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I just got back from my first ten-mile run since the injury. Since I took the Richmond marathon off my list of things to do this year, I've lacked motivation. It's nice to think it might be back. I started this whole exercise thing ten months ago in order to get my head straight. My marriage had crumbled and it didn't look like all the King's horses wanted anything to do with the salvage project. To distract myself, I went to Gold's and signed up with no idea of what I wanted to do, or how I was going to do it. Somehow, I fell into a pattern where I was running and working out five or six times a day. That pattern more or less continued unabated until my injury in late August, where I sat out for ten days out of fear of doing serious damage to my knee. Admittedly, I've had a hard time sticking with lifting weights at the gym, only because it's been hard to get organized enough to fit into my schedule, which seems to operate according to some sort of video-g

I've decided not to run the full Richmond marathon. Instead, I will shoot to run a full marathon next year, next spring or fall. I have not fully decided yet. I may run the half marathon instead, and will shoot to run it in under than two hours. I think I can meet that goal through building on the training I've learned to date. Since my injury, I have been adding to how much I've run each week. I usually have a couple of short pangs of pain in my right knee within the first minute of running, but it generally goes away if I slow down and breathe through it. I don't have any pain when I finish. The injury was a wake-up call that there are limits to my body, especially when you factor in everything else going on in my life. We are in the midst of covering an election for Charlottesville Tomorrow. I'm a single father who has his children half the week. I serve people at Court Square Tavern on Fridays. Somewhere in there, I'm trying to figure out how Charlottesville

Charles Lewis Stokes died today. I knew him as Lew. He was a blind man who came into Court Square Tavern almost every night I worked there the first time around. Lew was awesome. He had nothing to say except what he thought. And that was a tremendously refreshing thing. He would come in, have his three pints of Spaten, and then Ali of Yellow Cab would come in and pick him up and take him home. I've not seen him in over a year. Maybe two years. Last time I saw him was at Fellini's. The fact that I will never again have a beer with him makes me very sad. Lew was a guy who you could have a conversation with about everything from politics to metaphysics. I had heard that we was a really gruff man before he went blind, but then loosened up a bit afterwards. Lew had a very rich wife who he wasn't tremendously close to, but both were blind, so they got along in some sense. Lew encouraged me to do the work I do. He said to me frequently that I needed to be heard by as many people

I've been playing music all my life, but never really took it seriously. I played around with sound with my friend Jeffry Cudlin since I was 7 or so, an experience that lead me to seek a career in radio. But, I also played music with Jeff in high school and again in my mid-twenties. Our fake band was called the Hodads, named after a fake superhero group in some silly Marvel comic. Jeff has gone on to play in many real bands. He was much better at writing songs and crafting things that sounded good. All I wanted was the visceral feeling of creating things, and that's where the concept of improv punk came from for me. I didn't have time or the patience to practice. Flash forward to now. I've become a runner. Why not become a musician? Why shouldn't I take this seriously? I generally play music when I'm done with my work day, and I'm beginning to record it and take it seriously. Is any of it good? Why is that a relevant question? I'm not the faster runner,

Richmond isn't going to run itself, so I'm shooting to run 26.2 miles on November 14, 2009. Damn, it feels good to say that. Today I got back on the road to try to meet that goal. I do so with a renewed spirit and a sense that patience can pay dividends. As you know, I hurt my right knee on the last mile of my scheduled 16 mile run ten days ago. That forced me to take a break, during which I did not make any decisions. I didn't even really lament the loss of exercise. I just wanted to listen to my body and heal. On Sunday, the pain in my joints and tendons had more or less faded, but would shoot through me if I put too much weight on my right leg. By Monday I felt fine, but still didn't know what to do. On Tuesday, I followed the advice of many people and went in to talk with Mark Lorenzoni, the owner of Ragged Mountain Running Shop and my coach in the Charlottesville Track Club's marathon training program. As per his instructions, I took in my program and my shoes.

I was doing so well. Last Sunday, I did my long run in town, and made two circuits of an eight mile loop. The weather was gorgeous. I was well-rested. I had enough liquid. The run was absolutely beautiful and fantastic. And now, I'm going to have to hold on to that memory for a little while, because I don't know when I'll be strong enough to run again. On my last mile, I screwed up trying to negotiate a curb, and slammed my right leg down with far too much power, sending a spike of pain through my knee. It went away a second or two later, so I kept going and finished up, and felt fine. Got home, drank my Gatorade, ate my protein bar, stretched out, and then went to walk my dog. I didn't get even a house away before my calves hardened like concrete. Had I been glared at by Medusa? No. I'd just ran 16 miles. I hobbled back to the house, and sat down for 20 minutes. When I got up, I felt okay. And then went to lunch at the Bluegrass Grill with my ex and our kids. While