{07 October 2007}
657 miles
$2249 dollars
9 months & 7 days
today is my half-birthday; i am kicking off the year of turning 30 with a marathon.
they say that when you cross that finish line, it will change your life forever. how will it change me? how am i already changed?
bring it on, 26.2
{17 September 2007}
i ran twenty miles yesterday!
marathon, i am ready for you.
go see this: http://www.marathonmovie.com/home.html
{09 September 2007}
this is why it’s hard to find your friends on the starting line.
chicago half marathon stats:
time: 1:55’23”
overall place: 2052 of 10118 (20.3%)
gender place: 667 of 5961 (11.2%)
division place: 209 of 1669 (12.5%)
1 beautiful sunny day in hyde park
{02 September 2007}
1) mostly for you chicagoans: my new favorite photo blog: ihateclarkstreet.blogspot.com
2) the first of september, and the first hint of fall in the air. some perceptible transition from the humid, languid days of late summer to the warm, golden afternoons of approaching fall. the sky is a darker shade of blue, the sunlight golden instead of hazy, bringing everything sharply into focus. it’s heartbreakingly beautiful, and yet,or perhaps because, there’s an inexplicable melancholy that settles over me about this time of year. maybe it’s the beauty of late summer juxtaposed with the inevitable approach of winter. but i’m not sure it’s anything as concrete as that. fall just makes me sad.
3) as of monday, i’ll have lived in chi-town for four years. that means i’ve spent more consecutive months living here than in any place since i left my parents’ home at age 18. never in a million years did i dream i’d end up living in the midwest, voluntarily, for a significant period of time, and yet, here i am, and it feels like home.
4) i haven’t even blogged about my weekend yet, and it’s nearly the next weekend. i marked the approaching end of summer with an impromptu trip to the bay area (thank you frequent flier miles): zipping down the 280 in my speedy rent car listening to kfog. visiting the expectant vant. seeing my brother and sister-in-law‘s new house (their very own orange trees! how jealous am i?). browsing used bookstores and drinking coffee on the patio of a berkeley coffee house with the good people behind metameat and 13 ways of looking down. on sunday i ran a 30k trail race in the oakland hills, then met H for a very excellent meal at universal cafe before catching a redeye back home. arriving at o’hare at 5am, post-run muscles stiff after having been cooped up in a center coach seat for several hours in lieu of sleeping in a bed, i was so out of it i felt drunk. dragged my sorry sleep-deprived ass home and napped for a few hours before i could face my monday. when i’m in chicago, i’m mostly happy to be here. but whenever i go back to california, i feel the pull of bay area very strongly. i’d really like to live in berkeley. i’d like to have more access to outdoorsy stuff like hiking and trail running. i want a cute little house somewhere near the university where it fogs in sometimes but never really gets too cold in the winter, and to own a chocolate lab i can take on runs with me. the thing is, none of that is out of my reach, if that’s the path i chose. but i don’t want to give up what i have here, is the thing. i very nearly packed my bags, put the cat in the car, and hit the open road when my life came apart last fall. if i’d wanted to make a fresh start, in california or new york or somewhere new, that would have been the time for it. but instead i dug in, invested, and now that window of opportunity seems to have passed. i could still go, but it would be harder now.
5) re: marathon training, last week was a big one for me; it was my 500/30/18 – that is, 500th mile run since the start of the year, the first 30+ mile week, and my first 18+ mile run. we’re honing in on both the fund raising commitment (bless you, all of you, who have made donations) and the actual race; i can count down the weeks and the long workouts remaining: this weekend it’s a 10-miler, then the next week i’m running the half marathon and tacking an extra 7 miles on to make it my 20-mile day, then the following week it’s 120-min run, then a 16-miler, than something easy like 8 or so, and the week after that is the marathon! to be honest, i’ve been training for eight full months now, and i’m starting to approach burn out. enough with the thinking/talking/dreading/planning/working; lets get to it!
{12 August 2007}
today, i kick ass.
last week the ass kicked me, or something.
we’ll start with today: i ran the chicago distance classic half marathon. my time was 1:56:49. i’m pretty ecstatic to have run a sub-2-hour half. last year my time in the chicago half marathon was 2:11:01. which means that i took FOURTEEN minutes off my time. i rule.
rankings:
2513th overall (of 8720)
723rd of women (of 4461)
200th of my division (women 25-29) (of 1175)
as for last week, i ran my first 16-miler. i was doing it alone, along the lake front, which isn’t terribly inspiring. 16 miles is a long way to go by yourself – i get bored. and hot. anyway, i was really dragging the last four miles. my heart and lungs felt great – i could go along at a 10-min mile indefinitely – but my legs just started to ache, and then turn to jello. the inspiration off running a new long distance apparently just wasn’t enough.
for months i’ve been saying (truthfully) that i can’t really even comprehend how long a marathon is. i just can’t wrap my brain around the thought of 26 miles. so i’ve been not thinking about it too much and just slogging thru the miles, doing my prescribed training. for some reason, 16 was the magic mark. last sunday i stared the marathon in the face. and you know what? it scared the hell out of me. at the end of 16 i was dragging my ass in…how am i going to do TEN MORE miles above that? the answer is, i don’t know…so i’ll just go back to putting my head down and slogging thru the week’s miles, and hope that when i next look down that road, it’ll somehow seem more possible.
on the upside, for my 18-miler in two weeks, i’ve decided to do this 30k race. nothing like some redwood forest trails to distract one from the pain.
{05 July 2007}
1: was spell checking an email on gmail this morning. “Islamist” was not in the dictionary. google suggested “slimiest” instead. hmm. google should perhaps work on their cultural sensitivity.
2: my cat loves to lick ice. weird, huh? my physical therapist has me making these ice pops, if you will, to treat the tendinitis in my achilles tendon. you fill a paper cup up with water, freeze it, then tear the top half of the cup off so you have what is a large ice cube with a paper handle on half of it for rubbing down the injured tendon. anyway, i set the ice pop down on a towel on the floor last night, meaning to go throw it away in a moment, and the cat came over, sniffed, and spent the next 20 minutes unable to stop licking it. he’d look at me, meow, get up and walk around it, and then go right back to licking it. i know it’s hot in the apartment, but it’s not like i’ve been denying him fresh water or anything. weird cat.
3: marathon milestones: last week i ran my 300th mile of the year, and also passed the 100-days-till-the-marathon date. the training is going well (much of my blogging energy is being spent on the training log lately, hence the large gaps between regular posts on this page), aside from the achilles tendinitis, and the occasional attack of boredom/lack of motivation. fundraising is on track (donate! it’s good karma!). it’s a little alarming that my thighs are visibly bigger (at least, to me) than they were when i started this project (no one runs a marathon to get BIGGER around), but overall i’m feeling very fit and healthy, so the increase in muscle mass is just something that comes with the territory i guess.
4: sandbox theatre project takes on suzan-lori park’s 365 plays/365 days project this weekend. it’s the guerrilla theatre my performance and politics prof in college always talked about! there’ll be an actor in a dumpster! the audience meets on a street corner and follows the performers around to the alley behind JP’s apartment! the neighbors just might call the cops on us at any moment! for anyone actually in chicago who reads this blog (is there anyone? perhaps), meet at the corner of wolcott and montrose at 8pm friday or saturday night. it’s 20 minutes long, free, and there will be beer afterwards.
5: last week i discovered the wonder that is mitsuwa, the best japanese market i’ve been in since leaving japan. shopping at mitsuwa is possibly reason enough to venture out of the comforting verticality of chicago’s urban landscape and into the flat wild prairies of the burbs. but just barely. throw in a trip to the nearby IKEA and i’ll take the plunge. city snob that i am.
{09 May 2007}
i’m a big believer than a woman should own her own tools. i’m not talking about a circ saw or anything, but just the basics, whatever basics mean to you. it means that when you want to hang a picture frame you don’t need to guy down the hall to come over and do it. i hate feeling helpless, and as a rule, i try not to.
i was feeling good about such things today when i fixed a few bits on my bike that had come loose. my folks gave me a bike for my birthday earlier this spring, i picked it out and overall it’s a nice sturdy used bike in good shape, but after a couple of weeks of riding it there were some minor things coming apart – the kickstand fell off, the seat was wobbly, the front reflector hanging loose. i had been meaning to take it by the bike shop where i bought it, thinking that they’d probably tune it up for me if i asked nicely. but i got home from work today and wanted to use it this evening, and didn’t relish the thought of riding all the way to the bike shop without a seat. so i dug out a crescent wrench, some hex keys, a screw driver, and managed to put things right, and was pleased with myself for the effort as much as the result.
lately i’m making a concerted effort to drive my car less: still commuting cross town to work, but leaving it parked the rest of the time, and taking public transit or, even better, my bike. the nice weather is making such a resolution much easier to keep, and i’m quickly getting bolder about biking in traffic, a thing that a few weeks ago i was totally scared of doing. the not driving plan, like not eating meat, is born of a variety of reasons rather than one particular conviction.
1) financial: with gas at $3.50/gal in the city, driving less is kind of essential for financial reasons, plus my car, with 92,000 miles on it, isn’t getting any younger and i am a long way from being able to make payments on a new one.
2) environmental: i jog these city streets nearly every day and when the wind blows just right, choke on the smog and fumes. one of the best features of a city is that everything is close together (relatively) and linked by public transit. driving everywhere seems like i’m missing the point of living in a city.
3) sanity: i am not a nice person when i’m behind the wheel. i’m generally pretty patient when it comes to public transit; it’s all out of my control, whether it runs on time or not, so i just sit back and do my crossword or read and get there when i get there. but i’m the opposite when i’m driving my own vehicle. perhaps because there is the illusion of control, i’m constantly looking for the fastest lane, the most efficient route, the way to make the stoplight at ravenswood and irving park turn just a little faster. and then parking? don’t even get me started. i hate feeling like my vehicle owns me. i never, however, experience that sort of incredible hulk rage when i’m on my bicycle even tho it takes longer to get where i’m going.
4) political: one could argue that politics are pretty deeply entwined with the issue of environmentalism and lump these two items together, but given that our country has been fighting a war over oil for the past five years i think this gets its own item number. there’s a girl i see biking around campus a lot with a sticker on the back of her bike that says, “it doesn’t take war to power my bike.” given that i don’t bicycle exclusively or anything, i don’t think i can really get on my high horse like that, but i like her message. and she looks like she probably does echew petrol-based private transportation all of the time, so good for her.
for me, it’s baby steps. it’s karma, it’s the golden rule: i want to live in a better world so i have to start by reforming my own habits, one tiny step at a time. most of us, myself included, don’t have what it takes to make revolutionary changes in our lives. and i find it really easy to feel helpless in the face of something as huge as global warming or thousands of innocent civilians dead over oil prices and legislation for clean energy DOA in congress. but, at the risk of turning this whole post into a cliche, this is what marathon training is teaching me. the thought of running 26 miles isn’t just impossible, it’s absurd. i don’t spend very much time thinking about the upcoming race, in fact, because it’s just too daunting. instead, i get up every morning and i tie my shoes and i go out for 4 or 5 or 6 miles. at the end of the week i’ve run 20 miles. at the end of the month i’ve gone 80. by the time i get to marathon day, i’ll have logged almost 700 miles. and what’s 26 more in the face of 700? that’s how we accomplish big things. in small, unremarkable steps. so: i ride my bike on weekends. i don’t eat red meat. i buy cruelty-free beauty products. i recycle my kitchen trash. baby steps. maybe next year i’ll bike to work once a week, go completely veggie, use biodegradable soaps or start a compost heap. things i can’t do this year will no longer be out of my grasp.
{06 April 2007}
there was a blog entry, but then i ignored the “backup battery power” warning on my ibook, and then there was darkness and no more blog post.
we’ll assume it was the wittiest thing i’ve written in ages and mourn the loss.
but to summarize: most of the blogging has been going on over at the training log, which i’m not necessarily recommending as interesting reading for the general public, but it is the reason that i’ve not been blogging here of late. running daily means that i’ve been logging my runs daily, and i tend to wax poetic at the same time about the weather, or nature, or being outside, or whatever i’m thinking about while i’m running, so the urge to write is being satisfied even if i’m not writing much of consequence.
week before last i ran the shamrock shuffle, me and 30,000 other people, on the first beautiful spring day in chicago. much of the race experience was just about learning how to cope with the crowds, the public transit, the start corrals, etc. but i felt pretty good about my time, too. i’m starting to think of myself as a 9-minute miler rather than the standard 10 i’ve used to calculate time/distance for the past year. maybe i’m actually getting stronger/faster? cool.
so this weekend is my birthday trip to new york. i got in late last night and crashed at wabe‘s and josh’s place, where they introduced me to the late night passover snack that is matzo brei, which is sort of like french toast, unleaven style.
this afternoon, while the good people of the world are working toward their easter holiday, joe and i are watching golf. i am learning that one can ascertain a player’s nationality based on the cut of his pants. pleated baggy pants? definitely american. even young fit guys like tiger woods still look frumpy/stuffy in their golf clothes. i always sort of figured that all golf fashion was old-man frumpy, but it turns out it’s going thru a phase sort of like tennis clothes did when the williams sisters arrived on the scene. all the european guys have nicely cut, flat front pants and slim shirts that show off their bodies. i imagine what tiger wood’s closet must look like: rows and rows of pleated dockers, a million shades of drab, followed by a rainbow of sweater vests and knit shirts with the little alligator on the pocket. how is it that tiger woods could be playing the masters and no one told him that a fawn-colored sweater vest does NOT go well over an orange polo?
{01 March 2007}
1. it’s been a monstrous week. like, on an epic scale. mostly, there was the thing of a personal nature that i won’t detail here. those of you who know me might already know the gossip, those who don’t know may ask (and i may or may not answer, depending on my state of exhaustion), but it’s not fodder for the internets. so, with that cryptic introduction, the remaining of the week’s 9:
2. my new roommate moved in. our compatibility was assured when we sorted out the kitchen tools and discovered that between us we have five cheese graters and several other specialized cheese-slicing instruments. secondly, there’s the added perk that she works for LUSH, which means that our fridge is now full of samples of fancy face products that i used to have to cross international borders to acquire in college. yay for roommates who like cheese and smell good.
3. monday marked my one year anniversary at my job. this won’t seem of great significance to many of you, but for us nomadic theatre folks, this is a Long Time. if it weren’t for the fact that my personal life has been a fucking mess for the past six months, i’d say that this makes me seem pretty stable.
4. chicago marathon training has begun! you can follow our progress over at chicagomarathon2007.blogspot.com, or check out the training log for a more detailed play-by-play (probably only interesting to other runner dorks).
5. i’ve decided to join Team in Training and raise funds for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society as a part of marathon training. heck, if i’m going to work this hard to run a marathon, why not do some good for other folks while i’m doing something that’s (theoretically) good for me, too? Team in Training uses TNT as their acronym, but it must be noted that a more accurate acronym is TIT. tee hee. maybe if it were a fundraiser for breast cancers instead of blood cancers. or maybe marketing is not in my future. but any rate, more donation info will be up soon, please consider sponsoring me. 100% of your donation goes to helping fund research and improve the quality of treatment for people with blood cancers.
6. also, i had my first marathon anxiety dream, 220 days before the actual race. the usual, i was late getting to the start of the race, i couldn’t find my shoes, had my shirt on backwards, etc.
7. the fact that i purchased a trigger lock for the prop gun in a show last month means that i’ve been subscribed to the giant thick “Cabela’s Shooting” catalog. the waste of paper on an anti-gun person like me is horrifying enough, but it did mean that i learned about the existence of these. why is it hilarious and also alarming that hunters need what is essentially portable picnic table to prop up their arms and asses in comfort (padded seats!) while they wait for some unsuspecting deer to happen by. gun too heavy? poor thing. anyone who claims that hunting is a “sport” had better be dousing themselves in deer urine and climbing through the bushes with a bow and arrow. otherwise, i don’t wanna hear it.
8. got time to waste? not like these guys do. who knew there was a whole movement around the building of food animals?
9. bacon-flavored mints. i couldn’t make this up if i tried. in honor of national pork-eating day, or something like that, my boss ordered a case of them. our shared office reeks of fake-bacon smell at the moment. the website reads, “once you taste it, you’ll see that mint and bacon is a match made in china.” thank you, china, for giving us the compass, acupuncture, and then bacon-flavored mints.
