Running Commentary

The people in this photo weren't there at 7 this morning, but I was--at the El Cerrito BART station, among other places. After a couple of down-in-the-dumps days, I got out the door this morning in time to beat the rain. I went out the Ohlone Greenway, a running route that I never tire of, and that I here praise in lines provided by the Bard : To me, fair friend, you never can be old, For as you were when first your eye I eyed, Such seems your beauty still. And this is a location of beauty to me. I wanted to run Tuesday, but was too grumpy to get myself together, so was glad to feel a bit more motivated today. Don't know why I was stuck for a while in whiner mode, but there I was. I spent my time dwelling in my own Siberia of the soul, which is not a happy place. While I was in that frozen land, I did find a wonderful webcam , which I've bookmarked and am watching frequently as it refreshes every eight minutes (did I tell you I have time on my hands today?). Do you think...

December. It's been a while since I posted, and I find I'm overwhelmed by the prospect of addressing my running life in print. I'm aware it's the time when I usually look back on the past year and forward to the upcomong year and what I'd like it to be like. So much running, so little time to contemplate it. Looking back: Last time I posted I had just come back from the East Coast. Among the runs I went on there was a lovely Friday morning 4-miler that took me through the not-too-bustling downtown of Norwich, Connecticut, home of my mother-in-law, whom I hold dear. I ran along the Thames River (pronounced "th" as in "this," and with a long "a"), then along the Heritage Walk, and finished on Oak Street in front of the cemetery (above), which was alight with fall color. Although it was silent and lovely, and looked like a fine place for a long and final rest, I found myself giving thanks that I'm not there yet. A few days later we wer...

This is a generic photo for a generic post. I found the picture by Googling "Botswana," in honor of the Alexander McCall Smith series about the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. This is a very unstructured post (euphemism for chaotic), so why not throw in a book reference or two? Btw, don't forget to read Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson. If you enjoy crying on public transportation, be sure to take it with you as you commute--I did. You could also try Ageless Body, Timeless Mind (Deepak Chopra) if you'd like to experience some New Age wisdom couched in elegant, persuasive, yet at the same time authoritative, educated, and scientific prose. Anyway. I'm at work, filling the time between proofreading projects. Haven't blogged for so long I may have forgotten how. Now stop being so darned quick to agree! Z and I just got back from nine days on the East Coast. Happy to report I got in four runs and survived to tell of them all. The highlight was running on th...

I think it was in 2005 (maybe 2004?) that Z and I embarked on a series of Saturday trips to various regional trails to run and then have a picnic lunch. Those times we carved out of our busy schedules were magical mini-vacations, almost as good as getting out of town for a week. We took to calling them "extravaganzas," and looked forward to them a lot. We probably only managed three or four in all, but since that summer they have stayed in both our minds as special days. Fast forward from then to now. In 2007 we're older, a little more creaky, and busier than ever. But we still think with fondness of the extravaganzas. So much that, a couple of weeks ago, Z said to me, "Let's go down to Coyote Hills for a hike. We could take lunch." "Yes!" was my immediate reply. "A Hike-aganza!" So we did it. We picked a sparkling, cloudless day (see photo, above). A hike-aganza wasn't an extravaganza, but it was a fine thing, nevertheless. So today...

Yesterday was Z's birthday, and I was thinking about how the story of us is at its heart a running story. About eleven and a half years ago, I was working the registration table at my running club's Fourth Sunday Run , and a guy came up to the table to register for the race. I asked him if he was a club member, and he said "No, but I'm going to change that right now," so I gave him a membership form to fill out. What happened after that is a story that has often been mis-told by others, but I'm here to give you the correct version--after all, I was there. I was running the 10K that week. The race started, and it wasn't long (maybe half a mile?) before I noticed that up ahead of me two of the club's most talented and winsome older women runners were schlepping along with the new guy (who was stylishly attired in purple sweatpants), chatting up a storm. "Those two," I thought. They always talk to the cutest guys." I ran along behind them f...

A very warm day. Like a summer's day elsewhere in this country, but a perfect Bay Area fall day (read: no fog). Upon awaking this morning I decided I was bored with my same ol', same ol'. So I headed up the hill, which in Berkeley can really mean up. I zigzagged up to the UC campus, running slow but steady. Zigged north, ducked under some trees and took a path into the groves of academe. This, keep in mind, was Sunday morning around 6:30. Peace wasn't a temporary condition resulting from a lack of traffic, rather, it was the world itself. Birds. Air. Silence. Me. I dipped my head as I ran by the Campanile , paying it the obligatory homage that is every landmark's due. I made my way east, puffing as I scaled stairs and pounded vertical pavement. Finally I was there--at the track above Clark Kerr Campus. The track was still in shadow, but from its western rim I could see all of Berkeley and all of the the Bay spread out below me and already basking in the dawn's e...

Throw in Tolstoy too, if you'd like. And the late Lucy Hayes (Mrs. Rutherford B.). We were all born on August 28, which this year is also full-moon day. I thought when I turned 60 last year I'd reached that old-age place. I was happy to be there, accepting, calm, wise. But no one told me that after that I'd have to keep getting even older! Sheesh. How could I not have thought of that on my own. But I didn't. I figured I'd arrived in the land of the old and that my position was carved out and solid. Instead of that position being solid, carved in stone, it seems to have been carved out in nothing more permananent that butter. A fine howdya-do, as we who dwell in the land of the old used to say. So I'll hang out now with others who started on my day and did their own version of moving into the land of the not-so-young: the leader of the Cubs (the only one in our group besides me not to have quite finished living yet), and the creator of Faust. Lucy Hayes too, alth...

Slow-twitch muscle fibers rule. Decided that in order to have a 20-mile week, my first one since May, that I'd have to run 10 miles today. When I thought about getting up, eating breakfast, waiting around until that settled--I decided it would be a better course of action just to run the 10 miles before breakfast (hey, I'm a runner, not an Einstein). So off I went at about 6:20 am, carrying my trusty water bottle in my hand and a packet of chocolate Clif Shot in my pocket. It was a perfect, gentle, Bay Area summer, with wispy pink fog-clouds drifting overhead as the sun rose, and a cool tailwind from the south encouraging me as I ran. I did my usual four-city run, that is, through Berkeley, Albany, El Cerrito, and Richmond, out to the end of the Ohlone Greenway, also known as the BART trail, where the Baxter Creek restoration proceeds, with wonderful results (see photo, below). Even though it was early, an older gentleman was already primping the wildflower garden that signa...

No photo, no ruminative introduction. This morning I ran "speed." It goes in quotes because for me, slow is the new fast. What has me excited is that I did my usual five-mile route, which I normally cover in about an hour, in 53:25:36. Wow. Speed-of-sound records, here I come. One result of my new walking commute is that I've dropped a couple of pounds. Maybe that makes it easier for my cranky muscles to propel me over the ground. Apropos of nothing in particular, yesterday I finished Dalai Lama, My Son , an as-told-to memoir by Diki Tsering. This does relate to running, in a way--almost everything I read gets dissected by my running brain. Today I was thinking about the part of the book where the DL's ma described a power struggle that took place within the Tibetan government (this was before the Chinese occupation). It was textbook palace intrigue, complete with backstabbers, bribes, unexplained disappearances, shifting alliances, an attempted coup--the whole deal. ...

This is a photo I took at Longwood Gardens, when I went back to Pennsylvania in March to visit my niece , who is in the process of blooming, just like these tulips. Even though the image is from spring, somehow it feels appropriate for these glorious summer days. The light is so white right now, the air so clear, the colors so vibrant. I am well. My visits to various divisions of the Kaiser cardiology department have yielded no dire warnings to sit still or die, I'm pleased to say. The Holter test (24-hour EKG) showed a couple of flutters; the stress test was barely stressful. After the latter, my doctor said I did well--came within one bpm of my maximum of 160. This I did in 12 minutes. The best sign, she said, was that my pulse returned to within normal range within three minutes. Recovery, evidently, is key. The upshot seems to be that I do get the occasional irregular heartbeat, but it is only very occasional. There is no sign of any kind of blockage in that wonderful network o...

I've not been doing much (any) cultivating, but the theme gives me an excuse to post a photo I actually took myself. (My friend Sunshine inspires me to expose some of my own pictures to the light of cyberspace--more to come, I hope.) Cultivating one's own garden, that is, tending to one's own back yard, is the final recommendation of Voltaire's Candide, a work that has long held a fascination for me because when I had to pass a French language competency test in order to get my MA, I was unbelievably lucky to be given a passage from Candide to translate. I was unclear on the precise meaning of many of the words and phrases (all those idioms!), but upon recognizing the familiar story was able to present myself as smarter than I was. What has this to do with running? Thought you'd never ask. I confess I never was quite clear on the meaning of cultivating one's own garden. Did it mean you should lock out the world and ignore all its problems in favor of getting y...

. . . so grow I. About four weeks ago I was doing my pre-run calf stretch, leaning against the neighbor's fence, when I noticed a small wisteria twining up the side of the house. It was pale and almost leafless and exhibited a few dessicated, droopy buds scattered the length of the vine. If I thought anything at all, it was that this was one poor-looking, almost-dead plant. After that day I didn't run for a couple of days--and then I went out of town for five more days. The day after I returned I went for an early morning run. As I absent-mindedly stretched at the fence, I was suddenly snapped awake by the visual feast before me. The "dead" wisteria was lush, green, and loaded with hanging clumps of purple blossoms that fairly vibrated with life. This morning I went for my first post-marathon run. At the fence I observed the wisteria, which is now fully green but mostly blossom-less. In the same way I know my own name, I know that all that lives rises up and then fall...

If serenity is the absence of brain waves, I'm there. Time, as it has a tendency to do, went by, until finally all my hand wringing and pavement pounding had to give way to the actual marathon, which I ran yesterday. I wasn't fast, but then, I didn't expect to be (finished in 5:25:22). The subject on which I didn't have clear expectations was my chance of surviving intact. I'm happy to report, to report serenely , that I did survive, with no apparent lasting effects other than an annoying blister under the ball of my right big toe. I think if that hadn't popped up around mile 22 I would have finished faster, but I'm probably just making excuses. Anyway--the day was cool and clear, the course was lovely (multiply all those trees in the photo above by about a million if you're trying to picture the Avenue of the Giants), and the people were all friendly and earnest and, well, great. Z and I went to the spaghetti feed Saturday night at the volunteer fire d...

I had a therapist who one time said to me, "You don't always need to be so tough." My immediate, unthinking response was, "Of course I do!" (That would be me, to your right.) I'm feeling a bit that way now, as if it's imperative for me to dig deep and do more than what feels doable. The marathon is next Sunday, and despite my training efforts I'm feeling woefully unprepared. But when I said to Z I'm considering just doing the half marathon ("just" doing 13.1 miles), he said you know how disappointed you'll be if you only do that. And he's right. I know I can stay on my feet for 26.2 miles, but I also know I'll be mostly dead by the time I finish. My last month of training has not gone at all as I planned. I know, life is what happens while you're busy making plans (no duh). I didn't suffer any big injuries, but was pretty much felled by the juicy cold I came down with about two weeks ago. I struggled to do some milea...

Haven't meant to leave this blog hanging--have just been very busy. I was all set to do a final long run last Friday, but by the time I went to bed Thursday I had a sore throat. Friday there was no question of my setting out for a multi-hour run. Finally did go out yesterday (Sunday), but only (ONLY) for three hours instead of the hoped-for four or five. I finished in reasonable shape, but boy do I feel like crud today. I'm at work for my part-time corporate employer, but the jobs are unaccountably slow in coming--so here I am. The first half of my run yesterday was really lovely despite my being a bit stuffed up. One skill I've perfected as a runner is spitting (that and blowing my nose with my fingers --ewww). That's possibly the only upside of running with a cold: colorful sputum. Oops, sorry. The only nervous-making ailment I came up with (down with?) was that my left hip began to ache somewhere around mile 11 (did about 15 all together). But I was able to stretch i...

Long time no post. Last time I wrote I had just run 16 miles. Ha! That was so-o-o-o easy. Since then I've done 19 and then, today, I did 23. Good grief, I am trashed. Good news: nothing major broke down. The infrastructure seems to be holding. Bad news: I let myself get dehydrated, and by mile 21 both my feet were so cramped up that they would have made potato chips look flat had there been any such chips around (no such luck). I'm sure that when I did manage to jog a block or two before taking a walking break, my mode of locomotion was grotesque enough to have made Herman Munster look graceful. I saw many things of interest (staying in motion for 4 hours and 36 minutes gives a person ample opportunity to see things). Of special note were two lovely large white egrets I admired as they rose in the air from the wetlands out by El Cerrito--I guess they were egrets although they were so big they might have been something else. Note to self: when brain feels a little less like week...

Ah yes. Spring has sprung. And this time of year, darned if we're not all hard wired, just like the trees, for our sap to rise, our blood to sing in our veins. I feel sappier than usual, which means for an old broad I'm feeling hella fresh. My training goes reasonably well. It actually goes fabulously well in that I'm not injured. Seems bad luck to say it, but there it is. I'd like to have more mileage under my belt, but if I don't run it I can't log it in the book. Hate how that works. I did a 16-miler last weekend and boy was it ugly. By the end I was jogging 200 steps and walking 60, rinsing myself in sweat, and then repeating until I made it home. Next weekend I'm supposed to do 19. What sadistic moron came up with this training schedule?? Oops, I think I know. Today I loped on up to the high school track and did a little speed. I've never pursued a regular regimen of speedwork, and am thinking it's the missing component in my training. I decided...

One advantage to going out for an early run is that you sometimes get the gift of a silver moon hanging demurely in the pre-dawn sky. That happened for me yesterday morning. It was a quiet little run, cloaked in darkness most of the way. I went out early to make sure there was room in my day for a lot of pending busy-ness, half of which never even came to pass. Later in the morning I was able to spend 15 minutes sitting in a chair just listening to my breathing and trying not to solve the world's problems, which had come to my attention over cereal as I read the newspapers. All the time the world has problems, but also all the time (so far, anyway) my breath goes in and out. I can choose which of those phenomena to focus on. I find the day goes best when I divide my attention between the two. Not too much world saving, not too much navel-gazing. Today all I did was walk around here and there, most notably around the Lafayette Reservoir with my friend B. What a bucolic scene there. ...

I caught a break today around 10 am -- a relatively dry window in a day of constant, gentle precipitation. I'd wanted to run short this week -- 17 miles -- but at this time am assured only of 10. Did 3.5 Tuesday and 6.5 today. And what a lovely 6.5 it was! The air was cool, fresh, like gin without the olives. And along the way I ran into an old work colleague who may be able to send some jobs my way! Endorphins galore, and networking too. Now that's a run. I'm going to try for a repeat performance tomorrow, despite the forecast for more rain. Don't know whom I might network with, but do know where to find the endorphins. I'll be happy if the networking works out. This is the off season in publishing, and I've been rather less busy this month than is good for my bank account. But I'm running four days a week, and this week have even made it to the gym twice. Who needs money? Since I quit my "real" job I've not spent one nanosecond regretting it...

...I know for sure that of the 65 (!) previous posts I've made to this blog, not all of them are works of art. Some might say none are, but, how snarky are they. Anyway, the above is my disclaimer. This ain't deathless prose, but I gotta scribble. What's been up with my training lately? Well, it continues. Right now I'm sitting here with an ice pack on my left knee, and earlier I had one on my left ankle. I'm thinking about getting up and fixing one for my right shoulder, but for now am putting it off. One thing about running for 29-plus consecutive years (oh, all right, I pretty much took off 1985) is that I've acquired a collection of ice packs, compression sleeves, and re-usable bandages that a physical therapist might envy. The ankle is the oddest injury. It's minor but persistent. I ran 12 miles last Saturday, and after the run was over, then the front of my ankle turned a pale yellow and began to throb a bit. I don't think I turned the ankle when ...

I think I saw my Christmas tree this morning! I was running along my usual path when I realized that with every chuff I took I was inhaling the wonderful scent of pine. The sun was almost up, so I could see there was fresh mulch lining the trail--very likely made from recycled holiday greenery. It looked as if the sunrise might be spectacular (many puffy clouds on the eastern horizon) when suddenly, from nowhere, fog that glittered all the way down to the ground appeared, luminous and ghostlike. It was thick enough to dampen sight and sound, leaving me with no sensory input except my muffled footfalls hitting the damp, chip-covered ground. Eerie. Going on a run is a bit like going to a Major League Baseball game: you just never know what you're going to see. Not too long ago I saw a couple walking their dog and their cat. Together (that is, the dog and the cat were together--and the couple too, for that matter). Then this morning, this very treespotting morning, I saw a big, fat ra...

Nice hunk of rock, no? I'm editing a guidebook to climbing Half Dome, Yosemite National Park, and this is one of the illustrations. Half Dome is the most-climbed feature in the park, scaled early and often not only by seasoned rock climbers but by ordinary folks too. I'm liking Half Dome as metaphor, feeling as I often do like a scrambling ant on the monolith of my life. Some places offer good footholds, others are steep and sheer and slippery. But the only alternative to up is down. Anyway, all this makes a great excuse to use this photo on my blog. In January the last two years I've started running well and have felt poised to make great strides in my training (pun intended). And both years I've targeted the Avenue of the Giants marathon (in May) as my objective. In 2005 I'm not sure what happened--my log just shows that I petered out toward the end of the month and never really came back strong enough to do marathon-level training. I do recall that I was still ...