My Aching Back, "Rock Of Love," oh, and some running!

No new honorees for the Wall of Fame today. The total, alas, remains the same. If you would like to learn more about Fred's Team and donate to my Fred's Team effort, please click here (look, I figured out how to make a hyperlink!)

My dear friends, the event I dreaded has already arrived. I had hoped to forestall it until the end of the summer, but it was beyond my control. I'm sad, but resigned to my fate.

Yes, my friends, I can no longer tolerate hard liquor.

It's a regrettable side effect of training. Not that I'm a big boozehound, but every once in a while I do enjoy me a nice martini (gin is OK but I prefer a good vodka, straight up with a twist of lemon, please!) There comes a point in marathon training where I guess you get fit enough that it becomes harder to process liquor. This happened last year. First the hard liquor went, then about a month before the marathon the beer went, too. No fun!! I thought I had a few more weeks before the hard liquor got to be too much. Alas, not so. I was out with friends a few days ago. I haven't had a strong drink since Broadway Bares, so I ordered a martini -- and could barely drink half, and that was AFTER I watered it down. So sad.

Back report: The pain has localized to one spot on my back, just above my right hip, but it's exquisitely annoying and really hurts when I twist, which I am wont to do (I'm a twister, I confess.) I asked Dr. Margolin about my theory that because I'm built slightly out of alignment, when I run IN alignment, I hurt myself. He said that while it's the running that is screwing up my back and hips, that there may be a grain of truth to my theory. Does this mean I get to run all shlumpy now? 'Fraid not. Anyway, he suggested I see someone else at Longevity who can help me with core strength exercises, so I'm going to do that next week. In the meantime, I agreed to let Dr. Rubenstein (acupuncture) beat my ass with a spoon when I'm done with my Cape Playhouse gig mid-August. For real. I can't remember the Chinese name for it, you get whapped with a spoon. It relieves tension. Or something. As of this moment all is well. Today's treatment was very intense, and right now everything is a little sore. The pain spot is still "painy," but I think once things calm down it might feel better. Fingers crossed!

Training -- Monday I rode the bicycle in the gym, I thought it would be good for the hip. Gym biking is so dull. Even having the TV there doesn't help. There's something inherently wrong with watching TV while exercising, don't you think? But it does help distract from the hamster-on-a-wheel feeling. While biking, I watched the Bret Michaels show on VH1, "Rock of Love," where 20 women -- and I use that word reluctantly -- vie to be his babe.

Now, I'll admit, I watched both seasons of "Flavor of Love" as well as "I Love NY" and "Charm School" and yes, I did want to wash my eyeballs out after some of those shows. "Charm School" I found to be somewhat redeeming, it was as if VH1 wanted to do another sleazy "FOL" knockoff but forgot to let Mo'Nique in on the joke. If you saw the reunion show, like I did, you might have actually gotten a little misty-eyed, like I did, yeah, I admit it, watching her fight to get through to one particularly stubborn girl and her mother.

So anyway, "Rock of Love." Bret Michaels -- surprisingly articulate, and oddly juxtaposed with him talking about sex and etc. in much-bleeped terminology. The women -- mostly dancers (not the Broadway kind,) only 2 with their natural breasts (by their own count,) and boy, do they like to party. It has all the ingredients for a brain-shrinking good time, but there's something missing. Dare I say it, it's just not sleazy enough! I don't think I'll be following this one, though if it happens to be on, I might not turn it off so fast...

Oh, yes, running. Last night was supposed to be a Cat Hill workout (at 7pm) but when we got there, it seemed like every friggin' team in NYC was there. It was literally an assembly line of runners going up and down. Plus which there was a concert on the Great Lawn, so there was a stream of people crossing the street at the top of the hill. So Jeff ordered us up to the Great Hill, at the north end of the park. I prefer the Great Hill, but I was not prepared to head up there. I was seeing a show after the workout ("To The Contrary," at the Midtown International Theater Festival. This being a festival with limited venues, the show started at 10:30pm.) I didn't have a metrocard or money, and I needed to get home by 9pm to clean up and head back out. For a Cat Hill workout at 72nd Street, no problem. For a 102nd Street workout, it would be a 40-minute walk home, we weren't going to get started until closer to 8pm, and I figured this workout would take 40 minutes or so. Fortunately, when we got there, Jeff said we'd only do two repeats of the Great Hill. Unfortunately, he said because we were only doing two, we needed to charge up the hill, and also charge on the slight downhill (for those who haven't had the pleasure, it goes downhill from W. 102-110, then back uphill as it goes east, then there's a little bit of a downhill at around 106th back to 102nd, then it's flat as you head back west.)

Two seconds of past history -- last year Jeff had us do 8 repeats of the Great Hill, saying, "One repeat is a mile." Well, as it got later and later and the sky got darker and darker, it became clear that was no mile. By the time we finished, it was pitch black outside and we all laid out on the back of a splintery flatbed truck that was parked on the transverse, spent.

So last night, Jeff says, "Two repeats, that's 1.43 miles each."

8 miles, 12 miles, what's the difference?

Much love, and check out this week's contest in the previous post!!