It was an odd sound — a strange one. One I had not heard on a run in quite a while. The sound? Silence. Or should I say natural noise. Sounds of the world going round and not drowned out by the tunes from my trusty iPod. I’m not an iPod addict like some people, but it has become a running staple for me the last couple of years — as common as running shoes or my frequent cursing as I try to loosen up during the first mile. Only, one of the speakers has started kicking out sounds like a chain saw revving in my ear. Thompson sweat can penetrate a hermetically-sealed chamber, and I think mine fried the earbud. I’ve been borrowing my wife’s, but I’m starting to feel guilty seeing as how I’m sweatier, dirtier and smellier. Why is it women could roll in garbage, live with pigs, swear off bathing for weeks and still beat us men even after we’ve showered.

When I turned 35 a year ago, it didn’t much matter to me. It was a benign age with an inconsequential number. Kind of bland and flat. Neither here nor there. He’s not young, and he’s not old. He’s in between — YOLD! That’s it, I was yold. But as I stare from the precipice at the coming of 36, I’m not so lackadaisical or flippant. Last year I wondered in a column whether turning bland and boring 35 meant I would start drinking mocha lattes, playing golf and shopping for affordable mid-size sedans. Turns out I can’t afford lattes, golf, or sedans, so that pretty much saved me from the oblivion I worried about. In that sense, it was a pretty good year. I also wrote in that column that the number 35 was not exciting in any conceivable way and totally forgettable. I called it the equivalent of cheap wallpaper, flat Coke or overcooked peas. But 36 is different. It’s not so soft on the ears. Instead it sounds heavy and stark. Six rhymes with bricks — or moldy sticks — and you can’t say it without a hard landing on that “ix” like you’re spitting on the ground.

“Amelie, your daddy’s Cuban side is coming out,” my wife said. I don’t know if it was a statement of fact or more a warning — “Watch out, sweetie, I think he’s going to salsa!” She was actually referring to my attempt to fix the lid on the bathroom stool, which has a tendency if you’re not careful to slam shut when you’re done taking something out. It sounds like a giant slab of granite being blown off a mountainside, and I jump whenever I hear it. When it happened twice this night, I marched off to the kitchen, pulled something out of a drawer and told the family, “I’ll fix that once and for all.” I would Thompson-nize it. Whenever I “fix” things, my wife thinks it’s my Cuban genes coming out. Cubans are incredibly resourceful, especially after years of coping with a defunct economy and a shortage of almost everything. They can’t just go out and buy something when it breaks, so they fix it. Or make something to replace it. It’s almost an artform how they’ve learned to make do with bits and pieces of nothing, turning them into useful items that make life easier. They may not always be pretty, but they work.

What goes through a runner’s brain during a five-kilometer race? From start to finish it’s pretty fascinating. Here’s what I spent my 3.1 miles thinking about as I ran the Matanzas 5K in St. Augustine, the first race I’ve done since an injury almost a year ago: At the Starting Line: It’s cold. I’m tired. I’m standing there in skimpy running shorts and the only thing going through my mind is how my legs must look like knobby pretzel sticks or hairy telephone poles. That’s it. That and how I paid good money to be packed in like cattle for a sport that I could just as easily go do for free. The starting gun goes off. Actually it’s a cannon. They fire off a freakin’ cannon! For the life of me I can’t understand why. There are thirteen hundred runners out here, all of whom drank too much this morning and desperately need to pee. The last thing your poor bladder needs is a cannon to scare the bejesus out of you. Yet we run, some of us a little wet.

There’s something life-affirming about stepping on a nail. Something that transcends mere pain and transports you to a place where you become aware of every molecule bubbling in your veins. It’s the same sensation you get after jumping naked into a freezing lake, snorting a jalapeo, or electrocuting yourself in regions of your body that are better left unsaid. It can’t be a little nail — not some puny finish nail that looks like a shiny pine needle. It has to be a big one. A thick one the size of a carrot. A spiral one. And it has to be firmly planted into a block of wood, jutting up straight with a malicious smile on its face. No wobble or give. And no odd angle upon entry to blunt the full experience, and the pain. It can’t be a wimpy little half-step, either. The kind where you stop at the first tingle in your toes, then pull back in relief. The full experience means full entry. It means stepping all the way down. Getting to know every exposed millimeter of that monster. Anything else just doesn’t count. I’ve been demolishing a large part of my house as we prepare for a new addition that will attach to the back and give us new room to expand our ever-increasing piles of crap. My contractor decided he would take time off in January to go snowboarding, and not wanting to wait for him to get back, I decided I would start […]

Say, old man winter, do you mind showing yourself to the door? Can we offer you a bus ticket to Toledo or Topeka? Have you visited sunny Aruba this time of year? We hear it’s fabulous. I know that you haven’t even officially begun your trek down here to Florida. The way it’s been, it was looking like we wouldn’t see you at all. And that was fine with me. I’m good with the 80-degree Christmases and the fact that blooming flowers are already coughing up pollen all over our cars. I’ve been spoiled — we’ve all been, and we’re not ready for your annual onslaught. So can you just forego us a year? As we face the harshest, coldest, most bitter weather we’ve seen, I’m concerned not all of us will make it. Some might just pick up and move to Guatemala or someplace where it’s 85 degrees this time of year and you can get a suntan that resembles crispy bacon.

Well, I’m convinced retirement is the way to go. Or at least if it’s anything like the way I spent the last two weeks or so I had off for the Christmas holiday. It’s pronounced “no work.” No thinking about work. No answering e-mail. No job-related to-do lists. No idea if gremlins were having a big party in my office and using my computer to buy used lingerie off e-Bay. Don’t know, don’t care, I’m at home in loungewear. I could get used to this retirement thing … if only I knew how to do it properly, by which I mean long term and permanently. Anyone have thoughts on how a 35-year-old with retirement accounts that wouldn’t support a band of squirrels could manage it? Aside from joining the mob or selling lucrative organs on the black market, of course. It was such a relaxing time, even with family dropping in, friends stopping by, the holidays, a 3-year-old’s birthday and a dog who assumed me being home all day meant I should spend the whole time walking her. I would wake early in the morning before anyone was up, grab as many newspapers as I could get my hands on, make some Cuban coffee, and then prop my feet up for a little quality reading time. It would only last about 32 seconds before the dog would scratch at the door asking to be let out (nice timing, dog!). But it was an amazing 32 seconds.