La mirada contemplativa y su relación con el mundo

Be ready for anything at any time.

—SEAL

New York City to Connecticut 11° to 9°

1400

It’s the Christmas holiday! New York City is lit up and beautiful. If you have never been to New York during this time, it really is special. The streets are quiet and all the stores are shut down as people prepare to spend the day with loved ones celebrating.

Our family, which now includes SEAL, decides to head back up to Connecticut. I love the holidays, especially with all the winter elements. There’s something in the air that just makes me feel festive.

Regardless of religion or beliefs, for the most part everyone is in the spirit of giving. Even SEAL.

SEAL and I head out for a quick six-mile run in the mountains. It is a maintenance run at an 8:30 clip. Meaning we are not getting better during this run, but we are not getting worse either. We are

“maintaining our shit,” he tells me. When we get back home, I shower up and change.

I meet Sara in the family room. As she and I exchange some Hannukah and Christmas gifts, SEAL comes into the room holding something in his hands. He’s protecting it like a fullback would a football near the goal line.

“Your boy’s got an inner toughness,” SEAL says. “I wanted to capture that in a gift,” and he hands a present to Lazer.

I’m wondering, Is it a toy truck? Blocks? Soccer ball? Nope. It’s a miniature camouflage outfit, complete with hat. Real Army fatigues… a unique gift for a two-year-old!

Sara then gives SEAL a present from us. (She really wanted to.) And right after he opens it, she asks him to try it on. He politely declines. SEAL isn’t big into receiving gifts. Most humans like gifts, SEAL looks at gifts like they are clutter. She asks again and he respectfully says, “Later.” By the third time my wife is no longer asking, she’s insisting. Even SEAL doesn’t dare mess with her.

SEAL goes into the bedroom to change. But now he doesn’t want to come out. But after a minute or two, he reluctantly appears.

Out walks SEAL in a very nice casual dress shirt. Your standard, light-blue button-down. It looks nice on him. But judging from SEAL’s expression, you’d think he’s wearing a straitjacket.

I hand Sara the gifts that I got her the other day at Barneys. She can tell by the size of the box that it’s jewelry. She opens it up and puts the necklace around her neck.

“I love it, sweetie. But what I really love is that you went out of your way for me. Love you.”

A for effort!

1900

It’s frigid and snowy. The family is feeling good. We’re all together. A typical late December in the Itzler household might be a fire in the fireplace, some blankets, and a movie once Lazer goes to bed.

I’d usually vote for something with a little bit of edge to it, but Sara would lobby and win for a romantic comedy.

“It’s bedtime,” Sara says to Lazer.

He’s on the floor playing with SEAL. They’ve got action heroes and Matchbox cars and are saving the world. Somehow SEAL has created a realistic village made up of blocks and tanks attacking from all directions. SEAL is barking orders like it’s a real-life raid. He’s taking it way too seriously, but Lazer is actually interested and looks like he’s enjoying himself. Which alarms me.

0200

It’s 2:00 a.m. and snowing like crazy. The door to my bedroom is locked and I’m sleeping when I hear what sounds like someone trying to pick the lock of my door. The door handle is making noises like it’s being pulled and tugged from the other side of the door. Then the sound I hear is like when a dog is scratching to get into the room while the handle is being pulled and tugged some more.

I get out of my bed to check. I put my ear to the door to hear what’s going on, but now I don’t hear anything. Silence. So I bend down and get on all fours to look under the door crack to see if I see anything. Sure enough, I see SEAL’s sneakers by the door. I stand up and pull open the door and SEAL is standing right there.

“It’s time,” he says.

SEAL tells me the plan is to run four miles every four hours for forty-eight hours!

Twelve runs of four miles each every four hours! He calls it the 4/4/48.

Are you kidding me?

Apparently, he’s not. In fact, we’re going to train for it by running 4.25 miles four times in twenty-four hours, or four runs every six hours.

Night training

I’m about to ask SEAL his logic behind this, but instead I just say, “Are you kidding me?”

0230

I open up my phone so I can get the light on it to shine and then I use it as a flashlight. I don’t want to put the bedroom lights on because that might wake up Sara. She has been super cool about everything to date, but I’m not sure she would want me running in the snow at 2:00 a.m. in the mountains of Connecticut.

I go to my closet and quietly open up my drawers to get my gear. I feel like I’m sleepwalking, but I know that is wishful thinking. I layer up, tiptoe out of our bedroom, and head downstairs to the front door. SEAL is already outside.

I’m wearing a thermal, a hoodie, a hat, two pairs of gloves, and thermal pants. SEAL is in shorts, a hoodie, and gloves. It’s freezing outside. Wet and freezing. We head out.

Every step feels like I’m about to fall off the earth. It’s pitch black. I mean pitch. Five minutes into the run, SEAL turns to me and says, “Rough road ahead. Twenty meters.”

Now, how could he possibly know that? I can’t see one meter in front of me. In fact, I’m not sure I even know what a meter is. I mastered military time, but I’m not up on the metric system. Anyway, apparently, SEAL’s eyesight isn’t affected by darkness. It’s like he has night vision without the night-vision goggles. He sees fine.

It’s also bitter cold. My fingertips are completely numb. SEAL runs like he’s in Anguilla, it’s eighty degrees and sunny.

Meanwhile, the snow hits my frozen face like BB gun pellets. I’m squinting to see and closing my eyes for thirty seconds at a clip to keep the snow from pounding into my eyeballs. I’m no longer in the holiday spirit.

Soon we hit a patch of rough road. I say to myself, That must be how far twenty meters is. We move on.

We run 4.5 miles in exactly forty minutes. When we get home, we don’t even turn the lights on.

Our eyes are so adjusted to the dark that I can actually see fine in my pitch-dark house. Apparently

SEAL’s built in night-vision goggles have rubbed off on me. been the process of exerting myself, cooling down, and then having to start again. The restart is a bitch. SEAL throws me a bone and says if we do the loop in less than thirty-eight minutes, we don’t back. The sweat pours off of me. I guess SEAL was right, it’s eighty and sunny, but with each step back, it feels like the temperature drops a degree. Then my body heat mixes with the cold and creates