Running in your mind

I went out today and did a little over 30 miles on the bike and then ran 15K. It was OK up till the end, when I ran into a little problem: the wind.

Starting in mile 2, I had decided to run all 9+ miles under 9 minutes pace. That's a pretty fast pace for me. I was fine until mile 7, when I spent an inordinate amount of time heading into a pretty stuff wind. When the Forerunner beeped at the end of the mile, I looked down and I'd done a 9:01 mile. I was pretty ticked.

(Anyone out there who loves James Horner's soundtracks, as I do, has *got* to have Legends of the Fall. It's amazing. Gorgeous. Accessible without being treacly. (Treacly like, for example, The Irish Tenors, which I like, but can't listen to too often or in public.) I've also got Field of Dreams, Braveheart, Titanic and Spitfire Grill. There are a lot more, and I'm sure I'd enjoy most of them.) Sorry for the interruption....

It ended up being educational, though. Because I got kind of discouraged, and mile 8 went 9:17. Then I went from discouraged to mad, because I hadn't intended to slow down. Mental state makes so much difference. I'd gone 9:17 not realizing I'd slowed. Mile 9 was 8:37, because I was focused again. The wind sucks the energy right out of you. And you've got to be careful not to let it affect your mental state. Running is not all in the lungs and the legs. As with any endeavor, I guess, it's very much in your head.

And speaking of mental states, how 'bout the states of Wisconsin and Washington (Hawaii doesn't stop voting for a couple of hours yet)? Obama totally spanked Clinton in WI, and McCain totally spanked Huckabee in WI and WA. Obama will increase his lead by 10 or 12 delegates, and McCain will do much better than that (Dem primaries are mostly proportional, and Rep primaries are mostly winner-take-all).

If Huckabee doesn't drop out after these two primaries, he starts to look like he's just in it out of spite. Those conservative Republicans are looking pretty stupid right now. They've got to know they have very little chance to win in November in any case, as unpopular as Bush and national Republicans are right now. But Huckabee is not dropping out even though he's got about 220 delegates to McCain's 930. It takes fewer than 1200 to win. So McCain could sleepwalk through the rest of the primaries and still win. So why is Huckabee still hanging around? He's been listening to Rush Limbaugh, who -- as bad as he always is -- has gone completely off the deep end against McCain.

If you want a Republican to win in November, you've gotta be at least scratching your head over why those guys are behaving that way.

If you want a Democrat to win in November, you've gotta be laughing all the way to the bank. (But the Dems are not without their problems, too. If March 4 doesn't settle it, and I do not think it will, Obama and Clinton could be sniping at each other all the way to the convention. It could get ugly. And in a normal year (if such a thing exists -- though with Bush at 30% approval, it's certainly not normal this year) the Dems would be making it almost impossible for themselves to win.

It's way too late for me to be typing. Later....