Sojourn return

On many levels I hate to bridge the fourth wall of address when, well, addressing y'all.

Nonetheless, 10 pieces of IT band advice! It pays to get noticed by the Boston Globe....perhaps I should get gimpy more often!

Many thanks to all who read and commented. It is welcome news to realize that a) every runner gets hurts sometime when marathon training, not just me; b) every runner has an IT band story; c) every runner who has an IT band story eventually got better, or has learned to cope.

So the good news: the stretching and the knee icing and the rest did a great trick. I completed a 12-mile long run around the Charles River Saturday morning. My cardiovascular system did not exactly cooperate....a slight atrophy I attribute to having taken the previous 5 days off. But the IT band, and the knee, did cooperate. They did not ache, either, on the 5 hours of flying later that night, to my aunt and uncle's place in southwest Florida.

The better news: I logged 7 solid miles yesterday. And 8 solid miles -- 7 of those uptempo, thanks to Bach organ fugues on my iPod -- in the noontime sun today, through my aunt and uncle's retirement community. I have a) somewhat of a chest and shoulder tan; b) no knee pain; and c) no pain anywhere else.

So the mood for marathon has switched to cautiously optimistic. Very cautious. But also hopeful.

Headed to the airport back to (27-degree F) Boston as we speak. There has been much talk, much sun, much sangria, and much sleep to fortify against the spring chill.

Cheers!

Bikini Challenge (D-Day)

3/22/09, 6:49 p.m. Bonita Beach, Florida

Happy birthday to me.

Bikini photo credit: Bill Young. Wine credit: (Pat)2. Sunset credit: God.

Countdown: T-minus 30*

It happened last year the same way.

I start training for the Boston Marathon in December. Spend all of January and February running on ice floes, on Saturday mornings, on Heartbreak Hill a dozen times, and feel great. Feel motivated.

Then March hits. Training intensifies. Which causes friends and acquaintances to ask "so, how's the running going?" to which I reply:

"Knock on wood, but I actually feel pretty good...."

It must be that I don't actually knock on the wood, because this is exactly the moment that something goes wrong.

Last year, it was the feet. Arch pain after my February 28 long run. Had to truncate all running except for the weekend long runs for the last 6 weeks. Made it to race day via 4 trips to a podiatrist who didn't really know what the problem was, another 4 to a professional Kinesio Taping, and a fair bout of angst and not sleeping.

This year, it just all happened 2 weeks later.

My hill run on Monday night seemed to be just the tip I needed into Illotibial (IT) Band Syndrome. (Which in addition to not liking how it feels, I also always manage to spell "illiobital".)

At least I think it was. All I know is that the outside of my right knee has been in noticeable pain while walking ever since then...and it took me a couple days to realize that it really wasn't my knee per se, but the thigh muscles above that are causing the strain. My marathon team coach believes that is also the correct diagnosis and sent along the links for icing and stretching and strengthening all those muscles.

So what is the first edict from all the good online doctors who write on the subject?

"Stop running."

I haven't run since Monday. I may not do the long run tomorrow.

Oy. Stay tuned.

*thanks to boston.com for the shout-out.

Blogger's Bible: Do a Mash-Up

So I'm a bit wanting for a blog topic this morning.

Sure, I've got some OKC action in the inbox......

....from a 22-year-old athletic trainer grad student who thinks I have a nice body and who "enjoys athletics as much as you do and I'm in a profession that allows me to take care of you if you were to ever have any running pains!! "......

.....to another whom, I think, is not single but trying to talk me into having an illicit encounter because I "absolutely don't look like the kind of girl that would get into trouble, but those are the ones that are usually most dangerous".....

.....to another whom I'll call Audacious Man.....for tracking down my name through Facebook and then tracing me to this blog....thusly then quoting from it in the same message he used to ask me out for a drink....."calling me out" he called it.......which somehow takes the fun out of writing about him again (as I'm going to guess he is reading this too).....but he already does not disagree with the adjective "audacious", so I'll let you know what he says.....

Nonetheless. It is Thursday.

It is very busy in my office. A good, account-opening type of busy.

My right knee is still a bit twingey from Monday's Summit Ave hill reps.

I had a contractor in my apartment at 7:30 a.m., looking at some crumbling plaster near the bathroom, suggesting that perhaps the whole ceiling might need to be redone.

I stood on the #9 bus (after waiting 20 minutes for it to arrive) as it herked and jerked its way down Broadway, me balancing on a hanging strap on 1 foot because there was no place to put 2 down, swaying directly in front of a tall, young, well-dressed man, seated, whom after I nearly fell into his lap 4 times, still didn't look up from his book, even though I telepathically screamed at him to be more of a gentleman.

So when I got into work after that joyous hour of commuting, I decided that for the sake of the to-be-respected job busyness.... whatever I wrote today had to be completed in the 17 minutes it took Helmut Walcha to run through Prelude and Fugue in E-Flat (BWV 552) on my iPod.

And what you just read was it!

Speaking of mash-ups*, an old college friend posted this link on his Facebook page a couple weeks ago. It is a combination of Dave Brubeck's "Take Five" with Radiohead's "15 Step." I can't get enough of listening it.

(Perfect for this mash-up kind of a day.)

*(from the Wikipedia: song or composition created by blending two or more songs, usually by overlaying the vocal track of one song seamlessly over the music track of another.)

Bikini Challenge (Week X: The Countdown)

D-Day in 5, 4, 3, 2....

Trying to stay cool and motivated here.

Cellulite, Cheerios (Honey Nut), canoli, cheese (30 chunks or more) at a charity fundraiser, coffee (shot with espresso both morning and night) and Cupid (or frustrating news therefrom preventing good sleep) are all conspiring against both cool and confidence.

I'm tempted to go into a no-carb South Beach Diet frenzy followed by not 100 but 200 sit-ups a day. But not likely to happen. The willpower is waning.

Sorry for the tripping stumble to the finish, rather than the sprint. Anyone got any last-minute motivations when the prospect of my exposing my bare torso to the blogosphere is not doing it?

Yesterday I got a call from my Aunt Pat, my host in the Fort Myers area, who reminded me that Sunday is the Twins training camp visit followed by a beach afternoon.....so there is no excuse for not wearing the suit.

Sports fans, this is for real.

Be kind.

A Smart and Rational Resolution

So tonight, we talked about it, and we called it off.

Which is the smartest, most rational thing I knew to do when embroiled in a prolonged, engaging, lust-soaked conversation with the Young Scientist. 

Who 10 days ago told me he had begun dating a woman he wanted to be his girlfriend. So that he and I would probably not go out again. Which I, admitting disappointment, accepted.

Yet, neither of us quit the conversation. 

We're both runners....and we're both running a lot these days. So we compared war stories of repetitions up Summit Ave in Brookline.  Of 19-mile long runs and ice baths and his gimp knee and my orthotics and who was the tougher.

We agreed that we had had a rather fine date a couple Sundays ago, both conversationally and situationally. So we kept reliving the highlights of that date. Which grew, as the week went on, into what we would most like to do again if we were to go out again. 

(Both conversationally and situationally. If you get my drift.)

Today, as the workday wound down and his lab cleared out, we ramped up the volume on the lust via e-mail. To a serious level.  Tonight, after I got home, we ramped it up some more. 

Which right then I realized--as if I'd never thought about it the 10 days prior--is not something a man who wants to be in a relationship with another woman should be doing with me.

As much as I wanted him to.

So like a splash of cold water, I asked him to talk to me about exactly why he was talking to me.

To his credit, he said he would.  (Men before him have not.)  Even if he didn't know it, I think he was waiting for me to ask, because this is how replied:

He wanted to be with the other woman, to try at a relationship.  But he did not want to give me up.  I was a wrench.  If we had met 3 weeks earlier, he wouldn't have started dating the other woman. No question.  Yet now he couldn't decide.

He asked, then, if there was the hypothetical of "no consequences," could we still swing it? Either talking about being together, or actually being together?

There are never "no consequences." 

So I said:

K:  ....here's what I'm thinking. 

Maybe you and I just chill it.

And you give your situation a chance.

YS:  ok....

maybe that is what I need

ok i'm fine with that

K:  Then you can let me know how it goes.

If in, whatever time, that changes, you can check in with me.

And see where I'm at.

YS:  ok, sounds good

i think that is the smart and rational thing to do.

sadly, the rest of me doesn't think it is.

So I told him I wouldn't run him over on this blog; he said it was OK if I did.  He lives near Mile 24 of the marathon course....so I asked if he'd say hi, 5 weeks from now, when I ran by.  He said he would. 

And just like that, that was that.

I've been contemplating this discussion, now, for a few hours. Resenting having to have had it. I've been here before, and it's a dull exercise.  To realize I am nearly enough for this man, but not quite enough.....so that it makes more sense for me to step aside. 

To benefit a woman I've never met, who has certainly not heard about me like I've heard about her, who likes the man I also like, except that he likes her more.  

Smart and rational, indeed.  To give them peace.  To free me to find someone else for whom I will be enough.

Still, again, I ask:  when does the other woman have to take the hurt and step aside, to be the one to start over?

I've had enough of it.

Dateline: Cambridge, 3/15/09

Planter on Broadway, near Kendall and Tech squares, just before sunset.

Technically, today is still winter.  Tomorrow is supposed to feel like it. Hope these babes survive.

(A wet kiss--or dry alternative, should you feel slightly uncomfortable--to the first person who can tell me the name of these flowers. A half-hour of Google searching thus proved fruitless...or, technically, "flowerless".....)

It's probably a sin....

....that when 600,000 people dressed in greeen beads strode into my neighborhood this morning, followed by 600 Boston policemen revving their motorcyle engines, I strode out.

Sorry. This girl is Norwegian and Swedish and while I have no vendetta with the Irish, I do not get riled up over Southie St. Patrick's Day.

I like beer plenty fine as you know...but don't enjoy when when it runs in the gutters like water, when the crisp air is permeated with malt, when it drips from keg cups spilling out of 3rd-story rowhouse windows.

It's probably a double-sacrilege that today, instead, I head for a coffee in the (gasp, Italian!) North End with my old buddy C (finally!). Then off to have a drink and a chat with the CFO (hopefully).

Then home to find that, perhaps, I might be able to find a parking spot within 2 miles of my apartment.....

Bad attitude, I know.

Mood swinging (and singing)

I'm a woman in her 30s. I have hormones. Sometimes they assert themselves more strongly than others.

This shouldn't be news to anyone with a pulse.

I can easily tell when my hormone levels are up, because several qualities also assert themselves:

1) An uncontrollable desire to listen to Irish Christmas music featuring the fiddle, such as this, which turn inspires an uncontrollable urge to weep.

2) An uncontrollable crankiness with my co-workers, usually concluding when I've thrown a stack of folders to the ground.

3) An uncontrollable ability to listen to melodramatic songs on repeat, sing along, and dance down the street. This manifests most when I walk among the high rises on Boylston Street in the sunshine (like I did yesterday afternoon), or run along the Charles River at dusk (like I did last night) and see this view of the Back Bay from Cambridge (which indeed, looked exactly like this at that hour):

I've long been a fan of the composer Jason Robert Brown....his lyrics are earnest and heartbreaking without completely succumbing to cheese. Emotionally real. He's also a pianist....so his accompaniments are lyric, syncopated and feature nothing but pounding, satisfying left-hand bass lines.

So here's "Someone to Fall Back On" -- the song that I, also, strode home to last night. On repeat for 35 minutes. Hands in the air each time it came to the swell of the bridge 3 minutes in.

If some man would sing the bridge to me just once in my life, and mean it, I think I could die happy. (Of course, he could sing the whole song, while accompanying himself on the piano, and then I would really die happy.)

I’ll never be a knight in armor
With a sword in hand, or a kamikaze fighter;
Don’t count on me to storm the barricades
And take a stand, or hold my ground;
You’ll never see any scars or wounds -
I don’t walk on coals, I won’t walk on water:
I am no prince, I am no saint,
I am not anyone’s wildest dream,
But I can stand behind
And be someone to fall back on.

Some comedy - you’re bruised and beaten down
And I’m the one who’s looking for a favor.
Still, honestly, you don’t believe me
But the things I have are the things you need.
You look at me like I don’t make sense,
Like a waste of time, like it serves no purpose -
I am no prince, I am no saint,
And if that’s what you believe you need,
You’re wrong - you don’t need much,
You need someone to fall back on...

(Here's the bridge with the best lyrics ever)

And I’ll be that: I’ll take your side.
If I’m the only one, I’m used to that.
I’ve been alone,
I’d rather be the half of us,
The least of you,
The best of me.

And I will be your prince, I’ll be your saint,
I will go crashing through fences in your name.
I will, I swear -I’ll be someone to fall back on!
I’ll be the one who waits,
And for as long as you’ll let me,
I will be the one you need.
I’ll be someone to fall back on.

Heartbreaker alert

Because there can never be too many pictures of a smiling baby.

Anyone want to conjecture if Henry is exclaiming joyfully over the third straight Big Up Day on the NYSE?

(Kudos to Molly at Paper Lemon Photography for capturing the expression.)