here we go …

Meters: 5,320;
Time: 25:00;
500m pace: 2:21-2:22 (but with sub-2:00 one-minute sprints at 5-10-15-20-minute marks;
SPM: varied;
TMR: 38,088

Dad died 39 years ago today. To honor that, to remember that, TO BE ALIVE IN THAT, today I did my first “real” workout: a 25-minute pull at pace with sub-2:00 sprints at the 5-, 10-, 15- and 20-minute marks. I do love this workout. It flies by. Once I do the first sprint at the 5-minute mark the rest of the workout is over before I know it. The minute immediately after the sprint is all recovery, and then the three minutes before the next sprint — because I want that time to go slowly, it (of course) goes too fast. And while the minute sprint crawls, IT’S ONLY A MINUTE!

I know earlier I said my plan was to do about a month’s worth of workouts “at pace” before starting to hit it harder, building to “The B.’s” [Editor's note: The B.'s hereby permanently replaces the too-hard-to type C.R.A.S.H.-B.'s]. And yes, I guess I had done about that month’s worth. But it really wasn’t until yesterday that I put together the kickoff of my real B.’s push with the anniversary of Dad’s death. And suddenly it all made perfect sense.

Come on, Dad, here we go …

I was in Minneapolis over the weekend as the featured speaker at the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation’s annual fund-raising gala. About this, about being there, about the mere fact itself that I was there at all, I could go on and on. Yes, I have talked of this before but after the fact I want to talk of it again. MHIF contacted me later on the same day when I was on the Today Show back in March. “Do you public speaking?” was the line in the subject field. My honest answer? Not so much. Really. But MHIF wanted me anyway. They saw something. In me, in the book, maybe both. Perhaps something i hadn’t yet seen in myself. More important, they saw this something without someone else having to tell them to look for it or to have it recommended it to them. And so they flew me to their city and on Saturday night I talked to 650 people about my father who died of a heart attack. Between and around reading the story of what happened the night he died. I talked about “hearts and heart disease, of life and loss, of father’s and sons.” Even got in a plug for the Concept2 machine!
I am hoping to leverage that appearance into more — many more if I’m lucky. But even before I walked to the podium Saturday night, I understood that any subsequent speeches/appearances/talks/etc. would not be the same as this one. Because this was the FIRST one. This one was — for lack of better words — innocent, pure and genuine, in ways that all other speeches I may give on behalf of “My Father’s Heart” will never exactly be able to be. I can’t tell you how wonderful it was to know, to understand to be aware of that walking up to the dais. Whatever happens (or doesn’t happen) next, I will always be indebted and grateful to the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation.  �

Back to today’s workout. It flew by for another reason beside the sprint format. I keep the rowing machine in the garage here in our new digs in York, Pa. This house, actually, is where my mother lived for the last seven years of her life, until she passed in October of last year. It’s in a retirement community, a place for fully independent seniors. The garages (and this is important to the story) dominate the architecture, all of them jutting out from the front of the house. To drive down the street is to pass not homes but garage doors — paired sets of double garage doors — pushed out into the driveways.

I work out in the garage, and to let the air in and get the claustrophobia out I open our double door. So there I am today working it when an elderly gent with cane comes walking down the sidewalk. He looks in and waves. I nod as best I can. He continues walking a bit, but then turns and walks up the driveway and right into the garage, says hello and, I realize, settles in to watch the rest of my workout.  Which in fact he does, his cane swinging in time to my rowing motion. His name is Jim, he says. Hello, Jim! Lives down the street. Been here seven years. He and his wife are thinking of moving down to North Carolina to get closer to the their two daughters and the grandkids. What else would you like to know about Jim? Because he probably told me. Couldn’t do a rowing machine, he said, he’s had his one knee replaced twice. Until he couldn’t walk so good anymore he had been working as one of the security guards here. Said he was going to get back to his walk maybe three times before he actually did.

None of this is to make fun, by the way, Goodness no. Indeed, living here now in this retirement community, all of not-even 56, has been an eye opener, a prelim look at the next stage of my life. It is not a completely pretty picture. Yes, there is a contentedness here that we would all do well to possess in greater amount. And without even trying, I realized that by putting the rowing machine in the garage I have already joined  in solidarity with many of my new male neighbor buddies. The garage, it would appear, is official guy space, sacrosanct and inviolate. Driving in and out of the development now, I make a point of taking a quick look into any open garage door. As often as not, ensconced within is the man of the hou – er, garage. Some have claimed their space with lounge chairs or work benches, even a TV. There is a couple with carpet. So of course I welcomed Jim into my garage-cum-boathouse

Everyone here is very friendly. Clearly it is mandatory that you must wave to everyone as you drive by. Because they are already waving at you. If you are out walking, you must stop and talk to one and all you encounter, if only for a minute. Hello! How are you? Looks like rain.

But with this contentedness comes a certain loneliness. I can feel it in people, in some more than others, and in a few that’s all there is. I have a new best friend in a woman named Gerta. She has short white hair and she walks a little white dog, itself 14 years old. Gerta’s speech is halting, her gate unsteady. Her head shakes more than a little. She was thrilled to welcome me to the neighborhood — a new face! When I see her now I see her hoping I will stop and chat. I have promised myself that I always will.