Running Commentary

Just about every week I'm still getting out one weekend morning to practice the old left-right via walking/running, and calling it my "long run." In that spirit, I'm trying to extend both the running portion of the outing and also to increase the speed to accomplish the transition from "short jog." Yesterday, Sunday, I covered 7 miles with relatively little pain in the posterior (both the figurative and the actual kind). My overall pace was under 13 minutes per mile, which in my mind is more like running than it is like walking. Oh, who cares! Well, I seem to--insert smiley face here if you're the whimsical type. At more or less the beginning of my run (sounds better than "at a point not quite to the middle but not in the first mile, either"), I went onto the grounds at the VA Center. It was still quite dark, but I easily found a small rehabilitative exercise center in an open courtyard, which I'd remembered coming upon a few years ...

That I haven't posted in a while doesn't mean I haven't been working at getting back to running. I have!  In the month and two days since my last post I have progressed from walking a minute/jogging a minute to walking a minute/almost running three or more minutes. It's been slow progress, but I've focused on paying attention to pain when it starts and then backing off, that is, walking and stretching, until the pain subsides.  I've also been religious about stretching and doing strengthening exercises, recognizing that this last return to the DL was largely precipitated by my slacking off on the stretch-and-strength component of staying active.  Last but not least, I've found a wonderful sports chiropractor in LA (where I am still living these days) who is skilled in ART and is also infectiously upbeat about exercise and about life in general. I told her I have run nine marathons since the month before my 50th birthday and would like to make it ten--...

My friend L, who is a certified Chi Running instructor, is fond of saying "baby steps," a reminder to work up to your running goal gradually rather than getting excited and trying to achieve it in one day. Well, I was certainly in baby step mode this morning, when I went for my first run/walk in a week. My goal is the Oakland Running Festival Half Marathon, coming up in March. Rather that obsess over how impossible it would be for me to even think about a half right now, I'm focusing instead on making a new start, a start that may or may not take me to Oakland in good shape. The point is not ORF or bust--the point is, what I did today was a success; I think I'll do it again soon. Today? One minute walking, one minute jogging. One minute walking, one minute jogging. Etcetera. I stayed out there for 2.5 miles, in the course of which I made it over to and around the park and back with no significant pain. I've been know to write and/or talk about my path in li...

Went for a run-walk yesterday. I'm becoming familiar enough with my new surroundings to identify some running routes that could become faves, not to mention finding the best routes for crossing the Mississippi-River-sized boulevards of Wilshire, Santa Monica, Westwood, and Sepulveda.  Yesterday I made my second daylight foray into Westwood Park (I've been by it several times before in the dark and found it not so inviting). It's a fairly small park, but getting to it plus running around it plus running back is good for almost three miles. Especially like the wall with words and illustrations from The Carrot Seed , a book I remember from my childhood. It's a fine read, with its themes of faith and optimism and its illustrations both chunky and charming. Can't wait to take Calvin to the park and read this wall with him! My run would have been more edifying if my right ankle hadn't started hurting for no apparent reason. After 34-plus years of running, I...

Took a brief trip to Berkeley. It was great to be home, even for a few days. I ran twice, both mornings in weather some 15 degrees cooler than what I've been experiencing here in the land of LA. My running is only so-so these days. It's disappointing that I am not officially injured and yet am not able to run consistently without pain. My piriformis and gluteus medius evidently didn't take kindly to my runs above UCLA on Sunset or to the blinding speeds I reached at the UCLA track. Go figure.  So I've been run-walking, sometimes up to the gym near campus and sometimes just around, trying to keep my spirits and my heart rate both up. My son the doctor took me to a UCLA longevity conference today, and in all four of the sessions we attended I heard experts on healthy aging hammer away at exercise, exercise, exercise. I also heard them describe strength training as vital for the elderly, so I figured make the gym a destination a couple of times a week is a good idea. ...

Back in Berkeley for a few days. Have been spending a lot of time in LA with my beautiful grandson. It's nice to be here. These days I seem to be semi-injured (piriformis/glute medius/IT band again), but am getting out for some jog-walking as often as I can. My goal is to run, or jog, or jog-walk--to perambulate periodically for a substantial chunk of time in some way--for the rest of my life.  I've run in Berkeley and Albany so many times over the years that I feel I could do it in the dark. Wait a minute, that's exactly what I did on Sunday!  October sunrise over the Albany BART tracks.  

Sunrise over Drake Field. Picture me here. Left, right, left, right, etc. Have been trying, for the most part successfully, to do a track workout once a week. I run to the UCLA track and do the workout Karen Andrews sends around for the LMJS track session that she leads every Tuesday evening in Oakland. It's not the same as being there, but it does make me feel a bit connected to something familiar. In addition to the track work, I run a couple of sets of stairs. Currently I do two sets--am looking to add on more. To step it up, to coin a phrase. These steps have a fairly short rise. Perfect for running, and many people do. Including me!

Saw these flowers after my run this morning as I stretched against my neighbor's retaining wall. These are the flowers (I don't know what they're called) I recently heard a friend describe as "ordinary," meaning they are available at every nursery and supermarket in town. Yet I love them--their brightness and their, well, their cleverness at holding two flowers while being only one. I realize that seeing them is one of the everyday pleasures I get by running in Berkeley, where I've been living and running for more that thirty years. Simple pleasures like seeing these little blossoms are what I'm fearing losing these days. Recently I've been out of town a lot--first to Idaho to visit my sis and see the sights, then to LA to stay with my new grandson and, oh yeah, his parents, too. The prospect of doing a lot more of this kind of travel is exciting but also very scary. If I spend a month in LA, will there be flowers? Will there be friends? Will ther...

I was here. It's been so long since I posted that there's no point in trying to summarize much more than my last run, which was yesterday. The morning was warm, even before the sun rose up like a Fresnel spot (Tinseltown metaphor there). I didn't bring my foam roller on this trip, but even without any daily holy rolling, my cranky hip/It/etc. are feeling okay.  Also I was here. Funny, that's about it. Yesterday, the day of my UCLA run, was also my 66th birthday. I felt soooo blessed to be mindlessly knocking off 4.25 miles before breakfast. I am not fast. I am not particularly buffed. Nevertheless, I am a runner and have been one for 34 years.  When I was younger--in my 40s, maybe?--I would spend some time on my birthday reviewing the previous year and looking ahead to the year to come. What had been the high and low points from the just-passed 365 days? And what would I like to see take place in the 365 ahead? But now, it's just, beautiful day...

Rampaging runners all finished and fled, a Lake Merritt goose takes a gander at this salubrious scene. (Click to enlarge.) Ran my first Fourth Sunday Run of the year! The infrastructure held--my irritating IT band and pernicious piriformis (not to mention my clamoring calf) all decided to behave. It was a warm, breezy day. The turnout was great--and all the components of the race functioned in concert and functioned well. I am so impressed and encouraged by the way LMJS has grown and thrived since the days I was much more active member.  A sunny day, a good run, and an almond butter and blueberry jam sandwich on a whole wheat bagel are sure-fire ingredients for a dreamy Sunday. I find the funnies are icing on the cake. Not to mix my metaphors, much . 

Maybe I should add some hygenic people food to my diet. Today was a run day. If all I did was post in this space on every day I ran, I'd write a lot more than I do. I could just say, today I ran.  Today I ran. I left the house about 5:45 am and did what I've come to call the EMX run, that is, the Elaine Merrill Express run. (Be it known that any context in which I pair me and the concept of speed is highly suspect. Which is to say, usually the pairing is done with gentle or not-so-gentle irony.) It's an expressway, an out-and-back along Ninth Street, because it's long and straight and gives me the opportunity to shake off a bit of the rust and go a little faster than usual. Today I did 3 x 3 minutes at approximately my 10K pace and then 2 x 6 minutes just a hair slower than that. All this with the intention of running the LMJS Fourth Sunday Run 5K this weekend without beating myself into the ground.  I might or might not have learned my lesson last month w...

Many days have come and gone since I last posted, but today is what I have, so today is what I'll write about. Funny thing about today--it seems to need context, which consists of days that are gone and days yet to come. Hmmm. Anyway! During some of those gone days I've had good runs and bad. In the most recent days I've felt mentally strong but physically out of sorts. I ran Friday and cut my planned 4.5 miler to 3 miles because I was running like a triceratops who laces up its Sauconys and sets out to run gracefully. So this morning, still feeling somewhat less than fabulous, I set out around 6 o'clock to run as far as I felt like running. That was my stated purpose--in contrast to my usual obsessively set specific mileage goal. Today I had 8.0 in the back of my mind, but veered homeward early and then stopped when my watch said 5.25. It wasn't a great run, but t wasn't terrible. My feet, which for reasons unknown have been hot and aching lately, behaved. ...

First, the looking up part. You may remember the bare neighborhood tree I photographed and was talking to in late winter (yes, for those of you new to this blog, I talk to trees--plenty of time here for you to move on to a different site), telling it not to panic because its leaves would be coming soon. If you're with me this far, you may also remember that I took another picture of it on the morning I congratulated it on having some lacy young leaves on its recently barren branches.  Here's picture number three--taken on my 4.25-miler early this morning. The lace has turned to a blanket of green, and the tree stands tall and proud. Summer is almost here! Now, about the looking down. I can't explain why I love what I see beneath my feet, but love it I often do. I go for days, weeks, even, not looking down, so that when I do it's like seeing a secret world, but a secret world that has been there in plain sight all along. (Do click on this one to enlarge.)   ...

Minor insight today.  I went for a swim, the first in a couple of weeks. I went to my overpriced gym early in the workday--around 11:20--on the theory that I might beat the noontime crowd and thus get a lane in the warm pool rather than the cold. Oops. Turned out that Thursday is tot-lesson day in the warm pool, meaning that today two of the five lanes were blocked off. The remaining three were in use, so it was the cold pool or no pool. I'm not clear on the exact temperature of the two pools, but they're only about four degrees apart. That being so, it's remarkable how much colder the cold pool feels. I've been in it before, three times, maybe, and every time have spent every moment that my goggles rose above the water line watching for someone to leave the warm pool so I could sprint over and take the lane they were vacating.  Today I decided to go into be-here-now mode and just swim where I was, with the emphasis on "swim" rather than "focus on the...

No, "Quick One" is not a self-reference. It is a description of this post. I've been absent from this space for what feels like a long time. Partly that's because I've been scattering my attention in many different ways, such scattering which is not conducive to coherent blogging. And it's partly because Blogger has changed its format (new! improved! annoying!), and the last time I tried to post all I could get was a mysterious error message that appeared after what I typed faded in and out like something out of Ghost-Busters. Anyway. Just to report--yes, I'm still a bit injured, and yes, I'm still run/walking. But I'm in what feels like a stable place with the running. As long as I can continue the way I am, I'm okay. I'm not moving fast but do seem able to move far. Run/walking 8 miles doesn't seem to disrupt the infrastructure (hips, glutes, back, et al) any more than run/walking 3 miles. So I'm seriously considering participat...

I had it on my schedule to run this morning but knew by the time I went to bed last night it wasn't going to happen. Did an 8-mile run-walk Sunday and my piriformis was telling me a-a-a-all about it. Tomorrow I see Dr. Jess at 9 a.m., and I'll do a short run before I head over there.  On my recent runs near to and far from home, I've realized I am still besotted with trees. We'll see how long it lasts. If I'm lucky, for the rest of my life.   On my Sunday run, because the BART tracks path is blocked off for BART seismic work, I ran on the street rather than under the railway. Imagine my surprise when I passed these huge beauties, towering over the track! I've only been running beneath them for, oh, maybe 30 years. I just haven't noticed how big they've gotten. Lovely! So this morning I slept in a bit and went on in to work. I've had it in my mind for a few weeks to try a tai chi class at the gym, and today seemed like it might be a good...

Q: What do I write about after 1) writing for 19 days + 1 more straight and then 2) going on vacation for eight days?  A: Not much. Q: Have I seen any exotic birds lately? A: See for yourself.  Q: Do you know the difference between flamingos seen on a trip to the Denver Zoo last Friday and flamingos seen in the neighborhood on my run this morning? A: I hope so!

What have I been doing since my 21-day blogathon? Run/walking and enjoying the spring. Here's my latest tree portrait. Saw this beauty in Providence, RI, a couple of days ago.

When I committed to writing for 21 consecutive days, I didn't realize that Day 21 would fall on Easter, but here it is. I also didn't stop to think that it could be on the day of my longest run so far this year--8 miles, even though the timing made sense. All in all, Day 21 was inadvertently set for a potentially auspicious day. And what a day it's been! It started with my run. It was a slow one, nine minutes of shuffling followed by one minute of walking, over and over. But it was a lovely morning. That big moon was still around when I started out, and the sky was full of sunshine by the time I got home. I had good timing all the way through this run. The most serendipitous timing occurred when I rounded a corner on the waterfront at Berkeley's Cesar Chavez Park and was greeted by bells and voices rising to the heavens. I realized I had come upon an Easter celebration starring a choir and a group of hand-bell musicians, not to mention a guitarist and possible other mus...

Being the faithful and astute reader of this blog that you are, you have undoubtedly noticed that yesterday constituted a break in my 21-day blogathon. Yesterday was Friday and, like just about everyone else I know, I was busy all day and then exhausted in the evening. It was a pleasant exhaustion, born of hard work and honest exercise and enhanced by a feeling of accomplishment over a completed project. I was lying in bed about 10:15 pm when it hit me. My blog! For a frozen moment I thought of jumping up and rescuing poor Day 19 from its nonexistence. The moment thawed, and I went to sleep, with one of the many useful 12-Step mantras I've learned echoing in my head: Progress, not perfection. So, this morning you're seeing the fruit of progress (me, writing), but yesterday you saw the full fruit of not perfection (me, not writing). What was the busyness of yesterday? Especially since I documented a bit of it, I'm happy you asked. I do believe carrying a camera phone helps m...

Sometimes being here now means acknowledging that I'm just not very together. That's the way it is. Pulling myself up by my psychological bootstraps is all very well, but how effective is it when it's 8:15 pm, I have at least an hour's proofreading ahead of me, and I'm committed to getting up at 5:30 tomorrow morning to run before work? It's a minor stunner to realize that at this moment I'm willing to put the work off in order to write in this blog. Before the 21 day-athon, I regarded posting as something that required great forethought and the complicated assembling of mental and physical resources. But now, now it's an item on the to-do list. Go to work, make dinner, brush your teeth, post in your blog. Now that the essentials are taken care of, what's next? I took this photo earlier this evening at the SF Transbay Terminal. I was waiting for the bus and refusing to give in to the inclination to check out of the day and into everything that called...

Out to run early in the morning today, as usual. Also as usual, right before I swung my legs over the side of the bed in the first indication that I was actually going to get upright, I experienced a short but intense wave of fear--fear that my reluctance to go run would prove to be more than chimerical. The morning light, the light that was only imagined at that point, got me out of bed and out on the road. As I heeled-and-toed it under the Acton Street lights, I thought about this blog and what kind of photo op I might have on my run to capture some place or thing that would goad me into writing. I thought about my original purpose in doing this 21-day blogathon. It was inspired by Colleen, the Communicatrix , who just yesterday finished what she called her 21-day salute. Her purpose was to make each day a small beginning. (Mission accomplished, I'd say, by the way.) I've been saying that my purpose is to practice being here now (with apologies to Ram Dass ). More precisely, ...

I've never been a big fan of retail therapy. I like to think of myself as savvy enough to understand that no shiny new thing is going to fill the hole in me that always, sometimes more and sometimes less, needs filling. And yet, I'm certainly capable--exceedingly!--of being delighted by cool stuff. So, take a look at what I swam in today. They're called Zoomers . And they did make me zoom, compared to my usual snail-slogging-through-pond-scum pace. Thinking about my swim, I realize that being as happy as I was wearing these bright yellow water shoes lifted me right out of my workaday doldrums. I felt how gently yet rapidly I slid through the water. I noticed that I became more energetic as my enthusiasm mounted. My goggles fogged up sooner than usual. I felt how my legs and feet responded to the unfamiliar speed by coiling and uncoiling. In short, I found myself immersed in more than the water; I was solidly in the moment. Maybe that's one reason people love buying som...

That's the question I asked myself after I tried out the camera in my new smartphone by pointing it out the window at the backyard. It took me some time and I'm still not sure how I did it, but I did manage to get the picture, retrieve it and upload it, and here it is. I like the soft focus created by the dirty window glass! Once again I've left updating the blog until the last moments of my day. Coming to it this way has set me wondering whether writing about the here and now is inherently an oxymoron. The here and now, the actual here and now, is not the daylight falling on my beloved birch. The here and now is me in my chair, in front or my computer just as I've been most of the day, and longing to be in bed. So the here and now is writing a post about what I saw earlier today while thinking about what's coming up after this pesky here and now is over. The dishwasher is whirring gently in the kitchen, the cat door just snapped shut behind Danny Mo as he headed o...

What do you do when you have an up and down day? One that jerks in stops and starts instead of rolling out smoothly? How do I deal with a day like that here in my 21-day blog-a-thon, in which I'm striving to appreciate the here and now, not to wish it was not so much here and was a lot less now? I try just to think "up." Getting up, for starters. I didn't want to today, but had resolved to do a 7-mile run, my longest since my last re-injury, in January. But I did get up. Was reminded of one of the lessons of this blogging experience, which is that it is possible to form a habit just by doing something for 21 days. And it's for sure been more than 21 days that I've had to cajole myself out of the sack when I didn't want to move. So it's a habit to override the dread and reluctance and just get up and go. Today I was so happy I did. I jog/walked 7.25 miles on this incredibly clear and fresh morning and was happy to have done it. That's the getting ...

Today's post is short because I need to go to sleep, and simple because my brain is incapable of complex thought right now. The latter seems like a positive for a writer trying to live in the here and now for 21 days straight. Well, the here is that I'm home after a day on the road to visit longtime friends, and the now is bedtime. I was, in fact, pretty much absorbed in what was going on. Seeing friends that I've known for as long as I've known these three was something rare and precious to dive into and to savor. I try to collect reasons to be happy that I'm getting old, and having known and grown to love these three extraordinary people over multiple decades is certainly one large and joyous reason. First I drove (in the rain) to Foster City to have breakfast with my old Reno buddy L.; then it was down through the Santa Cruz Mountains (in the rain) to visit my former college roommates M. and S. The sun shone while we walked along the cliffs in Santa Cruz. Wh...