Running Commentary

The final page in Runner’s World magazine is a feature titled “I’m a Runner,” which spotlights famous people and tells about the running side of their lives. Well, today I am a famous person (if only in my mind) and feeling like I can once again say, “I’m a Runner.” Saturday I did the Jingle Bell Dash in my role as a coach with my running club’s beginning class. The temperature at the San Pablo Dam Reservoir, site of the Dash, was 34 degrees when I arrived around 8 am. Brrrr. Cold but crisp and beautiful. I was able to complete the 5K (3.1 miles) without pain—even ran farther than that because I was jogging back and forth among the students. Marco, Cheryl, Marcia, and Mary Ann (see r.) collected some hardware for their great performances in the Dash. Santa was on hand. Oh, come on. Why not? Then today! Remember at the beginning of my injury saga how I mourned the mobility I had taken for granted BP (Before Piriformis)? I posted a picture of the UC business school building as a ...

Winter is a dark time, no doubt about it. Which, oddly enough, makes it a time of light. These days I am back to running before dawn (jog/walking, really), and the salient feature of running through dark streets is the brightness of the lights. Surely the dead of December is what inspired the pagans (there's a prejudicial word for you) to celebrate with ceremonies of light. The air has been so crisp and clear. I've been tempted lately to try to photograph seasonal lights--a bad idea when I'm armed only with a camera phone. Monday early, after completing a fairly pain-free four miles, as I stretched at my favorite stone wall I was lucky to notice I was myself being noticed. Winter, a time for starry skies and inky black cats. Also a time for the city to get dolled up in lights. For the first time in a long time, I feel a bit of Christmas spirit animating my outlook. Sleigh bells ring--am I listening? I'll try to listen Saturday at the Jingle Bell Dash 5K . I'm runnin...

So I did run this morning. I'm still interspersing some 1-minute walk breaks in between 3- or 4-minute stretches of running, but the overall effect is that I'm in constant motion--a good thing. I left the house around 6:20 am--purposely late enough that the sky would be light early on in the run. I headed east up the (gradual) hill and made a left at Milvia, heading north. It occurred to me that I could check out the Occupy Berkeley encampment, so I went left on Allston Way, and there it was. Not a lively bunch at that time of day. I find the Occupy movement a complicated subject, a subject I can't express my feelings about in a sound-bite-length sentence. I am in favor of what Thoreau described as civil disobedience. In his essay of the same name he wrote, "The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual." It seems to me that respect from this country's establ...

Surprised today to note that it's been well over a month since I was injured. At any rate, I'm happy to report that I'm definitely on the mend. I've been feeling a lot better in the last two weeks but have kept fairly quiet about it--don't want to awaken the running gods and have them notice that I'm on my way back. In the course of this injury I've 1) missed more than two full weeks of running, 2) spent 5 days immobilized with either food poisoning or the flu, 3) learned to "swog" (swim-jog), 4) spent way too much time on the stationery bike that I set up in my kitchen, 5) rowed thousands of meters on Concept Rower river, the tributary to nowhere, and 6) ridden my bike on nearby streets and trails a lot more than I would ever let on to my excellent and earnest MD. The ingenious stationery bike stand, holding my trusty Univega in the "ready" position. Note the telephone and the TV remote also at the ready. I read recent...

...well, you know what it is. Sitting at my desk wondering why I feel so bad right now. I do a body scan. Lump seems to have settled in my chest. I feel some nasty cortisol making its way through my very bones. Hmmm. Just what has got my fight-or-flight hormones in such an uproar? Of course. I'm going to the track after work tonight for the first time since way before I got injured. I'm nervous to go to the track even when I'm feeling at the top of my game. And now? Even though I have been cross-training (see photo, above, of the tennis club where my friend B. met me early Saturday and generously instructed me on how to water-jog), I feel I'm still weak as a kitten compared to a real runner. Well, hello, kitty. What can you learn from this fear-ball you've swallowed? I was reading through old blog entries yesterday and was chagrined to note that since the time of my first posts--early 2006, that would be--I've lost close to a minute per mile in my training runs...

I've been known to say, "If I ever can't run anymore, just shoot me." Well, pal, start searching that cupboard for your gun. My piriformis injury has not noticeably improved in the almost two weeks since it stopped me cold. I am trying everything in the world to heal this thing, and seem to hold on to an irrational hope that it will eventually resolve itself. In desperation this morning I went to see my M.D. (Up until now I've relied on Dr. Jess plus the advice of experienced running friends--and have made upcoming appointments with Claudia the divine acupuncturist and Chinese medicine doc, as well as with a highly touted PT person.) My doctor, herself an active athlete and all-around beautiful person, said this injury can be slow to heal and that I should continue what I'm doing--and also back off a bit on the bicycling. Water exercising, yes; rowing machine, possibly; upper-body strength training, yes; gentle walking, yes. She didn't mention heavy sighin...

A brief update before I go to sleep. This morning I went aqua jogging for the first time. A bit weird to have my body submerged in water and at the same time feel sweat forming on my forehead. But it went well. And I think I feel a hair better this evening. I consumed a steady diet of NSAIDs today, and also iced the offending muscle three times. Progress, not perfection is the goal of this recovery effort. The photos of this day, alas, do not show any wondrous vistas or captivating details of nature spied in the course of a satisfying pre-dawn run. The first one features the view from the bus stop this morning at 6:45, when I waited on the corner for transportation to SF, the swimming pool, and work. This is the time of day I'm used to doing the old left-right-left-right as my body awakens and begins to thrum as I run along. This morning it was the time of day I joined a group of the living dead, also called commuters, in a rattly metal vehicle--which was the only moving thing that...

Injury report from Day 9. I'm not proud to say that I've realized a large part of my chagrin at being injured comes from numbers rather than from anything real. Numbers as in mileage. Perusing my running/workout log as I recorded my Saturday bike ride brought home to me how attached I am to meeting mileage goals. Never mind that my total for this year is now well above 700 miles, meaning that if I didn't run another step for the rest of the year I would still log the eighth-highest total yearly mileage in my 33-year running career. That's not the point I go to. I go right to lamenting that I've run 20 miles or more for six weeks straight, and that my high-mileage streak just ended. I realize this, and then -- forehead-slap with palm -- I also realize why I am injured. Can I spell o-v-e-r-u-s-e? Not running a seventh 20+ mile week in a row is undoubtedly the best thing I've done for myself in a while. In other news: Here's a link to exactly what I have run m...

A tip of the bike helmet to Ram Dass, who reminded us many years ago to Be Here Now . No offense to him, but it seems pretty easy to be here now, at least right Now. I'm at my computer. Bright sunshine is pouring through the windows. The iced tea I just made is cool and sweet in my glass--the one emblazoned with "Reno High School" lettered in an arc over a mighty fierce-looking husky head. I have an ice pack on my piriformis muscle. I can hear a weed whacker going somewhere in the neighborhood. Danny Mo, the world's best cat, is asleep nearby, on top of his favorite cardboard box. That's my Now. Harder for me than being here now is being There Then--"Then" being the past or the future. Which means I'm assessing how engaged I was when "back Then" was Now and also forecasting how engaged I'll be when I get to the future and it changes over from being Then to being Now. Case in point is the bike ride I just took along the Bay Trail. In the...

Here's a scene-setter -- a rainy day in my world (click to enlarge). Today I'm not an actual athlete but a trying-to-be athlete. My last post in this space made reference to a run that took me above the Cal campus; little did I know that was my last healthy run before I officially joined the ranks of the injured. The second half of that run was straight downhill -- and that on top of a cross-country race that also featured some staggering downhills, hills that sucked runners downward with the inexorable force of normal gravity seemingly doubled. Following these perilously slanted adventures, I went out for a 10-miler last Sunday (the day that is now known as Day 1). From the start my right hip (my "good" hip) was strangely sore. I ran-walked a bit, I stretched periodically, but--did I turn around and go home? No. I ran the 10, and limped home muttering something like, "mumble, mumble...a bit sore in the butt." Monday (Day 2), I was still limping. Tuesday (ak...

Or should I say, poured out from the top of my head. I have this mental image of slicing off the top of my cabesa , like I'd do to a pumpkin, and then tilting the newly opened bowl and spilling a few of my chaotic thoughts onto the page. First would come musings about the shortening of the days and the advent of autumn. In the Bay Area we mostly get some scraggly leaves scuttling along the sidewalks, and some corresponding moulting branches overhead. No spectacular fall foliage to be seen here, so move along, please. Then I'd shake out a few words about how it feels to do a lot of my running in the pre-dawn dark these days. I'm training for my tenth and final marathon, CIM , which means I'm racking up as many miles as I can before I just run screaming out of the house. Although, come to think of it, the screaming part of that could be upsetting, but the running part might help boost my weekly mileage. Anyway. I was up early one day last week, putting the shoe rubber to ...

I picture myself deep in the forest, just me, alone with the path, the overarching trees, and maybe a nearby crystal-clear body of water of some kind (the fantasy isn’t always super specific). Some days, like this past Sunday, I can sustain that illusion for a little while. On that day, which was given over to an 11-miler, even the bench I did crunches on was in the wild—note the exotic jungle cat exiting the frame. But today—not so bucolic. I needed a little hill work, so I headed for the mean streets of Albany. (All right, this one’s a bit of a fantasy, too. Albany is a web of streets, but few of them are especially mean.) I made my way up Marin Ave. to the Alameda, then north to the top of Solano Ave., where the asphalt stretched endlessly down the hill before me in the early Labor Day light, and I might have been the last runner left on the planet. The scene called for a theme song -- maybe something Rocky -esque? -- but alas, my inner radio was silent. I did fin...

I just took a nap. Whoa. Like many currently alive human beings, I tend to behave as if I’m a human doing rather than a human being (this clever label is not original with me—I thank one of the many Buddhist writings I’ve dipped into over the last ten years for this synonym for a typical contemporary homo sapiens). The King schoolyard. Photo time-stamped 6:22 am, September 1, 2011. Yesterday I ran over to the King Middle School track before breakfast and did three Yasso 800s before running home again. I’m working up to ten, but three was all I had time for. I wanted to do some track work and to make my workout fit into my training regimen for this week, which will take me to a 22-mile total and include a long run of 11 miles. I bring this up not to humble brag (much) but as an indicator of my tendency to take an increasingly demanding running schedule seriously. Problem is, I also take an increasingly ambitious work schedule seriously (job in the city! proofreading a book! copy e...

I’ve wanted to write about turning 65 but find my thoughts are too complicated to slap together. (Confession: I’m enough of a word person that I can usually “slap together” a more or less coherent blog entry in a pretty short time. I think in complete sentences, so all I usually have to do is write them down. Deathless it ain’t, but it gets the job done.) So here I was on Wilshire Boulevard at 6:20 am the day before my birthday. Will I know how to get to odd places like this when I can no longer make it out the door under my own steam? And here I was outside Veteran's Hospital, in Westwood. Thinking about how cool this little parcourse is, especially the all-weather elliptical machine. Wishing blessings on our vets and over-the-top success in their rehab. This is a running blog. So. On the day before my birthday I ran. On my birthday I ran. The day after my birthday I didn’t run and felt so depressed I kept looking in messy drawers to see if somehow I’d left a gun in one that I’...

Last night after work I headed out for the longest run I’ve taken in a while. I headed north from the Battery Street adlandia office, along the Embarcadero, hopping from side to side as I bobbed and weaved through throngs of tourists and still maintained some of my forward motion. It went well; I didn’t trip, I didn’t wear out—just ran the scenic five miles out to Fort Point and then back. I’m in a happy period in which running feels relatively easy. And I’ve had plenty of running-related food for thought, which makes the miles go by faster. The food for my running mind is coming from two sources. First, the Pepper Street gang jumped the birthday gun and bought me a Kindle. The first book I downloaded was To the Edge, an autobiographical account by thirty-something New York Times reporter Kirk Johnson of his experience preparing for and then running Badwater, the 135-mile ultramarathon that takes place every July in one of the hottest places on earth. It’s a riveting tale of obsess...

Yes, life goes on. For as long as I can remember, every day I've awoken and found that to be true. And every day is a possible running day--such a wonderful thing. And on it goes. Last weekend I was in Key West for the funeral of someone I used to be very close to. A sad, sad day. A day that was partially redeemed by being a running day--albeit a running morning with the temp already at 87 degrees. Picture it! Then yesterday I ran in Santa Rosa, in a cross-country race with team Ducks ( LMJS ). I have no photos. Do have a red bite mark on my ankle where a bee stung me as I flew down the hill toward the finish line. Well, it felt like flying to me. Such fun, notwithstanding the late Mr. Bee. Finally, this morning I did a 4-mile recovery run on my regular Ohlone Greenway route. I wore no Garmin gps, set no chronograph. Just diddled along, enjoying the cool dawn (no 87 degrees here). On my leisurely run this morning I took a few moments to admire the details of the historical Berke...

Even on a lazy, put-in-the-miles run, it's true that there's always something worth seeing. The early-morning world, before much brain-fog has rolled in, can be a lovely place to lope along in. The devil may be in the details, but the angels sometimes reside there, too.

Ran by this signpost this morning. Note how not-straight the tiny path on it is. Then think about how many non-curving lines there are in nature. So why do I think I should be able to fly like an arrow? Have been thinking about the rhythms that characterize all aspects of this living world. Ups and downs, lights and darks, lefts and rights--not much that occurs does its occurring in a straight line. I'm loping along and then, whoops, here's some flowers for you and by the way you can't continue on this road today. Turn right, right now, whether you want to or not. I'm trying to bump up my mileage and finding that I need to tap into the rhythm inherent in everything in order to get from here (the low-mileage state) to there (the higher-mileage state). So my last six weeks have progressed in this order: high / higher / lower / high / higher / lower, with this past week being a "lower." But "lower" isn't a pejorative term. The pulled-back week inclu...

It feels great that for the time being my running has settled into a doable routine of relatively short excursions. I seem to have recovered from the Oakland Marathon, which is now more than a month behind me in the rear-view mirror. Last Saturday I joined the gang at the Little Farm in Tilden Park for a bit of rolling-hill fun. After that run I stayed on to support the runners who are in the LMJS Beginning Running Class. It feels like a wonderful investment of my time and energy. I hope to work more in supporting and training, especially with beginning and / or older runners, now that I am qualified as an RRCA running coach . Then Tuesday I went for the weekly team track workout, trying out some "speed" for the first time in several months. In this photo you can catch a glimpse of legendary LMJS training organizer and guru Karen, on the left, as she treks around the track. The track workout is at Cal these days, which means that when it's over, I just run home! And fi...

...but it was 15 years ago today, when two runners went out to play, so they raced around Lake Merritt, like rabbits after a carrot, and after that were together to stay! Which is my way of saying, my sweetie-for-life, Z, and I are now celebrating 15 years of togetherness. Our lives changed that day in 1996, thanks to the LMJS Fourth Sunday Run . Yay LMJS! Yay love!

Last weekend, I struggled up out of my running funk and put in some miles just for the fun of it. I was feeling like the little slug to the right, whose portrait I took while trying a post-run stretch on a neighborhood stone wall after a slogging jog. Even now I think I still may have a slight cold, and also, my hip still aches, and my knee's a little wonky, and, and, and--blah, blah, blah. So, I said to myself Saturday morning, just run. And I did! That day, I ran around Lake Merritt before meeting the LMJS Beginning Running class , where I'm acting as the volunteer encourager this spring. What fun it was, first to run the lake and then to meet with the fabulous Karen, teacher of all good running habits, and the group of just-starting-out and wanting-to-get-back-to-it runners. They showed up on this breezy day, all of them dressed in activewear and running shoes and committed to joining the dance of the old left-right. It was all a feel-good, smashing success. Then Sunday, a...