Tag Archives: running

mudrace

{04 March 2010}

saturday’s half marathon in the Santa Cruz mountains was a mushy, muddy affair. the saving grace (for the running shoes, anyway) is that after i stepped ankle-deep into squelchy mud near the top of the ridge, it poured down rain most of the way down, washing off the worst of the dirt. we finished in 2 hours 8 minutes, which is a pretty good time considering that there were 1880 vertical feet to climb and then descend, but i suspect that the course was mismeasured (to our advantage). i finished 36th of 71 women.

my running life is a million miles away* from what it was in chicago: the chicago marathon, with a field of 30,000 runners and its hot, flat, urban course lined with a hundred thousand cheering spectators. out here in cali, the running conditions are far more scenic, but also a lot more solitary. plenty of people go out running in search of solitude, but not me. i miss my running companions from chicago. saturday’s race brought me full circle in my running life, since i met up with callie to run, my very first running partner. i’ve known callie since the second day of 9th grade. we ran together on our high school track and cross country teams, and 14 years later we ran our first chicago marathon together. three years later our professional lives have taken us both to the west coast, and adventure running. someday, i’m going to tackle this race. and if anyone is batshit crazy enough to come along with me, i’m pretty sure it’s callie.

*well, about 2133, to be exact.

101 in 1001: [no. 03] run a four-hour marathon

{13 October 2009}

October 11, 2009 — Chicago Marathon 2009: 3:59’01”

Okay, so I started running three and a half years ago. In May of 2006 I decided I’d train for a half marathon. the goal was just to complete it. I started out with a run-one-min-walk-one-min plan for 30 minutes at a time, three times a week. It took me 6 weeks to get up to being able to run 3 miles in a half hour.

Since then I’m four running seasons, 2600 miles, eight pairs of shoes, seven half marathons and three full marathons down the road. And I know that dry wit and self-deprecating humor is basically all that keeps this blog afloat, but i’m going to get all sincere for a minute and say that I’m really proud of that. I just am, okay? I fully recognize, and embrace, the fact that i’m a decidedly middle-of-the-pack, recreational runner. i’m never going to be anything besides that. But these miles, these races were not easy for me. The things these miles lead me to, and away from, in my life, were not easy. But I am so blessed, so fortunate, so lucky (is there a word there that’s both secular in connotation and yet as sincere as “blessed”? i can’t find it) that i found running, or running found me, when it did. It’s taught me how to break insurmountable tasks into tiny, achievable blocks. If what’s up ahead is too scary, then keep your head down, look at your feet, watch them carry you up the next block, around the corner, through the next mile, the next workout. since i’ve started my new job i’ve needed that technique in my non-running life a lot lately.

that’s life lesson number one. the second is probably even more valuable. it’s that, regardless of how you prep and organize and prepare for a big event like a marathon, the most important preparation you can do is to prepare yourself to respond to whatever unpredictable thing comes your way on race day. Being able to respond to what life throws at you with strength, grace and flexibility is, I think, one of the keys to happiness. And it’s really really not easy.

But anyway, the the sub-4 hour marathon has been a goal for a long long time. I wasn’t sure I had it in me this year, but conditions came together just right and there it was in front of me. And I reached out and grabbed it (just barely, with 59 seconds to spare, and not an ounce of energy left). So, the question is, what’s next? I have a few ideas.

1) The North Face Challenge 50k. yeah, it’s a 31 mile race. But it’s completely different from a marathon road race. A marathon like Chicago is all about finishing as quickly as you can. This trail race will be about the adventure, not the finish line. The course is on the single-track and fire roads in the hills of the Marin Headlands. Which, conveniently, happens to be my greater backyard. Participants have 10 hours to finish the course; there’s time to stop, to stretch, to refuel, admire the view, and then run some more. after pushing myself to run as fast as i can, i’m looking forward to doing some serious distance runs that are about completing the distance, not pushing for time.

2) Use marathons as a way to see new and foreign places. A couple of races I have my eye on: Stolkholm (annually in May), Dublin (October), Tokyo (Feburary), and Big Sur (April). But that’ll take time. I can only really fit one marathon into my life per year, it seems like. I gotta make sure it keeps being a hobby, not a burden.

3) Start training to be a marathon coach or mentor. I love dorking out on running physiology, and I seem to be pretty good at encouraging/cheerleading people through their goals. It’s a weird, satisfying moment when you find something that you are really suited for, you know? When you realize there’s something that you’re both good at and enjoy doing. That’s how I felt about “coaching”* a couple of my friends through their first marathon last year. Talking someone through a moment of crisis in the middle of their 20-miler, and seeing them find that inner strength, and finish, and go on to marathon and beyond, is a pretty great thing. (God, this post is all just inspiration pollyannay, isn’t it? Cue Chariots of Fire and release the slow-motion runners on the beach.)

But by coincidence, while i was on the plane home from chicago, and typing this blog post, i got into conversation with the guy sitting next to me. it turns out that, not only had he just finished running the chicago marathon, but that he’s a mentor with Team in Training (the training program/charity fundraiser that got me through my first marathon in 2007). he told me all about the mentoring program, how I could get involved. again…you know when it seems like opportunity is knocking?

* by coaching i mean, it was my 2nd marathon and their first. I’m no expert. I was more like the group cheerleader. But it was important. It got us all to the finish line (and the starting line) under some very tough race conditions.

Shamrock Shuffle 2009

{30 March 2009}

(normally this stuff goes into the training log…continue only if you’re actually interested in dorky running stuff)

woke up to 3″ of new-fallen slush outside my window. it took me a good 20 minutes to decide i was really going to get up and run, but somehow i made it, on the basis that it would 1) be an adventure, and 2) i was relieved of the pressure to run a competitive time given the unfavorable conditions. have i mentioned how sick i am of running races in unfavorable conditions? the last three races have been: half marathon in the POURING rain, marathon in the (second) freakish october heat wave (in two years), and now this 8k in the snow.

some thoughts:

1) i can’t believe race officials didn’t plow the streets just before the race! we were running in ankle-deep slush the whole way, grey puddles that filled in and disguised potholes and made the bridges treacherously slippery.

2) for all the unpleasantness of the wet, it wasn’t too terribly cold – right around 32, with no wind, so temp-wise it wasn’t that bad. i discovered that i do, in fact, know how to dress to run in 30 degree weather.

3) post-race dry socks mean nothing if there are not also post-race dry shoes.

4) being in start corral B was AWESOME. i wasn’t packed into the corral shoulder-to-shoulder like in the open corrals. there wasn’t enough room to jog, which would have been helpful since they kept us penned in there for 15 minutes prior to the start of the race, but at least there was room to wiggle, jump up and down, and stretch, which i did to try and loosen my muscles up at least a little. then, when the race started, i realized that everyone around me was running the same pace as me! which means i wasn’t wasting energy on weaving around those groups of people who, bless their hearts, have decided to participate in a “fun run” by linking arms with their 5 best girlfriends and then WALKING (i swear i’m not being a snob here – more power to you, running is an all-inclusive field…just for the love of god DON’T START IN FRONT OF ME IF YOU ARE GOING TO WALK!). so, two thumbs up for the start corral system.

5) i didn’t get enough warm up time. i ran into my friend Kevin at gear check, and we jogged together over from the Congress Hotel to our start corrals, but that was *maybe* 1/4 mile. after that, standing still for 25 minutes before hitting that first mile at an 8′ pace was hard on the legs. i need to figure out how to really get a full mile warm up before races, especially fast/short ones.

6) especially when i first started running i was lonely going to races by myself when i saw other people with their friends and running buddies. but i think i’ve gotten over that loneliness, and realized that it’s sooo much better for me to race alone. when i can just get up, go to the race, be on my own time table, it’s so much less stressful for me.

7) i don’t like running short/fast races. it’s too HARD. i really prefer the half marathon over all distances.

8) this was definitely a mind-over-matter race. for starters, even tho i’d given myself permission just to go out and jog, considering the weather, by the time i hit the starting line i knew i’d be chasing after the PR and time goal i’d set for myself. i always do this. i am not a participation-is-everything runner. i dont’ care much how i stack up against other runners – i will always be middle-of-the-pack – but i *am* competitive against myself and against the clock. very much so.

9) i flagged a bit in mile 4, in my own head, if not in actual pace. mile 4 was when i just didn’t want to go on, when all those fleeting thoughts of quitting start creeping in. so from 3 to 4 i made myself go on, saying that it’d be a PR alone just to do 4 sub-8′ miles in a row, i’ve never done that. and i settled into that same miserable mindset that happens around mile 22 in the marathon, when you are no longer thinking, just putting one foot in front of the other, and then once i got to the 4 mile marker, it was just one more mile in to the finish, so i might as well do that. though, on the uphill on Roosevelt just before the finish line, i was making those deals with myself that if i could just finish this race strong, i could never run again if i didn’t want to. come to think of it, i wonder how many times i’ve made those deals with myself while running up that exact same stretch of Roosevelt road (which is the last quarter mile before the finish line on almost all big chicago races).

10) it was a nice feeling to have finished, gathered my goodies, picked up my gear, changed into dry clothes, walked to starbucks (my racing bib was good for a free beer at the post-race party, but at 10:15 in the morning, who wants to stand around in 3″ of slush and drink a michelob ultra?), and THEN cross the race course on my way to the el station and see that and there were still people racing.

11) stats:
time: 39’34” (goal was 40′)
1811th out of 13,294 overall
330th out of 6550 women
64th out of 1324 division (women 30-34)

sunday sept 14, 5:35am: will the rain stop?

{15 September 2008}

i woke up this morning at 5am for the chicago half marathon to the tap tap tap of rain. checked the radar map to see if the rain would end before the race got started at 7:30. every time i zoomed the map out further, the storm cloud (that’s the leftovers of hurricane ike you’re looking at in green and yellow) got bigger. maybe only because it was 5am, it was funny enough to me to take a screen cap.

the rain did not, in fact, stop, and we ran the entire half marathon in the pouring rain. more than 7 inches of rain fell on chicago over the weekend.

i finished with a time of 1:53’47”, which is not my fastest time yet, but given the conditions it was my best time compared to other runners.* too bad, then, that i mostly only race against the clock. that is the good and bad thing about an inclusive sport like running. there will always be someone faster than you and someone slower than you, but the clock isn’t subjective. it doesn’t account for rain, or blistered toes, or a bad night’s sleep.

this week is peak marathon mileage**, then we start the taper down to marathon day, october 12. think good thoughts for marathon day weather, friends. these races in the rain or other non-ideal conditions are good practice, good for strengthening the moral fiber and all that, but when you’ve been working, daily, toward a goal for nine months, you just want it to go well. this year some of my marathon energy has been diverted to helping two women (who have, over the past 6 months, become my very dear friends) train for their first marathon. which means that i not only want a good day for myself, but for M and H especially. the law of averages means that if you run enough marathons, there will be some good ones and some bad ones. but when it’s your first, well, it’s hard when it doesn’t go as expected. trust me.

that’s another one of those cliche-because-it’s-true life lessons about running distance events like a marathon. you can spend weeks and months preparing for it, but it all comes down to one single day and there are a million factors that are out of your control. you can train and train, and on the day of the event, wake up sick, or roll an ankle, or there could be a freak heat wave in chicago october, or any of a million other things. running is about taking what the day gives you, and adapting. adapting yourself, but also adapting your expectations. you can’t work this hard and plan for failure. likewise, you can’t possibly prepare for all of the things that could go wrong. so instead, you have to make the body, and the spirit, flexible.

*120th of 1215 in my division (women 30-34), put me narrowly in the top 10%
**which is only 37 miles, practically nothing in the world of distance running, but still plenty for me.

come here/go away: birthday edition

{15 April 2008}

come here: turning 30! i refuse to do the hide-from-my-birthday thing. i was pretty traumatized by the thought of turning 30 about a year and a half ago, when it first occurred to me that it really was inevitable. but i’ve had time to make peace with it now. i woke up the day after my birthday and thought: i guess i’m a grownup now.

go away: awkward office birthday parties. seriously. if no one likes them why do we persist?

come here: spring! my birthday weekend marked the first nice days of spring in chicago. nearly 60 degrees and sunny for both saturday (ultimate frisbee) and sunday (long run with my marathon group). the neat thing about running outside through the cold nasty months of feb/march/april is that i get to see spring arrive on a minute level. saturday was the day that the dead expanses of lawn picked up an emerald hue. on sunday the buds on the dogwood trees took on a fuzzy appearance and the weeping willows in the park were bright orange. on monday the forsythia bushes had a yellow haze about them as the buds were on the verge of opening into flowers. last night i slept with my window open.

come here: 1950’s wedding dress i built for a friend’s play. as long as it remains a hobby, not a profession, i love building period costumes. it’s like sculpture but with fabric instead of clay or stone or a more traditional medium. there’s an unfinished picture here; hopefully a photo of the finished dress on the actor if the designer sends it to me.

come here: shamrock shuffle. mom was in town visiting and so while i ran the 8k race she did the 5k walk. here we are nearly freezing our butts off in grant park following the race. the race comes with a coupon for a free beer at the post-race party, but it was 10am, drizzling and 45 degrees. a michelob ultra, regardless of being free, was not first on my list to do after gutting out five miles at an 8’22” pace in the rain. we skipped the party and headed to intelligentsia for hot coffee.
race stats:

distance: 8k
time: 41’33” (two minutes off last year’s time)
overall: 4992 of 22575 – top 22%
women: 1374 of 12178 – top 11%
division (women 25-29): 519 of 4431 – top 12%

go away: stockholm marathon. because i dropped out of it. with the horrendous winter we’ve had i’m kind of undertrained, and while i could definitely go and tough out a five hour marathon and get to see the city and all that would be cool, it was going to be an ABSURDLY expensive way to half-ass a marathon with the exchange rate in the toilet. and when i looked at my spring, i realized that i have: aikido kyu test april 19, tech for the last show of the season may 9-24, then i’m going to berlin to visit wabes for a week in the beginning of june, and STP is opening our new play june 15. something had to give or it was all going to get half-assed and i don’t like not doing thing well. so, my sights are set on the chicago marathon, october 12. and in the realm of more immediate athletic goals, passing my fifth kyu exam in aikido (april 19).

come here: birthday movie retrospective. i celebrated my birthday with a movie party in which we showed a film from each of the major decades of my life. the 80’s selection: Princess Bride (Goonies was the runner up choice). 90’s film: So I Married an Axe Murderer (runner up: Benny and June). 00′ film: Chicago (runner up: Shaun of the Dead). the keys to the movie party (anne and i are starting to perfect this art after doing several) is 1) to start showing movies before anyone arrives – otherwise it’s impossible to herd people out of the kitchen and into a dark living room where they’re not supposed to talk, and 2) to select films that everyone has seen before so one can wander in and out of the movie room, watch your favorite scene, then head back to the kitchen for a drink or to hang out and not feel like you’re missing something crucial. when summer comes around we mean to move the party out into the back yard and project the movies onto the fence, like our own mini movies in grant park.

the dirty dozen, american dream edition: food, sports and the internet

{20 February 2008}

okay, i’m taking a page out of lau’s blog and attempting the dirty dozen to make up for my distinct lack of blogging:

1. be mine. i have to say that i’ve never been on the kate spade bandwagon. i’m not on the purses-that-cost-more-than-their-raw-materials bandwagon, really. but, luxury handbag issues aside*, my attention was drawn to the kate spade website on valentine’s day which has a darn cute collection of e-cards one can send to their valentine. what the connection is between handbags and e-valentines? i couldn’t say. but they are cute.

2. things you shouldn’t buy on the internet: Hairsoreal. i swear that this was one of those sidebar ads on facebook the other day. i couldn’t have made this product up if i’d tried. it’s a hair-replacement product that, as near as i can tell, is a can of little tiny hair-shaped fibers, that you shake over your head like you were seasoning your bald patch with hair-shaped pepper. the fibers magically stick to one another and poof! there goes the bald spot. did anyone else go to the children’s science museum when you were a kid and get to play with the magnetic iron filings? i imagine it’s sort of like that. the thing i don’t get, tho, is why men worry so much about baldness. seriously. everyone’s bald! a receding hairline is like the last thing i’d notice on a guy, and it sure wouldn’t be the deciding factor as to whether i’d go out with him or think he’s attractive. balding heads areabout as common as having brown hair, or freckles. weird, the things we worry about.

3. things you maybe should buy on the internet: the under-the-sink urban-enviro-friendly compost system. this seems strange to me, because it doesn’t use enzymes and worms to heat up and chew thru the garbage, but somehow magically heats (via electricity) the garbage into dirt. that sort of sounds…too easy. but there’s a weird part of me that really really wants to try composting, but i also don’t want to make my roommate and neighbors hate me.

4. things you should do on the internet: play scrabulous with me before Big Bad Hasbro shuts them down.

5. winter. the ugliest winter in recent memory plods along in chicago. there has been some sort of snow on the ground continuously since christmas. the temp keeps dipping down into the single digits, which sends the windchill plummeting to 20 or 30 below. the locks on my car doors freeze. i think of myself as a very good, practical winter driver, and yet my car has gotten stuck on patches of ice three times in the past week. it’s also making marathon training (see item 8) particularly challenging. also, if the speed at which i am misplacing/losing mittens and hats continues to accelerate the way it has steadily since christmas, i’m going to die of frostbite long before spring arrives.

6. ultimate snow frisbee is the best sport ever. well, actually, i’d trade it for regular ultimate on a sunny summer day if i had a choice, but it has been a way to make winter bearable, at least for a couple of hours on saturday mornings. no one can run, cut, or handle the frisbee worth a damn, but dive rolls are awesome.

7. indoor ultimate frisbee. this is a historic moment, this new, ultimate-frisbee-playing self, because it’s really the first time i’ve enjoyed and excelled at playing any team sport. anyway, after six months of a pickup game, i got brave and signed up for an indoor winter league. i got totally skooled on my first day, but by the end of the season my playing has improved considerably.

8. stockholm marathon. continuing with the sports-themed news items, the stockholm marathon is breathing down my neck. picking a marathon is sort of like doing airport math. when i schedule a flight, i think to myself, “hmm, mid morning sound good.” and then i book a 10am flight, neglecting, as always, to do the airport math: to get awake, out the door, take public transit to the airport, and check in luggage requires that i am awake a minimum of 4 hours before the flight departs, which means that a reasonable-sounding 10am flight turns into a 6am wake up call. so, marathon math is sort of the same thing. may 31 sounds like a nice time of year to run a marathon, right? except that one neglects to count backwards by 4 or 5 months and realize that means runs in the double digits before the end of february. it’s really really hard to run more than an hour on a treadmill without going kookoo with boredom.

9. marathon pied piper: i’m actually feeling like something of a marathon pied piper. without really meaning to, i find myself suddenly in the position of leading a small group from my dojo in training for this fall’s chicago marathon. i’m the only one who has run a marathon before (and i’ve only done one, mind you), but somehow this makes me the expert. yikes. actually, tho, it’s weird but good. i mean, leading and organizing people and projects is what i do for a living, but i’ve really only ever applied those skills to making theatre happen before. but leading people on non-work-related pursuits (that they are equally if not more passionate about): this…sort of suits me. huh.

10. enough with the sports, let’s talk about food: C sent me the link to this food blog called 101 cookbooks, and it is now my new favorite place for recipes. mostly if not entirely veggie. gets a little out there with the hippy ingredients (where DOES one buy agave nectar?), but usually there are substitutions indicated for those of us still slumming it at the Jewel from time to time.

11. animal, miracle, vegetable: have been reading kingsolver’s book about her family’s year of farming and eating locally and…it has definitely gotten under my skin a bit when it comes to produce shopping. i look longingly at the four-dollar half pint of raspberries and think, those won’t taste like anything, they’ve been shipped halfway around the world. and that’s absurd to spend such money for something that won’t even taste good anyway. i reach for the winter fruits: apples, grapefruit, and think that summer raspberries will taste that much better for the waiting. still, its not like i’ve seen a grapefruit tree hanging around outside in chicago, either. how does one reconcile the luxury of a varied diet with the economic, political, environmental, social arguments for eating locally-produced food? i mean, what would canadians living far north in the tundra do to eat locally? live off reindeer meat for 6sixmonths at a time and risk scurvy? no, they thank their lucky stars that they can truck in grapefruit from florida, of course. it’s tricky, and thanks to this book and others, i’m more aware of the issue, but no more resolved. for about five months of the year, my CSA provides nearly all the fruits and vegetables i need, and they *are* local and organic. it’s just the other half of the year that i’m not sure what to do. what i do know is, the hyde park produce market had ripe avocados on sale for $.50 each today. and i bought one and i felt guilty about it and still it tasted SOOOOO good on my sandwich. thank you, honduras, for sending me your avocados.

12. 101 in 1001: go completely veggie for a month: check, done. i conducted this experiment for the month of january. the play-by-play is linked, but the upshot is: i can get along just fine without meat in terms of what i crave to eat. leaning how to be veggie in a non-veggie world will take a little more practice (particularly with regard to when other people cook for me), but it’s not an insurmountable challenge. the insurmountable challenge is that i think my body needs more protein than i’m capable of giving it from vegetable sources when i’m running/training heavily. while there are a lot of good reasons for being veggie that i can get behind, the primary reason that motivates me is that i think the disconnect between animals and food in our modern world is unnatural and it leads to unhealthful foods, unsound environmental practices, and unspeakable animal cruelty. (i mean, did you read the about last week’s beef recall? the nation’s school cafeterias are feeding our kids beef from cows that were too sick to even stand up. it’s horrific.) so all this brings me to the conclusion that the right path for me, i think, is to continue to be veggie when eating out, and on the occasion that i’m feeling really short on protein, i can cook a piece of chicken or turkey at home. then as a consumer i can at least make some decisions about the source of the meat, buying organic, buying locally. the same goes for eggs and dairy, too, when it comes to buying but…i don’t think i have the willpower to be vegan everywhere that i can’t be assured of the organic status of the ingredients.

13 [baker’s dozen]. the american dream: oh internets: what does the phrase “american dream” mean to you? i ask because, until this week, i’d never really thought much about it, aside from a vaguely negative connotation and association with the idea of manifest destiny. anyway, Next Theatre is producing a show called the American Dream Songbook, and as part of the lobby display, C asked the artistic associates and friends of the theatre to send in photos that represented our notion of the american dream. i couldn’t really figure out where to start for a while. i dug through old photos, and came across a series of self-portraits that A and i took the day we left for chicago. we posed in front of the Uhaul truck, one hand shading our faces, head tipped up, starting into the future like brave explorers. they were goofy photos, but i remember insisting that we take them, because we were setting off on this grand adventure, this next step in our lives, and i wanted to be able to look back and remember how we felt on that day. so i dug up that picture and sent it in with the following caption: “aug, 2003: looking into our bright shiny future the day we left idaho to move to chicago. a few years later, he broke my heart. but i still live in chicago.” some of my friends who saw it thought the caption was tragic, others thought it was hilariously funny. i realized later it was kind of both. it was weird to put up a photo of myself and A, especially in a public theatre lobby where friends of his might very well see it. but, i decided, that *was* my iconic american dream photo. the point (and this is the point of the show at Next as well) is that the american dream is elusive. it always falls short. life doesn’t turn out the way we think it will, but what we find instead sometime surprises us, and it is the hope that sustains us and gets us to surprising endings.

fast forward five years from that day in front of the Uhaul, and now we’re all grown up: A is a parent and a successful actor, he’s teaching classes at the school where, five years ago, we came to chicago so he could study. as far as theatre goes, i’m living the dream: i’m working full time in my field, no day job. i don’t have money to burn, but i can’t complain; i can pay my rent, i never worry about scraping by till the next paycheck or the next gig. i have a lovely apartment, great friends, a good life. but A and i, as a unit, didn’t survive. we found all those things we came to chicago to find, but in the pursuit, we lost the only thing that we brought with us to chicago: the us. and to be honest, i don’t know that we could have gotten to the places we are now together.

so, we end with an essay assignment, comment box: what does the phrase “american dream” evoke in you? go!

*did i blog about the time that my darling cat actually threw up into my purse? when i’m not home for too many hours he sleeps or does whatever it is that cats do all day but neglects to eat, so i get home and he’s starving and wolfs his food down and then sometimes yarfs it right back up. so one night he gulped some food, then sat down on his customary position of the footstool next to my desk. i had dropped my purse under the desk against the footstool. i left the room, and while i was gone, without even getting off the stool, the cat leaned over the side and PUKED INTO MY PURSE. what is it, a kitty barf bag? anyway, suffice to say that running the $25 canvas bag through a hot washing machine was no big deal. i laughed at the grossness of it all, and zeke looked mildly embarrassed. had i been carrying a $500 kate spade leather handbag, the cat-barf episode would have been a lot less funny.

come here/go away to wrap up 2007

{31 December 2007}

so there were a lot of half-finished posts that fell by the wayside, and treading water backwards is not worth the effort. so we’ll summarized the busy past couple of weeks with an installment of come here/go away and then move on to thoughts of 2008.

come here: dr. atomic. H and i caught this at the lyric the week before christmas. i have almost no experience with opera, so the whole process was impressive – the grandiose opera house, the scale on which everything is done. however, sitting still for a three hour anything is not really my specialty, and i found myself getting antsy during the first act (okay, i get it: it’s the night before you test the first a-bomb and you don’t know if you’ve invented something that will ignited the atmosphere and kill us all. an intriguing question but not really three hours’ worth of plot, and i’ve seen the same material treated much better by the excellent Carson Kreitzer). that is, until i reminded myself that plot isn’t the point of opera. the audience is meant to sit back, listen to the music, look at the big pretty stage pictures and just be. as a sometimes-play-goer, full-time-play-maker, i’m used to being very actively engaged in a production. it took me a while to realize that i needed to actually disengage a bit in order to fully appreciate the experience, but once i did, it was lovely. still, it’s sad that my total lack of musical talent/education means that there were probably many levels on which i failed to fully appreciate the work. it did look pretty, tho.

go away: aimee mann holiday spectacular. it pains me to have to give aimee mann a “go away” because i totally dig her, and her band sounded really great live. a “holiday spectacular” however, is not a concert. there was too much standup riffing with guests who are probably people i’d know if i had cable or ever watched tv but who really weren’t that funny, and guest spots for off-beat musician friends who were quirky but totally NOT AIMEE MANN. also: aimee mann fans are OLD. and suburban. when did aimee mann stop being hip? maybe i was just feeling curmudgeonly that night. still, the ticket was free, courtesy of my roommate who works at the concert house, so i should really shut up and stop complaining now.

come here: sweeney todd. i’m pretty emphatically not into musical theatre and so i didn’t know sweeny todd particularly well. the sondheim purists i saw the movie with objected to some of the changes (songs deleted/rearranged, mr. todd’s part transposed from a baritone to a tenor for the tender vocal cords of johnny depp), but i totally dug it. the production design was so excellent, tim burton just keeps getting better.

come here: christmas with the family. it snowed and snowed and snowed, and provided for skiing and snowshoeing in the meadow, and there was a cute baby (my brother’s wife’s sister’s baby, which we decided still makes him my nephew, for simplicity’s sake). i cooked christmas dinner (turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, sweet potatoes, salad, and chocolate chip oatmeal cookies – everything from scratch) without any major disasters (with the help of a rotating cadre of sous chefs, it must be noted, some of them more helpful than others).

go away: food poisoning i got from the denver airport. for two days, i wasn’t sure what my own name was. on the upside, by the time i recovered, i’d lost those pesky holiday pounds and started the whole eating-well-in-the-new-year with a fast. food poisoning and breakups are the most effective weight-loss tools i know.

come here: visits with old friends. had the nicest visit with A’s parents when i was in boise last week, the odd circumstances of our relationship notwithstanding. i hadn’t heard news of any of his siblings in more than a year, so catching up with the doings of the family was nice, and they are such gracious, lovely people that we navigated around the obvious social land mines without trouble. why do i bother to keep up with my former in-laws? i’m honestly not sure. i don’t do it out of a desire to maintain any sort of connection between me and my ex. if anything, it’s because in the past year i’ve learned to appreciate the myriad of forms that interpersonal relationships can inhabit, the blurred distinction between family and friends. there’s no substitute for having good people in my life, and cutting people off out of a sense of injured pride brings a hollow sort of satisfaction.

when i got back home a number of college friends passed through the windy city, including the lovely wabes and entourage, also p & j, and db. (ha! nicknames and initials for everyone!). catching up was good.

come here: good jobs & engagements & baby news. lots of friends with news this holiday season. it’s all happening to the right people and i couldn’t be happier for all of them.

go away: cold cold cold! as i write this, the windchill is -6. this is the cold when homeless people freeze and poor people can’t heat drafty apartments. it’s no good. also, where do the wild bunny rabbits of chicago go when it gets this cold? wikipedia informed us that rabbits don’t really hibernate but they sort of hibernate, but it didn’t really answer the question, where do they go in the winter?

come here: chicago smoking ban! hooray! as of jan 1, the smoking ban finally goes into effect for bars. i intend to invest more time holding up a barstool at my local now that i can do it without stinking like an ashtray. i should be more sympathetic to the smokers shivering in their boots out in front of the bar, trying to hold a cigarette in mitten-clad fingers, but i’m really not. now’s the time to quit! then you have more money for the other vices! our own cold turkey wonder woman inspires many.

come here: the ginger people’s ginger chews. my tongue is on fire and i’ve eaten about half the bag while writing this. mmm, ginger candy.

{13 November 2007}

so last night at a post-show reception C sez to me, “you can run 26.2 miles, but you can’t spend two hours wearing heels?”

girl’s got a point.

everyone wins

{16 October 2007}

oh yeah: two more things to say about the marathon (then i’m done i swear):

1) the support from the crowds, and family and friends, was amazing. there wasn’t a single city block, in all 26 miles, that didn’t have some spectator on the street cheering. people turned on their garden hoses to cool us off, they set up their own informal water stations, bought bags of ice to give to overheated runners, hung signs out their windows. they gathered on street corners and sang songs, wore silly hats, cheered for runners they didn’t even know by name. i love this city.

my family and friends were just as awesome. so many people called and emailed and texted me the day before the race to wish me well, or the day after the race to see if i was still alive. i have good people in my life.

2) speaking of good people in my life: we collectively raised 2274 dollars for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society! which is pretty cool. more than 60 people made donations, and for months it was a constant source of inspiration for me. someone i hardly know at work just opened his wallet and handed me cash. friends-of-friends i’ve never even met made donations online. my sister-in-law looked up my website and sent money before i’d even begun fundraising efforts. my impoverished artist friends who don’t have money to spare still sent it, because they had faith in me and generous hearts.

really, it was a win-win-win: marathon for me, support for cancer patients who need it most, and good karma for the rest of you.

chicago marathon 2007

{10 October 2007}

(warning: this is long and self-indulgent. non-runners are welcome to skim).

88 degree heat + humidity = one brutal first marathon course.

we stayed on pace pretty well for the whole first half of the race, and for the 3rd quarter even we were running a pretty respectable pace. after that, it all blew up.

the first half was the way i remembered the marathon from watching it in past years: early morning sun, beautiful fall trees, crowds on the sidewalk, a sea of bobbing runners that goes on endlessly, festive atmosphere.

the second half was more like a news clip of people trying to leave new orleans after katrina. (okay, that’s a little dramatic. but you get the idea). it was hot and bright out, with no shade, and the sun just seemed to blaze down on us relentlessly. just miles of pavement, industrial buildings, no trees. people were dropping like flies. we saw a guy collapse right in front of us, just outside of a water stop. callie screamed over her shoulder for a medic while several other runners stopped and got him up, but it was like his legs had turned to jello and wouldn’t support him as they stagged over to the curb. there were people sitting on the sidewalks, heads hung in defeat, bags of ice pressed to their necks.

at mile 21, race officials along the course started announcing that the race had been canceled. they were out of water, out of ambulances. 300 hundred people had been sent to hospitals.

canceled? we had paused at a water station when the rumor first reached me. i burst into tears. 30 seconds ago, i was miserable, in the trenches, so far from the finish that i couldn’t even see the end. but in the next moment, to have the finish line moved back, not six miles but another six hundred?

i don’t wallow in despair for long, it’s never been my style. a moment later, a new determination boiled up in my core, and it burned my tears of disappointment dry in no time. (besides, i had no breath to spare on crying). they can’t take this away from me. not now. here was the belly-fire i needed to finish the race. it arrived in the most unlikely form (someone giving me permission to quit), but it was exactly what i needed at that moment. (extrapolate into a larger life lesson, anyone? the things we need sometimes arrive in the most unlikely packages).

you want to see determined? try telling a group of marathoners at mile 21 that they should quit. ha.

conflicting rumors and misinformation spread through the crowd of bobbing runners as we pressed forward, unclear when or if we were going to be stopped, loaded onto buses, turned around, or just what would happen. helicopters flew overhead with megaphones telling runners to stop running. police cars drove slowly up the sides of the course announcing the race was over and would everyone please walk for their own safety. we walked, we jogged, we trotted. we tried not to hurl. i was wracked with waves of hollow nausea from miles 20-24, callie bent over with stomach cramps from the heat. our legs ached, feet ached, my fair skin (sunscreen long forgotten) reddened with the passing hours. there were dark (metaphorically that is) moments when it hurt and it was emphatically not fun, not even in that grueling i’m-a-tough-i’m-a-runner sort of way. there were miles that just really sucked.

that final trek up south michigan avenue seemed to take a hundred years, the city skyline beckoning us all home to grant park where we’d begun hours earlier. the first few miles of the race seemed to have taken place on another day, in another life time. we came home changed; something happened out there on the pavement that brought us back to grant park different people. when we came around the corner and into the final stretch, i remembered the passing advice i’d gotten from an ultra runner i met on the trails earlier this year. she had told me, finishing your first marathon is the best feeling in the world. that last mile just soak it all in, the crowds, the accomplishment. you’ll never get to experience that again.

she was right.

so we finished with a time of five hours and fifteen minutes. it never entered into my head that i’d run a five+ hour marathon. because it was my first, and the day was warm, we were aiming for a pace of 4:15, and really, i think (thought) that i’m capable of a four-hour marathon. maybe not yet, but i will get there. i have a four-hour in me. so i wouldn’t say i conquered the marathon so much as it ate me for breakfast, but i’m proud of having finished, even when i was given plenty of opportunity, a perfectly good excuse, to quit.

paradoxically, twenty minutes after completing the most hellish five hours i’ve ever run, callie and i were seated in the grass, in the shade, stretching and nibbling on fig newtons and discussing which marathon we should do next year: chicago? montana? big sur?

it’s not over between us, chicago marathon. you and me have got unfinished business.