Running Commentary

What did I forget? That there is no rulebook, that's what. I've had a bad case of the Holiday Season Blues, baby. Seems like every other thought I've had lately has been addressed to my own self and has started out with you should... or, you shouldn't... or, you ought to... or, you ought not... or, you're not right or, you're wrong... or....  Happy geese playing on a spillway near the I-580 / I-680 junction. No one told them geese shouldn't play. You get the idea. For days I've felt like there's a whole boatload of restrictions on that malfunctioning, annoying person who is me. They're all written in a large, forbidding book somewhere, I'm sure--but I can't find that darned book. So how did I come to the realization that I can't find it because it doesn't exist? I had an epiphany, a real doh! moment when, of course, I was on a run.  I went out about 7 am today (haven't been able to get out as early as I'd like du...

NOTE: This post was written in July 2014. It's been sitting in the drafts folder since then, so today I decided to add a couple of photos  and release this puppy into the cyberworld. It is now September, and all I can say about this post is that nothing it contains has been countermanded by my experiences since I wrote it. I still love my new town! Okay, we're cutting to the chase today. No airy-fairy musings about the meaning or non-meaning of running, no angst over the joys or non-joys of running in an aging body.  This one is just about what I did. What transpired when the rubber was hitting the road. I started out going west on Vineyard, then made a right and headed south on Main. Main Street at 7 am was pretty quiet. It's lined with trees and interesting businesses--cafes, galleries, shops, and (as we say in advertising) more. The air was cool and still, with remnants of fog drifting away overhead. I never knew that coastal fog could reach this far inland, but it ...

NOTE: I started this post weeks ago and forgot to go back in and finish it. I'd can it except I love the images. So here you go! I've been having significant pain in my QL muscle and my hip, but oddly enough, the pain isn't really an issue when I run. I've just taken three days off to try to heal, and have grown increasingly discontented about not running. So this morning I went out to see how it would feel, and it felt okay. I think I felt almost as good as Smilin' Ed! I'm loving exploring my new town. I think I may have landed in Happy Valley.   Whatever the day you catch up with this post, may that day be a happy one!

... the rest of my life. That's what we said back in the 60s. Or was it the 70s? No matter. I found myself thinking it last Thursday, which, not coincidentally, was both my birthday and the first day of my retirement. Meaning, I suppose, that things will be different for me from here on. Because I'm not yet sure different in what way, a couple of days after Thursday I found myself experiencing what I could call an existential dilemma. (I might call it that, but won't, seeing as the description seems a bit melodramatic.) I found myself thinking about the upcoming time that I'll have for identifying what is meaningful for me to do--and then for doing it. My next thought was, what if I find that nothing is really meaningful? What if the silly sayings are right? You know them: You're born, you shop, you die. Life's a beach and then you die. Life's a bitch and then you die. Notice the last word in all of these cliches? Hmmm. Not very inspiring. You may be...

Some ducks cruising along at Don Edwards--these quackers don't waddle! Not much going on for me since my last post, and that's good news. I pulled a muscle in my back while working out at the gym, but it didn't hurt while I ran--and now it's mostly healed anyway. Piriformis, glute medius, IT band, hip flexor--feh, they don't scare me (much).  Me, by the Bay. About the Bay! This morning I headed out with a bunch (a flock? a gaggle?) of LMJS ducks. Thanks to a recommendation from Barb M., we met up at the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge . When I left Berkeley around 7 a.m. it was foggy, windy, and about 50 degrees. If I weren't such a darned sunny person, I would have complained loudly.  I met up with fellow duck Laury, who drove us down to Fremont. We were greeted by blue skies and gentle breezes, which suited this (sometimes) sunny person just fine. We logged 7.5 miles on the soft dirt trails and then went for breakfast. I...

Kudos to someone in Berkeley and Albany for planting wildflowers along the Ohlone Greenway and its southbound extension in Berkeley. Much better than water-hogging lawn (are you listening El Cerrito and Richmond?). Since run/walking the LA Marathon on March 9, and having a lot of fun doing it, I've been working on my inner landscape in trying to accept the lengthy recovery time I've faced. Because I didn't run the marathon fast, I figured I would bounce right back in a week or two. Wrong. This past Tuesday, April 22, I finally felt more or less bounced back. More that a month after the race!  I've been anxious about the length of my recovery time, mostly because I am committed to serving as a pacer for the See Jane Run half marathon on June 22.  I'm going to pace in the back of the pack, at a pace that's slow even for me, so I really shouldn't be worried. But there's a wild card--I can't run/walk as a pacer. This means I have to start con...

Of course today's font has to be green. It's spring! Spring, and I spent the early morning today monkeying around.   I did my longest run since the LA Marathon (three weeks ago) and it took me out the Berkeley Pier, east to West Berkeley (think about that) and then up to the 'hood, where I monkeyed around until I hit the 8-mile mark. To back up a moment here, yes, I did run/walk the LA Marathon. There was some build-up to the event in this blog, I know, about my excitement and apprehension, but post-marathon lethargy has kept me from posting about it yet. I can tell you, the actual day was wonderful.  Both my boys and their families supported me above and beyond the call of filial duty.  The course was packed with enthusiastic spectators--bands! DJs! cheerleaders! adorable children! handsome cops!--and the weather was decent, although really warmer than ideal. I felt that my training served me well. I stayed hydrated and sufficiently fueled, and never really b...

I was riding my bike on the trail near the BART station last week and I passed a 40-ish-looking couple walking in the other direction. As I went by them the woman stopped, focussed on me, and said to her companion, "Isn't she adorable!" One of the few (very few) perks of aging is that a certain segment of the population loves little old ladies. The burly construction guys have stopped whistling, the 30-somethings on the bus don't look up from their devices, but who needs them? Not adorable me. I did a reallllllllly long run/walk this morning. Every time I felt like quitting, I sez to myself, "It's so adorable when old people run. I am so danged adorable." It seemed to help! I went into this run with a lot of trepidation. My right hamstring and my left quad believe in equal-opportunity injuries, with no preference being shown to one leg over the other, so I was nervous they'd both start complaining before I even made it from my door to the e...

This is the trail we were on. In my case, for hours! Stoked means the fire is well fueled and can burn for a while. Right now, that's me. Here's what happened yesterday: I went to the weekly  ORF  training run, where I'm volunteering through my running club as a pacer. I, along with my good and talented friend L, am signed up to pace the 12-minute-mile half marathon group. Because I'm not training for the Oakland Half Marathon but in fact am training for the LA Marathon, in March, I need to run a longer distance than my pace group (which--oh wonderful circumstance--is an inspired and inspiring group of blossoming women runners). This means after I run with the group each week, I need to keep moving on my own for considerably more distance. The run started at the Richmond Marina and headed south for 5 miles, at which point the the gals (along with L, who is recovering from an injury) turned around and headed back. I kept my face pointed south, and stayed on the ...

Maybe that's what's been happening since I left LA last March. I was mostly living here between September 2012 and March 2013, and during that time I got might fond of my urban runs. I run sorta kinda urban in Berkeley, but the Berkeley streets are bush league compared to the gritty LA thoroughfares. Santa Monica Boulevard. Wilshire. Sepulveda. Even Veteran and Sawtelle have their share of noir shadows. I'm here for a brief holiday visit, which I couldn't take to mean that I should skip my 8-miler this morning. Not much to tell about it, really, except that because the baby woke me at 4:30, I staggered out the door about 5:20--which meant there was still a lot of dark out there. My running continues to go reasonably well, but today I felt a cranky right hamstring and a grumpy left plantar fascia, so I took it slow. South down Overland to Pico, west on Pico across Sepulveda and under the freeway (ignoring any spooky movements caught out of the corner of my eye--d...

Busy days. Trying to keep my mileage up while working on the endless house remodel project (by working I don't mean hammer and nail-ing -- more like wringing my hands and trying to organize our stuff. Takes a lot of time and energy, that hand-wringing thing). The very good news is that I continue to run. I get my share of aches and pains, but in general, I'm healthy and mobile. It's been nippy here in the cities by the bay, and even though our chill is nothing compared to what else is happening across the nation, it does take some adjusting to. Getting dressed, from top down: funny looking knit hat, double underwear (TMI?), long-sleeved shirt, running jacket with sleeves that flip over the fingers, light gloves, compression capris under warm-up pants, same ol' Sauconys and socks. Yesterday it almost took longer to dress than to run-walk 10 miles! And the silly thing is, even though the temp was below freezing, by mile 3, I was too hot.  It's enough to dri...

I guess that's what I'm thinking--now or never. If I don't run a marathon now, well, when will I? Am I saving it for five years from now? Funny, these are the questions I was asking myself when I was 49 years old and had never run a marathon before. I ended up training for and running the San Francisco Marathon on July 14, 1996 (Bastille Day), a date I've since regarded as one of the best days ever in my life. BUT. Fast forward to March 27, 2011, on the streets of West Oakland about five hours into the Oakland Marathon. You'll see me, headed toward Lake Merritt at a glacial pace, staggering, limping, and moaning like I'd recently been dropped from a helicopter flying a thousand feet up. I was approaching the end of my ninth marathon, and let me tell you, it felt like I was actually approaching the end of my life as a healthy human. On the course in Berkeley For days, months, even, after Oakland, I could be heard saying, "That's it. I'm t...

For at least the last three days I have a feeling I've been impossible to live with. I'd ask Z if that's true, but I don't want to know the answer. I'm fearful about everything. A bike ride to the gym today felt like a life-threatening proposition. What if I got hit by a train in Emeryville? What if I got a flat and my cell phone didn't work? What if I made it alive to the gym but while I was there dropped a 20-pound weight on my foot and busted every metatarsal I own? (I know, fat chance that I could lift a 20-pound weight. But still.) I've been in the grip of what feels like existential angst--what is the meaning of life??!!??! It has no meaning.  We're all doomed. Etcetera.  The feeling is familiar, and I recognize that it usually hits right on schedule a few days before a long race. Oh, such as the Berkeley Half Marathon, coming up this Sunday? Uh, yeah. Looking through my trove of phone photos, trying to find something appropriate for this whi...

Actually, it wasn't that spooky, although I did take the photo for this post yesterday, which was Halloween. This face? Well, I'm not saying it was watching me, but I wouldn't say oh no if someone told me it was ALIVE. Me? Scared? Bwah ha ha! I'm writing to let you know that something that's not a face or a bird is haunting me--a poletrgeist in my legs. I seem to have Restless Leg Syndrome , a truly creepy feeling in the legs that occurs at night when I want to sleep. It started the night after the Humboldt Half (11 days ago) and has plagued me constantly since then. This on top of my recent attack of the soy-allergy rash has me whining. Like a banshee, you might say--but please don't. Today is a new day, and tonight's bedtime a new bedtime. If any of you (all 8 of my readers) has any tips on how to make my legs stop doing the bunny hop while I'm in bed (oops, wrong holiday), please go to my FB page and share. I'm cutting way back on caffeine, ...

Notice the type is green today. I've recently ventured twice into the wild, where there have been actual trees--a bit of a change for this urban running gal. The first wild excursion (if a race with 649 galumphing humans in it can be called wild) was the Humboldt Redwoods Half Marathon, last weekend. I was pretty nervous during the weeks and days leading up to the race, but ended up having a reasonably good run.  Yes, my hips got sore, and yes, I did some run-walking, but I'm not embarrassed about my time--heck, I showed up and fought the good fight! (Oops, sorry about the militaristic metaphor. Blame it on the endorphins--or maybe on the bagpiper.) Just FYI, I came in sixth out of the 12 women in my age group. My friend L was second--yay!! The other scenery experience occurred this morning when I went out for my club's Saturday fun-slash-training run. It took place in Redwood Park (lots of redwoods in these scenic excursions).  I went out earlier than the rest...