Our Lady of Perpetual Hell

Thanks to a break in the weather (after a few days of snow-then-rain-then-snow-then-rain-then…), yesterday I was able to maintain what has become a Christmas Day tradition over the past three years: I went out for an afternoon run. This was my first Christmas Day run along the lakeshore, and the view was awesome.

The ice buildup had happened seemingly overnight. These are pictures of the same stone groyne at the end of the street by my house (meaning that is my beach, although I don’t think I feel like going for a swim at the moment, thanks anyway), taken right before Christmas and then again on Christmas Day.

Lots of people were out for walks yesterday, enjoying the unexpected sunshine and calm. I like to get out on Christmas Day to break up the long day of battling overindulging. While I am out running I am not eyeing that plate of Mom’s shortbreads on the coffee table or that three-foot-long box of chocolates sticking out of my Christmas stocking. I am not thinking about the turkey and dressing and smashed potatoes that lie ahead. And, yeah, if I go out for a run on Christmas Day, I feel slightly less guilty when I inevitably reach for the platter of turkey a second time later that day.

I awoke this morning to the sound of rain hitting the roof. It didn’t last long, though, and so I decided to go out for another run today. I don’t normally run two days in a row, but yesterday’s was very short, so I figured it wouldn’t do any harm to go again today. This time, I decided to try out my new pair of ice-grippers. Having heard mixed reviews from fellow runners, I didn’t know what to expect of them, but figured they were worth a try for the measly $10 they cost. They’re rubber and steel and slip on. While it will take a few tries, I think, to get the spikes positioned so that my feet are neither pronating nor supinating when I plant them, I was pleasantly surprised by their performance today. I found myself purposefully seeking out the ice and snow to run on–which, previously, I would have done anything to avoid! I didn’t feel nervous on the slippery surface at all. I was even able to use the (unplowed) offroad trail which has been impassable for weeks. And this is the first time in recent memory when I wore my iPod but didn’t turn it on. I loved the sound of the crunch-crunch-crunch as the spikes bit into the ice and snow. Out on the trail, it was all I could hear–aside from a dog barking off in the distance–along with my breath chuffing out in steamy puffs.

The past few weeks have been unusually stressful but all of that fell aside on my run today, when I was in the moment in a way that I have not managed in a long time. It was a good reminder that that is where/when I need to be all the time.

When I was driving into Toronto last Wednesday afternoon, cruising down the Gardiner, when I got to Windermere, I gasped when I noticed how far away downtown looked from there. Windermere was the turnaround point in the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront half-marathon I ran plodded last fall, you see. There’s no getting around it—it’s a bit of a hike (12k, actually) just to get to the half-way point. Then, yeah, you gotta turn around and go back. I seem to recall not having a feeling of elation at that point… I mean, it wasn’t exactly “Yay, I’m half-way done!” It was more “Sweet jayzuz, I gotta go all the way back, now!?”

A few days after the sight of that long run back downtown, my friend Laurie asked me if I’d run the H₂Ofront half-marathon again this year, this time with her. Laurie sez she needs a goal race as a fire under her butt to keep running. (I don’t need such things, I’ve found. I actually enjoy running without anything more in mind than just the enjoyment of doing it. La la la la la, I float through life without goals!) I pause to consider… I think about the poor sleep and the broken door, the parched mouth and sandbag legs, the seemingly Rocky Mountain-sized overpasses on the way back downtown, the ferocious thigh muscle cramps and the fruitless searching for a Freezie afterward, and I say… “Okay. Count me in!”

I thought I’d emerged unscathed but no… More than 24 hours after my first Box-on class, my abs were so achey that I could barely turn over in bed last night. Which made me laugh. Which hurt. Which made me laugh more. Which hurt. You get the pitcha.

But the pain confirmed two things: one, that there actually are abdominal muscles down there underneath the stubborn flab and, two, that I’d actually put serious effort into the class workout.

Attending Box-on at the Y was my friend Kelly’s idea. She’d spotted the class recently, when she was upstairs on the treadmills, looking down on the gym. She told me she saw the boxers just milling about a series of punching bags set up around the room. “That looks like it could be fun,” she told me. I said sure–I was open to trying it. God knows there are enough days when I get home from my commute and I’d like to punch something.

Kelly’s new membership at the Y has been just what I needed. She’s gotten me involved in not just the Box-on but also aqua-jogging (I didn’t realize it was possible to work up a sweat in a pool!) and the various and sundry exercise machines that I have been studiously ignoring until now. When she starts eyeing the bellydancing class schedule, though, I’ll start to get a little nervous…

Anyhow, after a few weeks of forgetfulness and/or unavailability on my part, the stars finally aligned and we went to our first Box-on class this week. It was led by Kathy, who is wound tight by muscle, sinew, energy, and humour (and not one single ounce of excess body fat, from what I can tell).

And, clearly, Kelly must’ve seen only the latter stages of the class when she saw the students standing around that fateful night a few weeks ago. There’s no way she saw the first half-hour of it. That first half-hour is why I ended up moaning and laughing and then moaning again whenever I tried to roll over in bed last night.

The warm-up almost knocked me out before I’d even put on any boxing gloves! We were paired up with vets who’d been in the class since September and we spread around the gym at a bunch of “stations” where different workouts were posted on the walls. (There were punching bags set up at each station, too, but those were for later.) Most of these workouts seemed to involve some kind of jumping. The only jumping I normally do is up or down a curb when I’m out running (and we all know how coordinated I am at that). Other than that, there’s really notta lotta call in my life for jumping. But. The first station I was at, the exercise was to jump as high as I could as often as I could for two minutes straight. Two minutes seems like a really short period of time, doesn’t it? Well, it’s fucking not. When those two minutes were up, I ran to the next station–where the exercise was to jump rope. Good grief, I haven’t jumped rope for perilously close to 40 fucking years! And I was never all that good at it, anyway. (I was always more of a baseball-type tomboy, rather than a skipping-type girly-girl.) I managed to get through the two minutes without tripping or strangling myself and then ran to the next station. Where I hadda do jumping-jacks. Sweet jayzuz! I mighta started out doing recognizable jumping jacks but by the end of the two minutes, I was mostly just hopping a couple inches into the air and flailing my arms. On to the next station, where I… hopped on one foot from side to side along a line on the gymnasium floor. Then I turned around and hopped back on the other foot. Then I hopped in my two-footed boxing stance from side to side along that line on the floor. Back and forth. Ding! the two minutes were up and I stumbled on to the next station. Jumping jacks again! WTF?! “No fair!” I wailed. All this time, there’s music pounding and Kathy is running from station to station, yelling encouragement and insisting it wasn’t all that bad to only hafta do these things for two minutes at a time. The fuck you say, sez me, under my breath. Then, hey!, a station where I don’t hafta jump! I get to do push-ups instead! Oh joy! Not just any old push-ups, either. I hafta get down in the push-up position and sorta crab-walk a few paces from side to side. Then I do normal push-ups. Then I have the option of doing those push-ups where you (not me) clap in the middle of the upstroke.

After about half an hour of this, we were done our warm-up. Kathy handed me a pair of boxing gloves (not pink). My partner had demonstrated the various kinds of punches (jab, power, hook, uppercut) and now we were instructed to go from station to station, where the exercises had been replaced with punch-combinations. And these weren’t just simple two-punch combos. These were, like, jab-power-jab-hook-uppercut-power.

Do you remember those (horrifying) days in public school gym class when we hadda learn dance steps? Lawdy, I was so fucking talentless at that. I could not remember the steps well enough to put them together intelligibly. I could watch the instructor with undivided attention and still look like a complete spaz when I tried to reproduce the dance steps.

And it’s the same with the boxing routines. I’d stand there at each station, eyeballing the instructions on the wall, mouth agape, forehead furrowed in concentration. There were mats hanging along the walls, and we could use those to practice the routines if we didn’t want to use the punching bags. I hadda use the mats because that’s where the instructions were taped. Read-punch-read-punch.

Kathy ran from station to station, holding up her own gloves for targets for us. She’d hold up her right glove and I’d reach out a left jab. Her left glove would go up and I’d aim a power punch. She’d sweep her arm up over my head and I was supposed to bob and weave under it and then aim a hook at the glove she’d proffer. It really was just like dance class.

When the class was over and we staggered to the change room, Kelly and I wondered how we’d feel the next day. But it turned out we both felt fine. She warned me, though, that the after-effects of the workout might take 24-48 hours to show up. The following night I went for a very enjoyable 9k run in the mild evening air. Still felt okay when I got home and showered.

But when I tried to roll over in bed that night… whoa.

I hafta trust I’ll get better at it. I definitely wanna keep at it, ‘cause it was an absolute hoot and certainly the best workout I’ve ever had. And ‘cause I can’t run every night. And being able to punch something that doesn’t punch back could prove theraputic.

I hope the weather down in the Salt Lake valley is better than it has been here: my friend Karen is training for the Salt Lake City Half-Marathon in April. I am totally psyched for her!

A few years ago, I went for a weekend with Karen and her husband Greg down to Moab, in southern Utah, when they were running a race there.

He was running the full marathon; she was running the half. I could not, for the life of me, figure out why on earth they would wanna do that.

Funny how quickly your perspective can change 180˚, eh?

Good luck, Karen!!!

As I gazed out through the pouring rain at the ice-glazed windshield of my car sitting in the driveway on Saturday morning, with piles of week-old snow still more than a foot deep on either side, I couldn’t help but be grateful that I’m not trying to train for a springtime race.

Injuries complicated my training period for last autumn’s half-marathon and, in addition to the crimp they put in my ability to keep to the training schedule I’d been given (my contrariness of nature also contributed, natch–it’s sorta the same as my inexplicable inability to stick to a recipe), the injuries added a whiff of emotional stress to the enterprise. I mean, I would get pissed when I couldn’t run as far as the schedule prescribed for this day or that day and then fear would eat away at me–fear that I’d bitten off more ‘n I could chew. And, yeah, I imagine the run lengths prescribed in the schedule aren’t carved in stone, but when it says to run 10k and I can’t go farther than 3k before my knee starts hurting and it’s gotten so bad that I hafta stop by 6k, well, you might begin to understand why I started to fear I wouldn’t be able to run the race. It was a stressful period. It made training for the race rather unpleasant, actually. The race, itself, however, while difficult, was a great experience.

Afterwards, when I went back to running, I found the fun again. The stress of race prep gone, I found that I looked forward to my after-work runs so much more than I had in the weeks running up to the race.

When folks asked if I was going to do another race in the spring, I said I had made no plans. In the back of my mind, then and now, my thoughts are about another autumn race. Another half-marathon. But nothing big sooner than that.

And I’m glad I made that decision early. Because although the long-range forecast was for a more-miserable-than-normal December followed by a milder-than-normal winter, it has been the opposite. The moment January hit, things went to hell and they’ve stayed there pretty much ever since. As soon as we get dug outta one dump of snow and/or ice, we get another. I’ve had three or four days when I couldn’t drive to work and have had to work from home. (There was only one day like that last winter.) And around these parts, while I believe there’s a bylaw that states you hafta shovel the snow off the sidewalk in front of your home or business, well, there are an awful lotta lazy folks who don’t bother. I seem to recall a similar situation when I lived in Tronna–wherein you basically had to tread in other people’s footprints to get anywhere unless you were right downtown. And then hike up and over Andes of snowpiles at each street corner. Anyhow, it means you can’t run on the sidewalks for days and days after a snowstorm.

If I had been planning on running a springtime race, I’d've started training for it in December. Prolly around Christmas. Maybe even right on Christmas Day. Back in ‘06, I started what I hope will be an annual tradition of going for a run on the afternoon of Christmas Day. In ‘06, I went for a run with my sis. This year, I went by myself, and was met with another first: I was chased by a couple of dogs as I ran down a sidestreet here in town. Little ankle-biting bastards–they were a short and compact breed with big mouths and lotsa short sharp teeth that I aimed my Sauconys at when they started barking and darting and snapping around my feet. I landed one good kick to the ribcage of one of ‘em, but I really wanted to connect with their toothy barking maws. The owner came running up and shooed them away, eventually (with me on the ground in the street, I kid you not, yelling at those fucking dogs as they made little lunges at me), and didn’t even apologize–which I thought was even worse behaviour than the dogs’. My swearing (at his dogs and then at him) was most unchristmassy. Anyhow, yeah, if I were training for a springtime race this year, that memorable run might’ve ushered in my training period and, yikes, what kind of omen would that have been?

And if my training had started in December, I’d've been fit to be tied (not just figuratively, either, I suspect) because of the terrible weather since then. I mean, treadmills are fine in a pinch, but I wouldn’t want to have had to use them as much as I’d've had to if I was trying to keep to a race-prep schedule. They demand a little different technique. You’re not pushing yourself forward on those things as much as you’re just trying to keep up. I find them quite deceiving–I am able to run at a much faster pace on ‘em, but it doesn’t seem to translate when I get back outside and hafta start pushing myself forward again. I’d much rather be outside–even if it’s raining or snowing (well, to a point, anyway). But with the sidewalks impassable and the streets often barely better, I think I’d be more stressed out now than I was when I was limping around with a wonky knee a month or so before the September race.

It’s not just the snow and ice on the sidewalks and roads, either. It’s been damned cold this winter. I find it hard to breathe when I’m running in the cold–my nose runs faster than my feet, my eyes tear up, and it feels like I have a chestful of phlegm. Urgh. The local “Hyperthermic Half” race was held last weekend–on an appallingly cold and windy and snowy day–and my friend Laurie volunteered for it and described the runners coming in with patches of frostbitten skin and beards of snot and sweat frozen to their faces and, well, that just doesn’t sound fun to me.

So I don’t stress myself out when I can’t go for a run this day or that day or if I miss a swimming day or two because I’ve gotten home from work too late. S’no big deal. S’no pressure. And I can enjoy a long weekend like this one and feel like I actually accomplished something even when I didn’t hafta: on Saturday I worked out at the Y with my friend Kelly (who introduced me to the abductor/adductor, which should help with my hip joints that tend to tighten up) and then on Sunday we went to an aqua-jog class there, and today I went out in the flurries and ran 10k. Not because I hadda. But just for the helluvit. And it felt great. That feeling of accomplishment is one of the things I get from running that I love the most.

My brother-in-law sent me a list of recommendations from Runner’s World magazine today. Thought I’d share it after the jump below. (A proviso: the song recommendations aren’t mine. )

(more…)

Y’know… I was gonna write a 2007 wrap-up post today but, well, meh. I went for a good run after a long day at work and now I just wanna curl up on the couch in front of the fire and watch the copy of I Am Legend that a friend gave me.

So here are the three songs that lit a fire under my butt when I was out for my run: “E-Muzik” by NEU! (which, in fact, I hit the Replay button on four freakin’ times), “Squirt” by Fluke (thanks, Aaron!), and “Star Bodies” by The New Pornographers, which got me running harder than I have in a long time, and it was the last song in my run. Nice to finish harder than I started. That feeling of accomplishment is what I take from 2007 into 2008.

(Not so) Incidentally, I sincerely wanna thank you for taking the time to read this little kvetchfest this past year. I’d like to kiss you but I just washed my hair.