Running Commentary

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 ...

This is a sunrise, as painted by Claude Monet. Yes, once again the sun has come up. And on this day it brings with it a nice clean slate. Tried to do this last night, but was too beat. Have had a cold and have been short on sleep, but felt better today, as is appropriate for the new year. Here's what I ended up bringing away from 2006: Number of extra pounds: three. Last Jan. 1, 119. This year, 122. Number of miles short: 20.25. For 2005, 731 total. For 2006, 710.75. Number of races run: four. Number of decades of life completed: six. Jan. 1, 2005, five and some change. Today, the big six-oh (and some change). Number of sore shoulders: one. A year ago, zero. During 2006, broken bone, torn muscle, lingering pain that may go into arthritis. I'm 5 feet, 4.25 inches tall. I don't eat meat but do eat fish. Don't smoke; haven't had a drink for two years come next Wednesday. Don't swear (too much) or hurt small animals. (What is there about taking stock that turns me ...

I remember my mother and father telling me that everywhere in the world they ever went they saw little brown birds. All the little birds looked pretty much alike, whether they were living in China, Greece, Africa, or in our backyard. Ran a 6-miler this morning that took me from the night into the day. All along the way as I clopped along, I noticed many such little brown birds waking up with the sun. It's cold now--winter officially arrives in a few days. But the birds are still plentiful, and they hop about in the grass and soar to the tops of trees for a brief reconnoiter before they fly away on some mysterious errand. There are other birds abroad at dawn also. Cawing crows, jeering jays. I, a stranger, barge right into this sociable avian community. As I pass through it, I'm aware how little mind I usually pay to these feathered denizens of the trees and the trails. We do have a bird feeder, but watching birds coming there to fill up day after day creates the (obviously fals...

...down to a precious few. Clear skies, bare trees. Cool mornings, short evenings. Back in the 1970s and 1980s I was a big Carole King fan. I had some rocky, emotional times back then, and found one way I could throw off a bit of the gloom was to force the lyrics of one particular song into my groggy brain before I even threw off the covers. "You've got to get up every morning / With a smile on your face / And show the world / All the love in your he-ea-art...." Do I need to say this was not one of her bigger hits? But it was very catchy, and served as a reminder that the gift of living is one to be cherished, even by the grumpy. Also in those days I was immersed in a mad and passionate affair with photography, going so far as to return to school and put myself through that dubious adventure, graduate school in art. It almost ruined my love affair for good--I became so critical! So-o-o-o postmodern. I deconstructed everything I came in contact with and learned to talk lik...

There's been a lot of morning fog around here lately, a weather condition not anticipated around this time of year. But thank heavens for small favors--it's not been raining at least. There's been a lot of morning dark around here too. That could have been anticipated, but, as they say, de-nial is more than a river in Egypt. Nevertheless, I'm chagrined to be encountering increasing amounts of darkness in the a.m. Since my fall on June 7, precipitated by stumbling over a garbage can lid in the pre-dawn hours, I've tried to stick to running when I can see. Novel concept, no? But lately I've been hedging. Running up streets that are lit, watching my feet carefully, as if they were nervous ferrets that might startle and dart off from under me (do ferrets dart?). I've developed a hitherto unspoken guideline: If the sun will come up within 30 minutes of my leaving the house, I can go. Works OK now, when the sun is rising slightly before 7:00. But I can see it ain...

Veterans Day, or, as we used to call it, Memorial Day. I read in the paper that to date more than 1.3 million troops have served in either Afghanistan or Iraq. It boggles my mind. Leafing through the new issue of Runner's World I see there's an article on running in Baghdad (and you thought this wasn't a post about running). It seems that fitness is such a key ingredient in surviving over there that running as a common activity is a given. I haven't read the article yet. I am a blue-stater, both by locale and by personal inclination. But never let it be said I don't respect and support our troops. May they run long and thrive. And may they come home sooner than we might have hoped at this time last week. In my area, that blue-state hotbed, the rains arrived last night. (Can blues be hot? Yeah, baby. Just ask Nancy Pelosi.) It was nippy outside--40 this morning--but not unholy. There was no real deluge, more of a shower that wasn't scattered. I put off my run unt...

Have been out of town twice over the last two weeks, which has been a pleasure yet a challenge to my equilibrium. Was going to do a race today, which got scaled down to a run with Z, which dwindled to just another solitary lope along my same-old, same-old path north to Albany. What I saw: chickens on Acton Street. A flock of them, on the south side of the road, trying to cross over to the north side. I now know why the chickens crossed the road! To get to the hippie house, of course. Then I saw, I mean really saw, the new-ish temple on University Ave. It's a building that has been transformed from one kind of temple to another; it used to be a temple of forgetfulness (also known by the name of Jayvee Liquors, the biggest, most well-stocked boozetorium in Berkeley), but is now a temple serving a congregation of worshippers (it's known as Netivot Shalom). It's a striking building, one I've passed by but never really looked at. It has something of a tall ship about it, som...

I just checked my blog email in-box, and saw five comments. I've never gotten any comments before, and so just assumed I shouldn't bother looking. Thanks to all who commented on my post "Should I Stay or Should I Go." I published them all!

That would be me. Because I'm about to post something here that I actually wrote almost 10 years ago. I found it this morning when I opened some old disks containing back-up files from my last computer minus one. When I read this, I cracked myself up. I hope you will humor me and at least smile. At the time of writing, I titled this "Wacked." Oct. 29, 1996 So here it is another lovely morning in the hippest place on the whole planet. The Bay Area. Makes you think of an airplane hangar, the bay. Just pull 'er into the Bay, boys. Kind of a wet place for planes, though--would turn 'em plane silly. Anyway. The rain was coming down like bullets, or maybe pullets dropped from a plane, this morning. A beautiful day for a run. A run at my personal record for keeping a pillow over my head without suffocating, that is. So I called my Swedish running buddy Olga, who might be called the Swedish nightingale if not for her long, elegant, un-birdlike legs which carry...

What did I do? Nothing. Unless you count left-right-left-right-left-right as doing something. I did that, but I also tried to take some mental notes on what I saw. I slogged along for some 80 minutes (a bit more than seven miles, I figure), so I hope my brain waves weren't completely flat. I ran straight down Channing Way toward the Bay, then doglegged onto Dwight, hopped the railroad tracks, and ran over the rise and into Aquatic Park. As I always do there, I thought of Rachel the Wonder Dog, my children's childhood pet and my companion on countless walks along the path next to the lake. What a crazy, good pup she was. Heading north on the path, I passed a playground teeming with families. It's a relatively new amenity, meaning it wasn't around during the 80s, when I ran here quite a bit. I made a resolution to bring my granddaughter here sometime. At 28 months of age, she is a big fan of playgrounds. She's fearless on poles and ladders, believing, it seems, that s...

That is my question. I have come very close to just deleting this blog because I never write in it any more. It seems harmless to let it just sit, but then it weighs on my mind as one more thing to do. I quit my full-time job, and one express purpose in doing that was to simplify my life and spend more of my time doing what I want to do rather than what I'm "s'posed" to do. But. My running life goes on, and I feel the need to give it a bit more space than it gets in my daily log. Log sample: Thursday, Sept. 7. 7:15 a.m., Las Vegas. Did 30 crunches. Ran from the Venetian up the Strip to the MGM Grand and back. Hard surface, many cars, huge, hideous casinos. Very warm! An interesting run. Later, swam a bit. Shoulder got achey, but did OK--even did a bit of breast stroke. So there I record the essentials, but feel as if there was more to it. My numbah one son has a blog, and he told me he tries to write in it at least once a month. If I can do that, I'll stay. If not...

I saw a quote in this morning's paper that struck a chord in me. Erik Davis, a pitcher for a college baseball team, was recently struck in the face by a line drive that shattered his right cheekbone and orbital socket. Ouch. Here's what he had to say: "People recover as quickly as they want to. You can look at things like this in one of two ways. You can regret it and feel sorry for yourself, or you can use it as an opportunity to make yourself better." It may be that his remark is just a version of the rather meat-headed saying, "No pain, no gain." But somehow it hit home for me. I've been doing a LOT of whining about my shoulder injury. I have been able to return to running, and my mobility increases daily, but I still have a lot of pain, especially at night. I DO regret that this happened, and have been throwing regular pity parties for myself. So do you think I've ever have thought of viewing a painful injury as an opportunity? Not hardly. Today,...

Spent some time today cleaning out my filing cabinet. I'm trying to impose a little order upon my working space now that I'm doing some freelancing and working in a "home office" (sounds more professional than "the corner of the bedroom"). I awoke this morning with what I call the Saturday morning bloopies, a state that others have been known to describe as a brain fog. Luckily Z dragged me first to the grocery store (I'll take three gallons of ice cream and a bag of cookies, please) and then to the gym. Because of my shoulder I can't really lift weights, but I ran a mile on the treadmill and worked the old quads and hamsters and back a bit. Did some crunches and bicycle kicks too, which no doubt looked a bit strange done by a person only flailing one arm. The bloopies dissipated a bit. Came home and ate peanut butter and jelly on a toasted whole wheat bagel, plus half an orange and half an apple--the rest went to Z, of course. Then I dove head-first...

I wasn't going to use another song title--planning just generally to break away from the old ways and throw myself head-first (but not shoulder first) into my new life. Ten days after I quit my full-time job, things are feeling a bit better. I grossly underestimated the impact making such a big change would have on me, figuring I'd just sail along. My boat had a hole in it there for a few days, one that's not all patched yet by any means. Anyway, my shoulder heals slowly and hope returns, because of or maybe despite the ministrations of my wonderful and sadistic physical therapist, Patrick. "When I hurt you, that's good!" says he. Yeah. So. Ran 6 1/2 miles yesterday and biked for an hour today. I feel flabby and grumpy, but definitely better. Summer is the best time. The very best.

...yes indeed, and I'm talkin' about...medical stuff. The films don't lie: I tore my rotator cuff and fractured my humerus. Why am I not laughing if it's so humerus? Actually, I am smiling. My shoulder improves by the day. Today I went with Z to the gym and ran a bit on the treadmill. I'm keeping my activity moderate, because I want to heal. I still haven't ridden my bike--am mostly just walking. What surprises me is how much pain I still have. When I first awake in the morning my entire right arm, right to my fingertips, aches. Then it eases. But as the day goes on I get tired, and by bedtime I'm miserable. But it's getting better. It's getting better. It's getting better. Since I hurt myself it seems I keep encountering other stories of woe, and all of them worse than mine. It keeps my little pity party from growing any bigger than it needs to be. Reminds me of one of my favorite Zen tales. A woman whose child had died went to the Buddha and be...