Tapping the Troubles

I wasn’t going to run this week. Thought i would glower and growl my week away instead. I hate it when i become fixated on things i can’t control…like cancer. Not me or mine but still troubling me just the same.

Meanwhile i had just been to the doctor for my own set of keep me up at night diagnosis. Alpha 1 Antitypsin Deficiency. What? “I want you to get some blood work done…just as a precaution…” This after Dr. E had wailed on my back and made me breathe in and out like a hot and heavy phone perv. Then came the feminine annual…and lots of blood. “Let’s get you scheduled for a colposcopy, too.” Great. What else could go less than winsome? Turns out, dehydration. “Drink water.” Dr. E concluded. Right.

With all of this on the brain and a bright sun still shining i was convinced to go for a small run – a tiny run. It started out quiet. Up the bike path, through the speckled shadows of green, up to the busier road of Bridge, ignoring the care, past the cemetery of angels, back down the bike path. By then i knew i had logged four miles. By the time i got back to town i wanted to push it just a little further. Passed the pizza shop, crossed by the gas station (now closed, empty and forlorn) and beyond the book store and back down my street the other way. 4.33 miles.

I don’t know what to think of these runs i keep putting out. I know they clear my head. I don’t push for personal best. I don’t want to beat the competition real or in my head. I just want to save my sanity, one step at a time.

Working Out Without Working It

I will admit it. I got sucked into watching a marathon of ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ yesterday. Yup. A few hours watching teenagers and twenty-somethings twist and jump all over a stage in front of a live studio audience. Reality/game show television at its best. I was transfixed. Couldn’t turn away. Couldn’t turn it off. And yet…the guilt got to me so i started to “work out.” Found a pair of 5lb weights and did 30 minutes of arm exercises. During the commercials i ran up and down the stairs putting laundry away. I didn’t want to miss a single dance step so i took light loads, a drawer worth at a time. During the next segment i moved onto legs: squats, calf raises, lunges, lifts. I promised myself when a new show came on i would turn off the TV and finish doing the dishes, finish washing the floors, finish the laundry, maybe go for a run…
Didn’t happen. This show was never ending! A new episode (?) of ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ came on and i moved onto back muscles: dead lifts, arm extensions, cat stretches and twists. 30 minutes worth. Then stomach: lower abs, upper abs, obliques, back to center. Repeat process. All the while keeping an eye on the couples dancing the tango, hip hop, contemporary, salsa. I ended with stretching, 30 minutes of trying to work flexibility back into my life.
In the end, i spent over three hours in front of the TV (so embarrassing!) but i have to admit, it wasn’t a complete waste of time. I’m sore today!

Alone with me, myself & moi

I’m home alone so my thoughts turned to the three things I always do without companionship. Run. Assault the fridge. Scrutinize my face.
I started off by running. 3.52 miles. Nothing to brag about, sneeze about and even cough to admit. I’m calling my treadmill ‘G’ from now on – G for Gerbil, G for Get Off My Ass because even though it was only a 5k run, at least I did it. I plugged into BubbleGum and he sang me through 35 minutes of hills and hell. My brain worked a little overtime because I thought about my boss and how today was his last day. Earlier, I sat in his my chair in his my office and imagined my upcoming rein. I also thought about when I ran the 13.1 for LLS. All the while, reciting the names of the people with cancer I was running in honor of, in memory of. It was so heartbreaking to think I was running in honor of someone battling only to find out they died the day of my race. Honor became memory in a matter of miles. I remembered how my friend, at my celebration party, how she whispered to me “my mom has breast cancer’, yet she still got on stage and sang for me, sang for my triumph in the face of her personal tragedy. It’s hard to run when all you want to do is collapse and cry. Even BubbleGum couldn’t keep me from such sweet, self-induced sadness.
After the pitiful run I ravaged the fridge. Maybe it’s a guy thing and maybe that’s why I keep this secret from my husband, but I don’t know of many women who stand in front of their Kenmores, drinking milk from the carton, scooping yogurt right from the container -the only light in the kitchen coming from the fridge. I eat with my fingers when I’m alone. Tonight was no exception. Tonight I found Turkish apricots and wheat crackers. No need to hold the door open for those. I scooped copious handfuls of each and plopped on the couch, balancing the unlikely feast on my stomach. Watching me chow down it’s hard to imagine me being afraid of numbers like 120 or 40 (116 and 38 for those of you keeping score).
The only thing I haven’t done tonight is prop up the mirror and stare down my own reflection. Usually this is my opportunity to tweeze, pluck, pinch, pucker, scratch, pop and scrub what I see before me. I’m not in the mood to self analyze, scrutinize and criticize.
Maybe that’s a good thing.

Sister’s Footsteps

Not since high school have I run side by side with someone. I have wanted to. I invited someone who was supposedly training for the Leukemia Society’s half marathon and he turned me down. I challenged someone who wants to WALK a 13.1 miler, she chickened out. I’ve strode next to lots of someones at the Gerbil Cage, but side by side on treadmills are nowhere near the real thing of running side by side outside.
Thursday my sister and I ran. She’s trying to lose pregnancy belly fat and I’m trying to lose my fear of everything that strangles my psyche. Despite the fact I barely got any sleep the night before I got up at 5:30am to chase the early morning light around my sister’s island. If there was an emotion that permeated my brain that a.m. it was envy. She runs in the most beautiful place. How do I explain this? She runs on a dirt road that turns paved. She runs in the woods, through a still-sleepy town, along the shore line, past beautiful, sea-weathered cottages. She smells pines, fresh bread baking, island roses and the sharp ocean. She sees gulls and finches, butterflies and curled up cats, tiger lilies and seaweed covered shorelines. She hears fog horns, waves lapping and whispering trees. In the distance a horse calls and a dog answers. Birds sing continuously. She stops for water, plucks blackberries, blueberries, raspberries and even late blooming strawberries before moving on.
We promised no chatting but I couldn’t help commenting on cottages for sale, sleeping dogs on porches and classic lobster boats offshore. A bell buoy clanged in the distance and I could almost picture myself living here. I got so caught up in the fantasy that I forgot I was running.
4.5 miles later my sister annouced, “I walk at the bricks” and true to her word she slowed to a walk where the sidewalk ended. As the sweat cooled on my back I marveled at how easy it had been to run on her island. How easy it had been to run with her. In high school she ran cross country. I ran away from physical activity. She has always been Miss Athlete, despite having two kids. I have always been Miss Bookwormslug. I never in a million years thought I would run with her…much less actually keep up. 

Knee conversation – not a peep. Must be the huge shoes!

Confused by Books

I wanted to announce that I am officially overloaded with books. First I have the crazy booklust challenge, then I have the running books I’m trying to read on the side, then I get the announcement that RandomHouse is offering me not one, but TWO books to review. This is great news but, at the same time, devastating because I have let the running books fall by the wayside.
When I trained for the LLS I inundated myself with running advice. I wouldn’t be training with my group so I needed all the information & help I could get. Here I was, a person who hates to run, trying to teach myself how to do it properly. It’s not as simple as one foot in front of the other, my friend. The books will tell you how you land on your foot is important. The book will tell you how far off the ground your stride should be. The book will tell you how to hold your hands, how to swing your arms, where to look. Oh yes, the book will tell you. And tell you.
So, here I am, back to reading the books. Books like “The Nonrunner’s Marathon Guide for Women” by Dawn Dais. Or not. See, I’m on a roll with the BL challenge , I have an obligation to this RH thing and if there are two of them….
I’m confused by the books.

A New Beginning

Point blank, I am sick of being me. I’ve spent the last 30 plus years being embarrassed by myself…as odd as that may seem. I’m not out to reinvent myself, or deny who I really am, but I do want to change the things that really, really bug me. Is that a bad thing? I am tired of being a wallflower. I’m tired of being out of shape, on the brink of being blobby. I am tired of being a blink in the eye of the beholder. Does that make sense? Here, on the other side of sleep I want to kick some ass. Take no prisoners. Take back my life.

Today, I made a decision to make this blog less about what happens in my sleep and more about my journey back to waking up. Here, for the record is my list of goals:

• Yoga! I keep saying I want to practice daily. I need to make that happen!
• Weight training – I want to be strong, body & mind.
• Eating right – stop the affair with the vending machine…
• 13.1 – need I say more?

I start tomorrow…

Apples in a Ditch

3/29/07

Murky and half hidden -  something about a party in the woods. Someplace like Lincolnville. There were a ton of people trying to get rid of a snowbank but I can’t remember if it was before or after the party. We all cheered when the snow was loaded up.
Someone had a truck and they back out of their spot too fast and smashed into someone else’s truck. The tail end shattered like plastic and reminded me of the sleds my sister and I used to play with.
Someone else came out of the house to help clean up – okay so this was definitely after the party. There were bag lunches all over the place with juice bottles. The bottles had fruit in them. Someone wanted a bucket for dumping out the bottles. Scott mentioned apple cores in a ditch and I thought, “leave it to Scott to be so observant.” We blamed the cores on homeless people and I asked how they would know I was living in the woods.
After a recycling truck came by I told Matt to get something warm to drink and mentioned we had Kalua. When I walked by a railing there was frozen garbage, orange peels and a pie balanced on it.
Then J and I had to leave to take Matt to pick up a truck somewhere. The last thing I remember saying before I woke up was, “I guess I’ve been here.”

Travels in Slumber

I remember it was rainy and dark. I had to board but I was having second thoughts about going to Colorado. I’m not sure if it was because I was traveling alone or because it was one of those tiny planes where you climb the stairs to board. You didn’t get the long hallway, the stepping from gate to plane that is almost seamless. I don’t know why I was alone. When they finished loading the tiny aircraft I couldn’t decide if I wanted to go. The Or Not was weighing heavy on me. No one was paying any attention to me until finally I was all alone. Finally, I boarded.
Once inside I noticed the seating was limo style, around the contours of the plane. I took up a seat in a corner and realized I didn’t have any money, no wallet, no nothing. I don’t know why but this didn’t bother me as much as it should.
When the plane began to move I thought to myself ‘there is no turning back now’ so I leaned back to try to sleep a little. I remember thinking we just bought a futon so why was I taking a trip we couldn’t afford.
At some point the plane turned into a bus and I felt relief even though I didn’t know where we were going. When I asked someone he shrugged and said in a bored tone, “around” and something about Portland, Maine. I replied that I was familiar with it and started to describe what I knew – two residents. A man missing 17 teeth and a woman missing only one. We passed a harbor with many fancy boats. None for lobstering.
We stopped to hike – I think in the White Mountains of NH. There were many waterfalls and everything was alive with green. Somehow I was planning to ditch the bus tour and go home. I was thinking I never should have come.
We were halfway up the mountain when I saw someone fall off the rock face. He bounced down the rocks towards definite death until somehow, miraculously, he grabbed onto a ledge and managed to make his way to safety. As we watched him I noticed he was Asian and wearing a red shirt. Lucky. Before he even got to terra firma I was distracted and my attention was drawn away from the once-falling man.
Out of nowhere J showed up. We stood in a room and argued about going home. Someone else was in the room, ignoring us. I insisted we were still in MA even though I knew better. Frustrated by the arguement I glanced at my shirt and noticed it was too frilly and buttoned wrong but I made no move to correct it.
When I said I didn’t pay for my ticket J said he knew. He then said the brakes on the bus needed fixing, yet he wanted to stay “on tour.” I said I didn’t know what we were touring and didn’t want to miss work.