sort of a tempo run

Tempo run this afternoon. The same route, same distance, and the same intensity…..supposedly. I didn’t do it.  I found an excuse not to:  SOCCER.

I was looking for a way out right from the git go. As I was proceeding to the “tempo route” I made a conscious, deliberate effort to swing by the park not too far from our condo area.  It’s not even along the way, it was way off; quite the opposite way, as a matter of fact.  I got on top of the hill and, to my delight, a familiar scene of green grass and soccer players on it in colorful jersies were already warming up for a pick up game.  Man, the temptations of a runner. In a sacred garden where I’m playing  Adam and predestined to tell Eve not to eat the apple? I beat her to it. Even chopped down the  tree for that matter.  So I literally flew back to the condo, got my cleats, and soon enough I was attacking midfielder # 13 (my Michael Ballack  white jersey, thanks Jana) on the pitch.

Quite an interesting group I played in today.  It’s like the UN.  A mix of Asians, Indians, Middle Easterns, and Somalians.  The game was organized as Middle Eastern-ers  v.  The Rest of the World.  Somehow I ended up being in the Middle Eastern-ers’ side.  They were really good, my team.  Nearly everyone in their late 40s and/or early 50s, with bellies surrendered to gravity, hair if not white, gone. Most were also oxygen-dissadvantaged and kind of slow on the sprints, yet still possessing the “touch” and the trick moves for football, for the beautiful game.  This one old fart that looked like he played soccer with Moses, he had the grace and brutality of a once-upon-a-time superb back midfielder. The guy didn’t even have to run. I couldn’t get over those accurate passes and the authority he had over his other team mates including me.

All three games we won.  I even scored twice, on the last game.  I suppose everyone else was too tired already at that time and just wanted to finish the last game so they could go about their kebab time or tea time or whatever it was they were up to on a friday night.  Funny, most passes in this last one were directed to me. It was as if everybody and their dog knew I was supposed to be somewhere else doing tempo run instead of  playing soccer. What goes around comes around, eh?

I just want to point out, I played soccer for almost two hours today, as  a midfielder, not a goalkeeper. Are you kidding me, that’s a lot of running and way beyond my tempo run time. So who do you think was trying to get over?

Some of these guys in my team, they brought back a lot of memories. I had bad ones too, a lot of them when I was flappin’ in those places probably a few of these guys grew up in. But the good mem’ries were the ones that dominated on that pitch today.  The mem’ries of the local folks who risked their lives working for and with us in the US army side of the house. I thought about Rashid, or “Johnny” as he wanted to be called, my favorite interpreter. But that’s an entirely different story.

Now tomorrow, I say tomorrow it’s gonna be 4 hours of hurt. Time in feet.  I haven’t even picked a route yet. It doesn’t really matter, it’s gonna suck anyway.