Finally made it out the door this morning, after not running much in the past week. I've been laid low by a chest cold. Ugh. I did run/walk last Sunday, but it didn't feel like much of anything except torture. Today was better. Crystal-clear dawn, some blossoms, some birds.


And a park building mural decorated by small hands. After a mild winter, spring seems to be here. I am grateful for it, and grateful to be out under my own left-right steam. Lord, I am slow, though. One day at a time, I know--one step at a time works, really.

Up, Up, and Not Too Far Away

One of the beautiful murals in the lobby of Coit Tower. The way the colors glow can't be captured in a flip-phone photo.

I walked up the Filbert steps to Coit Tower today. This is the fourth time in as many weeks that I've done it, and it gets easier every time. It didn't hurt that we're having weather from fairyland today. It's magical--air all luminous, birds all crazy-happy. I gave directions to a young couple who told me they were from Brazil. I refrained from telling them how beautiful they were.

When my mother was old she used to love watching dancers in the movies or on TV and I used to wonder whether it didn't actually hurt her to see strong and lovely young people doing things she would never, ever be able do in her remaining time. Now I understand (as now I understand many other things she told me as she entered her dotage). I love every young athlete, young dancer, young person I see. I suppose that's because they're the future of my species and I'm hard wired to desire that continuation.

Anyway, today has been a day of spring here in the shadow of Telegraph Hill. Long may spring reign.

Here's a view from the top, looking west. Not as spectacular as looking east, over the bay, but pretty fine anyway. (Click to enlarge, of course.)

About This Morning

I love the early morning. I've been a morning person for as long as I can remember. Morning is when the previous day's slate has been wiped clean and all new things are possible.

My mother was a morning person, and maybe I got it through the genes. She would awake around 5:30 am, get the coffee brewing and then take a shower. After that she’d wake us girls up and cook breakfast for herself, for us, and for my father.

Now that I’m older, I especially treasure mornings because that’s when I get to run. Streets that are normally choked with traffic (and rulllly annoying) become my own personal boulevards. This time of year the birds, who come to life before dawn, chirping and singing, become my peers. (Confession: Sometimes I chirp to them and they answer back.)

You may have guessed by this point in the post that I had a good run this morning (insert smile here). I’m not totally healed. I may never do a run longer than five miles in my life again. But I’m out there. Today it was four miles—run four minutes, walk one, then repeat—and I went to Emeryville. The Emery Greenway, which I believe will eventually link up to the Ohlone Greenway, recently added a crucial three blocks between Berkeley Bowl West and the existing Greenway. Paving. Plants. An adjacent dirt path. And lights—good ones, good enough that I feel safe running there even before the sun comes up.

This is enough to say for today. No “yeah, but maybe…” or “then next Wednesday I’ll....” No. Just, “this is me, a natural-born morning person, and I’m happy today.”

What I'm Doing These Days

What I'm doing other than not running? First and foremost, trying to cultivate a positive attitude. Seriously, that's the biggest thing I feel I can do to hasten my recovery.


So last Saturday I volunteered to staff the aid station for my running club's ORF pacing groups. The run was along the Carquinez Strait, and I was stationed in a primo spot. It was a stunning day, the air was brisk, and the runners were each and every one impressive--beautiful, even.

Earlier last week I spent three out of five work days visiting my overpriced gym and working out, hitting in no particular order the Concept rower, the spin bike, the elliptical machine, and the pool. The rower and the bike seemed the least painful, so this week I'll do them again.


Not this past weekend but the one before, I paid a visit to my home town to attend the memorial service of a dear family friend. I was honored to be asked to speak, so even though I was a bit scared (my little talk just preceded talks by the president emeritus of UNR and the current interim president), I thought positive, and jumped right in. An added bonus was that my favorite nephew and his bride were in the audience to lend their support.


And today? Well, I just came back from walking from my workplace in Levi's Plaza up that big hill to Coit Tower. How on earth to admit that I've been a Bay Area resident for more than 30 years but have never been up there? There's no way to admit it, so I'm pretending it's not true.

About my injury. Dr. Jess advised me not to run for two weeks. It's been almost that long now, but I'm not going to run a step until after I see her, later this week. Today is the first day since I re-injured myself that I can feel an actual (if minuscule) improvement in my hip and piriformis. It is electrifying to identify that slight ebbing of bad feeling, so I have to rein myself in from deciding to run "just a measly three miles" to celebrate. I'm trying to treat this whole experience as an opportunity to re-invent myself as a runner. To advocate for the me who can run short and run slow and still say "I'm a runner" and believe it. Wish me luck!

In the Classroom, Actual and Metaphorical

I spent Saturday and Sunday at a Level 1 coaching clinic sponsored by the USATF. Not all of it pertained to running per se, but despite that, 99 percent of it was still quite interesting. The presenters were articulate, learned, and funny—who could ask for more. No offense to the very fine RRCA, but this weekend’s course was by far the better of the two coaching clinics I’ve ever attended.

It was just as well that I was confined to a chair for two days—kept me from weeping with frustration over my re-injured piriformis (a.k.a. my butt). I’m afraid I whined too much to the three other women from my club who were taking the course. So much that today I feel whined out. What’s really shutting me up is an article I was just reading about the 2012 Houston Marathon trials. I hadn't known that the 2012 men’s trial winner, Meb Keflezighi, was only able to place eighth in the 2007 Olympic Trials—small matter of running on a fractured hip. And by the way, last Saturday he won by running a marathon PR.

My hip isn’t even broken! But, man, it is sore. Walking my usual mile from the SF bus terminal into work this morning was a halting affair. Oddly, however, I’m not freaked out. At least for today I am willing to take things one day at a time—even one step at a time, to coin a phrase—and have faith that my recovery will take the form it needs to take. (This is my lesson of the week, courtesy of life, a.k.a. the metaphorical classroom.) I’m even entertaining the possibility that I won’t be able to run long again anytime soon. And, being 65 years old, I’m accepting the outside possibility that I won’t be able to run long ever again.

But I’m stretching and strengthening and cross-training (very cross, some days), and not abandoning hope. I feel blessed to be in good physical shape and in excellent health, and believe that the nature of my running life, whatever it turns out to be, won’t ultimately affect those two conditions. Stay tuned.

Uh-oh

It was a dark and stormy night. Ok, it wasn’t stormy. In fact, it wasn’t even night—it was 5 am. But it was dark, for darn sure. Except for the almost-full moon, which lit my pathway to misery. Misery because that morning, Tuesday, I went out for a run and ended up re-injuring my piriformis.

At least this time I know what it is and I know how to treat it. I’ve already seen Dr. Jess, who told me to revert to running 4 slow minutes and then walking for 1 minute. I’ll do that, but not until I’ve spent a couple more days not running. Yesterday and today I went to the gym for some bike / rower / elliptical cardio and supplemented that with some strengthening exercises and some targeted stretches.

Things may work out. Because this weekend and next I am unavailable to perform my duties as a pace group leader for the Oakland Running Festival Half Marathon training group, I won’t be called upon to do a long-ish run for another 2½ weeks.

Fate was unkind enough to injure me again, but fate has also been kind enough to give me some free down time in order to heal. Oh all right, fate didn’t injure me—I did that on my own. But maybe fate made the timing of my injury as good as any injury timing can be. For that, I’m grateful.

It's a New Year

I am just feeling blessed. I'm easing back in to running and it is feeling good. I'm still doing a few walk breaks, but for the most part am chugging along steadily since my last post, where I talked about running the Dam 5K Dash with the beginning running class.


When I'm running with a group, I say to myself, "running with a group is the best way ever!" But then a couple of days later I wake up before dawn and head out to the chilly streets. Before long I'm saying to myself, "running this way, alone and free while the rest of the world is asleep and the day just being born, is the best way ever!"

I'm so thankful I don't have to choose only one way or the other. This past Saturday I ran with the group my running club is sponsoring for runners training for the Oakland Running Festival Half Marathon. I am a pace group leader for the slightly velocity-challenged folks, among whom I definitely number myself. We did about six miles at Bay Farm Island on a run that started in close-to-freezing weather and finished in crisp winter sunlight. We were all filled with purpose and determined to face the six-mile challenge and succeed. Which we did!

Then Monday, the official New Year's Day holiday, I awoke around 5:30 am and suited up in double pants, double shirts, and gloves. (It amazes me how often just putting on my running duds lifts me out of any reluctance I might have about heading out the door.) I ran the 1.6 miles from the house to the Hopkins track, the scene of so many challenging runs in my younger days that I used to call it the Crucible, and tested my healing glutes with a few speedy 100s. I was circumspect--ginger, even--doing these intervals, and they went well.

By the time I was on the way home, I was pretty happy. And even though it was January 2, I found especially celebratory the holiday lights that were still up around the 'hood.


I even forgot my resolution to stop trying to take pictures in the dark. I figure my life is my party, and I'll photograph if I want to. (It goes without saying that also I'll cry if I want to, cry if I want to....but not today.)