Running Commentary

Gets a drink, of course. I was a little surprised to see this one at the swimming pool the other day, but she seemed to be doing well for a fish (a mammal, really) out of water. I was swimming because my recovery from my hip injury has slowed to a crawl, or a breast stroke, I guess you could say. As of a few weeks ago I was about 90% healed, and that's where I'm stuck. It's frustrating to be able to do everything without pain except run. I can bike, I can swim, I can walk, I can lift weights, I can even (carefully) carry my bike up the front porch steps--which was the act that got me into this mess in the first place. But when I run, even gently, even on the treadmill where I can unload my legs a bit by holding the bar with my hands, my hip hurts. My quad hurts. My knee hurts. Not unbearably but enough to interfere with the activity. Yes, I am having some cheese with my whine today. As in, cheese whiz, I'm sure sick of this. Full confession--I don't go back to the d...

Laurabel Neville Hume—January 19, 1911 to July 7, 2005 Yesterday all day I kept having the urge to pick up the phone and call my mother. This morning I realized why I had her on my mind. Miss you, Ma.

Actually, it was a mild and foggy morning. You went for your first run from the house since your near-mortal hip injury and became giddy as your feet carried you through the familiar blocks. In your giddiness you envisioned writing a blog post that was in its subtle (?) way more about writing than about running. You were thinking about New York Times best-selling author Steve Friedman , who wrote an article on Suzi Cope for the current issue of Runner's World . You admired his intent, which was to present a moving story in a dramatic way, but you found yourself questioning his chosen vehicle for achieving that. It takes guts, you brooded, to write an entire narrative article in the second person. As someone who just yesterday wrote an entire blog post in the third person, you had a sharpened appreciation for the pitfalls of deviating from the literary norm. During the night after your rogue post you had tossed and turned, wrapping the sweat-soaked sheets around your tortured form....

...when she can't run much and then gets further sidelined by a nasty summer cold? Ans: She goes to LA to see the kids, and goes with them to a ball game (Angels won). She goes for a walk while she's down south and enjoys seeing the ubiquitous jacarandas weep their purple flowers all over the ground. She talks to the animals. She walks a lot. In the country... ...and in the city. Finally, she agrees to go geocaching with Z, who obligingly poses with the fishes. She even spots the cache before he does and only gloats a teeny bit . (Tomorrow, she's going for a run for sure, no matter what. She even promises never to talk about herself in the third person again. For Rickey Henderson it's okay, but she's no Rickey.)