My running this month has gone downhill ... or is that uphill?

Just finished up with a run that barely covered two miles, but I was heaving and sweating like a ... well ... a guy who hasn't been running a whole lot lately and has been treating his stomach like a dumpster.

The challenge about running in my neighborhood is that the hills will slap you around and make you feel like you're running in a dream -- the dreams where you're trying to get away from the monster/kidnappers but your legs just won't go as fast as you want. Instead of doing the mileage I wanted, I cut it short and went in.

Excuse: I've got the hook-up that makes your iPod talk to your shoes and vice versa. While running a voice will actually tell you how many miles you've covered. For some reason this time it started calling off the distance in kilometers. Maybe it was having Olympic withdrawal.

On the settings I have it set to "miles," but it still rattled the distance off in kilometers. On one hand I kind of dug it because hearing I had completed 3 kilometers sounds longer than the mile-and-a-half (or thereabouts) it actually was. Still, that was all the reason I needed to stop the run .. and the fact that I hadn't done much running in the past week and was winded.

Another ready excuse is that I'm planning on starting back into my running (jogging or puttering might be a more apt word, but running sounds more athletic) schedule tomorrow and don't want to over-exert myself. Yet another is if I'm chugging along around the neighborhood in the morning before daylight, I can go shirtless and no one is awake at that ungodly hour to complain or laugh. Trash pickup guys and the newspaper delivery dude have had words with me though. It's all good. They chipped in for my very own bro.

We've all met Jericho Scott

Sports commentators and bloggers erupted over the wussification/panzyfication/puddination (choose your term) of America when the story about nine-year-old Jericho Scott trickled out of New Haven, Conn. Scott has too much of a cannon for a right arm and parents of competing Little Leaguers are afraid he's going to bean little Johnny. As the Black Star Ninja said of a a young Michael Dudikoff in 1985, "He possess gdate skeel."

Wherever there's a controversy in youth sports, however, there's usually a sniveling adult manipulating things for their own benefit. Further into the story it's revealed Jericho was invited to play on the league champion's team ... the team sponsored by the employer of a league official. Smelly, smelly stuff. Jericho opted to play with his current team (8-0 and headed into the playoffs) when some group somewhere declared since he couldn't be fitted with a Hasbro restrictor plate he shouldn't pitch.

The vitrol and spewage coming at the bad guys in all of this is well-deserved. The when-the-going-gets-tough-the-tough-have-a-meeting message they're sending to their own children is unmistakable. These are the things that plant a seed of something bad coming down the road.

Everybody who's played youth sports has come up against Jericho Scott. That guy in our league was Stan Brooks. This was more than 20 years ago, but I can still see his windup, clearly. It was deceptively slow, like when a snake rocks back slowly before striking. He had a straight overhand delivery that seemed to put even more velocity on the ball because of that downward motion. Toward the end of his windup, another gear kicked in and his right arm became a rattlesnake, those two fingers down the seams fangs, the ball venom coming at you.

Believe it or not, 11-year-olds have their own scouting reports. The one on Stan was he had two pitches: that fast one you basically swung at in mid-prayer and hoped it connected, and a change-up that made you look like you were taking a whack at the firefly in front of you instead of the ball drifting by a full second later. (Later Stan came up with some kind of pitch that actually had some dispy-do movement. We were on the same team [prayer works] and I was catching for him. He'd signal to me it was coming but I still couldn't catch it.)

At some point, that fear of getting into the batter's box turned into respect. He was still hard to hit, but familiarity had given many of us at least some confidence. Success wasn't an impossibility.

These kids in New Haven aren't going to get that if Jericho Scott is benched for nothing more than being an insurmountable challenge. The best lessons in life come with the greatest risks. Often the result will failing. The biggest failure, though is if they never take that swing.

Those moments ...

Welcome to my restaurant. What would you like to eat?

Before I answer she asks me where I would like to sit. I have a choice between three chairs. At each one is an old birthday card that I assume is the menu.

I think I'll have a frog sandwich.

We don't have that.

How about a turtle biscuit?

She rolls her eyes for a moment and says,"We have two specials: birthday cake and a vegetable basket."

We're at the dining room table, which usually only sees action during holidays or when family/friends are over. Rylee, my soon-to-be six year old, is taking my order in her restaurant.

As she goes over to the box of plastic food to get my vegetables and cake (balance is everything), I realize this is one of those moments. This sappy thing happens to me occasionally. I blame people who tell me to cherish this time when my kids are little as well as the fact that she's starting first grade tomorrow. Someday I know I'll be looking at Rylee, Jackson, or another future Barkley and wishing for one moment I could hold them again like they were little -- back when I was their superhero before they became teenagers and realized how lame I am. I'll wish I could quantum leap back to here and live for a few minutes in this make-believe restaurant. I'll think how cool it would be if I could actually go back to that time ...

The time I'm in right now.

We don't have vegetables. Would you like a fruit basket?

That would be great.

Here's your toast. Be careful. It's really hot.

A few minutes later I'm finished with my birthday cake, fruit basket, toast, coffee, and chocolate milk. Don't laugh. It was good.

Would you like anything else?

It's getting late and she needs to go to bed, as does her brother. Tomorrow's a big day and another milestone.

Will you come back?

Often.

Picking up the running ...

A few days after my last post I broke down and got some more running shoes. I should've done it sooner. There are a lot of hills in our neighborhood and running shoes don't last as long on a big guy like myself. Imagine a semi having to go up and down mountains constantly -- the tires are going to wear down as are the brakes. Going down one hill near my house in early July I found myself looking for the sandy pit off to the side for an emergency stop.

While visiting my in-laws in Alabama, I looked into getting the Nike shoes that sync up with your iPod and monitor your progress. I've never spent more than $40-$50 on a pair of running shoes and didn't like what I saw in these things climbing to $80, $90, and more than $100. I finally saw a pair that had been marked down to $50, presumably because they weren't that great looking. Being a dude, I didn't care. The idea is I'm going to be running in these things, not modeling on the catwalk ... on the catwalk, hey ... doin' my little walk on the catwalk ...

Well, I'm hooked. I was worried the technology would be cool but the shoes would hobble me like an arthritic Budweiser horse, but that's not the case. Yes, I'm giving them a thumbs up. Just wanted to give my endorsement for those crazy kids at Nike and help them get their little business off the ground.

Last month, I set a goal for myself of running 60 miles. You gazelles out there do that in a week. For Clydesdales such as myself it's quite the undertaking. Well, not only did I make the goal but I started on the 6th and finished on the 30th. I love how you can track your progress and goals online. Your results from your latest run(s) are instantly sent to Nike Plus when you hook up your iPod as well.

Goals are to use the training program to get my 10K time under an hour. I'm hovering a few minutes above that right now. Soon hopefully I can go from being a semi to at least a moving van or something.