You & Me, Dad

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Meters rowed: 5,471
Time: 25:00
Pace: one minute sub-1:50 sprints at minutes 5, 7 & 9 and 15, 17 & 19
Total meters rowed*: 252,258

This thought came to me somewhere in the five-minute rest period at 10 min. to 15 min., between the two 3 x one-minute all-out sub-1:50 sprints. (The second set of which was maybe the worst five minutes I have ever experienced on a Concept2.)

Am I doing this – this six-month run-up to the C.R.A.S.H.-B.’s; this lifetime of staying in shape – am I doing all this FOR my father, BECAUSE OF my father, or, even, TO my father? And it struck me that in all these years of doing “this,” I can’t recall that I have ever framed the question exactly like that – for / because of / to.

When I was 16 years old I watched my father die of a heart attack. He was 50. It was just the two of us at home that night in York, Pennsylvania. Somewhere in that night I made this promise to myself that I would always stay in shape. (Indeed, maybe earlier. My junior year at York Catholic High School, inspired by Tommie Smith and John Carlos and their 200-meter Mexico City Olympic gold and bronze** – AND  black-gloved protest on the medals stand – I started running, fully intending to be American’s next great sprinter at the 1972 Munich Olympics***. Didn’t happen. But out there in the mornings were a couple of dads from the neighborhood – remember, this was 1968, still a pre-Fitness Boom age – huffing and puffing around the track. That registered with me. Getting/staying/BEING in shape, it mattered. And I wanted nothing more than for my own father to be out there with me. That didn’t happen either.

So I know somewhere early on I started getting in shape FOR my father. And I know I am staying in shape now, and have been all these years, BECAUSE OF him. It’s the sudden addition of today’s TO dad, for the first time, that intrigues. This morning, suffering through those one-minute, sub-1:50 sprints, looking for any any any reason to continue, I grasped at the fact that I was doing them – this being in shape — TO dad. Not in that old-fashioned Catholic, offer-it-up sort of way. No. TO Dad. IN HIS FACE. I can do this Dad. You can’t.  And you never could. And now I’m 56 years old. An age you never were. TO dad. That’s what I mean.

This was a good workout today. Best in a while. The first set of 3 flew by. I was at 10 minutes before I knew it. Set two was a lot less like fun. I slowed the stroke count down from 28 per minute to 24, stoking more power. This actually helped. But three one-minute sets at sub-1:50 is what it is. The final minute was agony. I knew I could make it, but only if I was willing. I talked to myself, talked to dad, out loud, begging for help to make it through.

And I could. Even if he never could.

*Since September 12, 2008

**This video of the 1968 200 meters appears to be have an Australian point of view. So it’s worth noting that Peter Norman finished second in this race. Watch it again, this time with an eye on the still much-revered Aussie (who died of complications from heart disease at age 64 in 2006).  Watch how, if Smith in lane three ate up Carlos in lane five to gulp on the gold, Norman in lane six absolutely feasted on Carlos to savor the silver. 

***Instead of me being the great sprinter of the ’72 Games (hard as that is to fathom!), honors went to Valery Borzov of the U.S.S.R. But with a bit of its own asterisk, maybe. This was the 100-meter dash where the U.S.’s Nos. 1 & 2 sprinters, their coach working with an outdated schedule, missed their start times in the heats, clearing the way for Borzov. Though Mr. Borzov did then later blow away the 200 meters outright against a full field with a convincing, look-around, arms-in-the-air victory that you just witnessed if you clicked on the 100-meter dash.

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