Did It Again!

This past week, Marine older-brother Sarge twisted my arm about another 5K, and I decided to go for it… the starting point was right outside the back gate, in one of the community parks! Rather than driving an hour and a half each way, I got to sleep later (up sixish last weekend!), warm and eat a nice breakfast, then step outside. I strolled across the footbridge, got my race packet, bib, and tracking chip… and walked back home, got one more caffeinated sip, said Hi again to Maude the cat, grabbed some tissues/napkins, and walked back to the starting line, still 'way early!

Like last week, I walked most of today's course, but also sprinted/jogged a couple short stretches… and somehow managed to knock several minutes off last week's time. The folks at last week's event had me crawling past the finish line at… around [mumbled number] minutes, so I'd at least walked my age, which gets easier as you get older.

This time 'round, here in town, I finished at 49:02… right between a six-year-older and a ten-year-older, according to the posted printout. This seems to indicate I'm getting younger – underscored by that age-group bracket; heh-heh.

I still didn't dud myself up seasonally, unlike these folks:

 

 

…but should've at least brought along my jingle-bells, dang it. There was a real-beard Santa in kilt (bagpipes would've been stunning!), plus a passel of elves, a woman dressed like a school bus, some more trotting kids decked out as li'l snowmen, poochies like reindeer… fun!

The two gals joining Goofy Santa above (really cool gloves, Goof!) are labeled "Dasher" and "Prancer", but could easily have worn tags that both said "Vixen"… never mind. And they finished long ahead of me, fluffy tails and all.

The course covered a few chunks of some of the places friend Gwynne and I took in during our own walks last year (and much earlier), both nighttime and afternoon… so I relived some of those good memories of her company, and as always sent up some extra prayers. I hope she felt especially blessed this morning. Hah; she IS! It would have been great to have her along this morning, of course – and her nurse-mom with the stethoscope and nitro pills, just in case.

One of the several great things about hosting Gwynne here, a year and a half back, was all the walking we did. I lost maybe twenty pounds over that two-plus-month span… I seem to've found them again, and would like to drop them by the wayside once more, along with their cousins and friends.

This is just one way and part of an-even-slightlier healthier lifestyle. Plus Rosie next door (my other Sarge – and a friend of Gwynne's as well) encourages it – and where the heck was she this morning, anyway? I'll have to check… she was probably completing a marathon someplace (she's a sixty-something grandmother), maybe even the 5/10K at the military base in the city, where my brother and his wife were doing their own running this morning.

Brother and sister-in-law (hyong-su nim) were supposed to be at today's local course, but at the last minute found they had a conflict – that on-base run. Hah! No conflict for them; they got to visit the commissary afterward.

The cold air – had to be in the thirties – was so crisp it almost crackled… and was quite invigorating, too, given my thick coat, sweatshirt underneath, and knit cap. And the route was easy, with only one uphill stretch, and a couple nice downhills. Bonus: I now know an exact 5K course in my own neighborhood to practice on.

 

Another 5K... Survived

…you know, as you get older and keep practicing, it gets easier every year to run your age. I walked mine today – I think I really did cross the line at the [mumble]-minute mark.

 

Just after starting, and by tradition, I called up childhood friend Spartacus. It's been two or three years since my last 5K, and almost always I call while setting out… and give him a hard time about strange, panting men on the phone. I did the same this morning, of course, and regaled him briefly in crummy Italian, before wishing him and famiglia and pooch well, and pholded up my phone.

 

For most of the course, I was right behind a grandmother, who was garbed up – like many other walkers and runners – for the Christmas season. There were elves, three snowmen, walking giftbags, a Mrs. Santa, a Grinch or two – and an actual Christmas tree that ran the full 10K. To the friendly, chatty reindeer tail and cap in front of me, at about the first-mile mark, I said, "Is your husband running the 10K?"

 

"He's hunting," she explained, waving off toward the mountains. It was nice Northeast US rural farmland, with Colonial-era limestone farmhouses… and even a 1920s-era rusting tractor roadside.

 

I grinned, and pointed out, "And here you are in the country, wearing a pair of antlers. Good thinking!"

 

That got me a snort. We later finished up by sprinting the last couple yards, having walked the rest. And I picked up a seasonal race shirt, so that'll be under some Whoville Who's Christmas tree.

 

I'm not as reluctant to take on the next 5K, whatever my Marine older-brother twists my arm for… and I'm embarrassingly a bit sore about the feet and hips, for having hoofed it for under an hour. But I was still vertical when I finished, which is always a good thing.

The Moment of Tooth

Having just finished watching the Obama-McCain debate (Barack was rock-steady and solidly on message; John… well, still seemed even at best nearly desperate, and clearly obstinately petty, and arguably overdue for retirement), I'm actually going to veer away from both politics and faith issues, and report a cautionary tale. 

This past Friday evening, conveniently just hours after my dentist's office had closed, I felt half of one of my molars break away. No pain, incredibly, but yike! I really value my teeth. 

So I pushed the piece back in place and there it somehow stayed until lunch on Saturday. Meanwhile I called the dentist's office, and his after-hours number, requesting an ASAP appointment to repair or do whatever might be necessary (despite my current uninsured status). And over lunch Saturday, the piece dropped out… and turned out to be a crown — not the kind under which the head rests uneasy, or are fated to roll in the dust, but a cap Dr. Lyme had put there himself a few years ago (when I did have insurance). 

The office called me back yesterday (Monday), and we set up an appointment for first-thing this morning (8:00 AM). I still dreaded news that the underlying, formerly-capped tooth had been rotting away, causing the crown to loosen. Nope; adhesive had merely worn out owing to a minor adjustment needed to allow for lateral stresses — the tooth was fine, and sound. 

Meanwhile, before he got down to business, I asked Dr. Lyme to do me a favor: to get rid of several books out there in his brand-new lobby, books I found personally offensive (one being Da(m)n Brown's The Dumb-Vinci Code; the other two or three I will not name, but were of the same disturbing ilk, and which I know and am in fact quite familiar with). And I explained why that is (which I've gone to at length here before), and suggested that if he wanted to carry offensive books, I could bring in my copy of Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, Hitler's Mein Kampf (actually neither own nor want a copy), and the collected works of Lester Maddox (also don't own and don't want). 

In the momentary, surprisingly-not-very-tense silence, I realized something particularly foolish about my timing… and immediately (and rather vulnerably!) pointed it out to him and his lovely Caribbean assistant: 

There I was, flat on my back, feet actually higher than my head, and in a position I could not possibly get out of easily without prohibitively expensive damage to his equipment and my limbs… and here he sat, next to me, about to stick sharp metal objects in my mouth. And I chose that moment to criticize his office's reading material? Oh, boy. 

Still, being the gentleman he is, and not as vocal as yours-truly when he might take offense, he proceeded to re-secure my crown, and promise to remove the books. (You know, I really hate sounding like a conservative.) 

Then he had me bite down on a big wad of cotton to hold the crown in place. This also shut me up quite nicely… though I'll charitably assume that wasn't his intention.

Losing, Winning, and Running in the Race - Item Two

This past weekend (May 3-4) saw the annual Frederick Running Festival in colonial-era, antiques-laden Frederick, Maryland. This two-day event included four separate races: marathon, half-marathon, four-person relay, and (for us girlie-men) Saturday evening's Twilight 5K.

Running enthusiast older-brother Sarge participated this year in the half-marathon — he'd been snubbing previous years' events in that nice little Mid-Atlantic town due to a silly kind of twist on the registration fee… so instead you'd be more likely to see him off in Ohio, West Virginia, maybe even in Georgia (let alone points in between) those weekends, saving his money and running just as hard in some other event.

Astute readers with a memory for more-than-useless trivia may recall that yours truly deigned to tool into Frederick himself, last year, to run that Twilight 5K. This year, uh, no; I was still rehydrating after a particularly bad bout of TMI that slugged me late-late Thursday night. I told Sarge I couldn't make it this time for that reason.

"What's TMI?" he asked, annoyed. "Three-Mile Island?" (As kids, back in the early seventies, we'd visited that Pennsylvania site a couple times on daytrips.)

"No," I explained. "Terribly Mushy Intestines." 'Nuff said, folks: let it suffice that there was much resultant fluid loss, and leave it at that. But I did not want to run with a risk of genuine dehydration. Perhaps I was also wimping out.

Or just being cautious. More in a moment; first, here's a shot of our family's half-marathoner about the time he finished (it took him less than two hours). Yes, of course he's a Marine (joined up in '86, fought in Desert Storm, and so on.) Would you believe this guy's pushing fifty? P.S.: Sorry, ladies; he's engaged.

I said I didn't make it to the run in Maryland last weekend. However: two weekends earlier, I did do a repeat of last year's April run in Pennsylvania, where (in 2007) I'd come in just under fifty minutes.

While I'm boring you, let's look at how I've been doing, benchmarking myself with three particular 5K runs over the course of a recent non-calendar year:

July 29, 2006: Pennsylvania — 44:56

April 22, 2007: Pennsylvania — 48:02

May 5, 2007: Maryland — 46:31

… so, obviously a forty-five -minute man, and not likely to cross a half-marathon's finish line the same day I start. (I did manage a nicer 38 minutes in Ocean City — MD, not NJ — back on 9/26/1999… no, wait; that was at BWI Airport outside Baltimore, and that was only my second- or third-ever official run. In any case, I was almost ten years younger then, and certainly a good several pounds lighter.)

Still, this year, as the date for that run in Pennsylvania approached, I felt pretty good about myself. Though I don't run for exercise nearly often enough, I'd found that I'd reached a point where I could run (well, trot, trudge, plod) most of a mile without slowing to a walk a few times: I've consciously worked to employ some particular stretching and breathing exercises that marathon-running neighbor Rose showed me at last year's run in Frederick, Maryland (by nice coincidence, she and her daughter had shown up there themselves, too — as a warmup for the next day's marathon!!).

Two or three days before the PA event this year, I tested myself on the local, neighborhood streets, and managed a full mile before I slowed down. And I'd been slowly losing weight through Weight Watchers (and even before joining up); so I felt ready… or maybe it was the endorphins brainwashing me. It's all part of my, er, track record, you see.

Came the day of the run — Sunday, April 20 — brother Sarge and Choggun-nunim (my sister-in-law-in-law) came by for me, and we hit the road (by car). Where last year's weather had been warm and sunny and beautifully like late Spring, this year it was wet, cold, and fairly yucky out: intermittent downpours, overcast, and so on. And I was supposed to run in this??

Run I did. I had a rain jacket (with hood) over my T-shirt and shorts… and within a couple-dozen yards it was more rain than jacket. Heck with it; I plodded on. And on. Shortly after the start (I hadn't quite reached Drowned Rat status yet), I whipped out my cell phone and called up occasional (i.e., desperate-for-entertainment) blog-reader Spartacus.

Sparks, wisely, was still abed and no doubt just rolling over, with visions of eggs and bacon dancing in his head. (Me, I'd had the usual yogurt and granola bar. I'd still rather have the eggs and bacon.) So I got his answering machine, and, panting (he didn't take that seriously… I hope), I gasped out: "The only thing… stupider… than running in the rain… for fun… and paying for it… is talking… on your cell phone… at the same time!" And I hung up; no doubt Sparkles changed his number as soon as he found the message. He's ex-USAF; I tick him off only long-distance.

The running trail — formerly a railroad line, with rails and crossties removed, and ground leveled — was a fine-textured tiny stones, something between pebbles and grit (sopping wet, of course)… actually a very good surface for just this sort of brave endeavor.

I was really hoping that, even with the lousy weather (it's been ten or more years since I've run in the rain), I might be able to break the forty-minute mark at last: I'd set it as a goal when thinning-down daughter-one Shellie told me just recently she'd beaten that time herself, on the treadmill at the gym. With luck, then, I'd at least be able to brag afterward that I could run like a girl, anyway.

Folks, here's my finish time:

31:49.

Yes, you're reading that right. And, no, the official timekeeper did not kick the clock after I crossed and find it was behind ten or fifteen minutes. And I finished fifth in my age-group — not enough to garner one of those cool, bizarre trophies, of course.

But — yee-hah!

So… what happened? Well, my guess is that through being drenched the whole time, I couldn't overheat, and so felt less need to slow down… and in fact only slowed to a walk at two or three spots, and each more briefly than ever before. (The air had been quite cool; after the run, I found myself giggling at how I actually had steam coming up off me!)

In particular also, I had watched closely how some of the more experienced runners were stretching before we began, and gamely tried a whole new one that one of them was employing — you kiddies try this at home: grab the tip of your left foot in your right hand, and pull. Ah, but do it behind your back… and without screaming, or toppling over. Then switch off. Result for me: no shin splints.

This whole thing really isn't braggery — after all, I'm not one of those lean, keen, stringy types who finished in fifteen minutes, either: the fellow who won did just that; he… could have run it twice, and still crossed the line (the second time) ahead of me by over minute.

Meanwhile, Sarge ran the equivalent of my run three times: he completed the event's official 15K (that's over nine miles), which followed my 5K, in 1:19:33.

I think he figures he did only so-so. Me… I've tried tackling exactly one 10K, and that one I walked. So, 15K? Sure… if I can do it 5K at a time, with at least a couple weeks intervening.

Well, as I say: I don't run to compete — I just want to complete. And you know what was really scary about that Pennsylvania event?

It was fun.

 

Losing, Winning, and Running in the Race - Item One

No, the series of items/postings under this title has nothing to do with the neck-and-neck, tooth-and-nail contention for the Democratic Party nomination to beat McCain this Fall. I'm simply getting this blog back up to speed, and helping either of my two readers (two of 'em on good days, and counting myself at least twice) with what's been going on of late. First item:

For her Big Two-Five birthday a couple months back, Daughter-One Shellie allowed me to treat myself to membership in Weight Watchers. She'd been verbally and metaphorically twisting my arm (I usually just pull her leg; she always wins, however) to do so for several weeks, having somehow managed to lose twenty-some pounds herself… off a physique that (to my rose-colored Daddy-spectacles) seemed not to need a loss of that magnitude anyway.

Still, she's now even more beautiful than she was, somehow. Full credit goes to Mom for her good looks, of course; I take credit (along with my sister) only for her sassy-lassie mouth, and occasional bumps and bruises handed her by Life. She could not have turned out better; I'm immensely proud… and generally giggling at her latest escapade-story – the ones she'll admit to, that is.

As of the very beginning of the year, starting weight for me (at 5'9" to 5'10", depending on the thinness of my hair and the thickness of my socks), was about 215(+) pounds; initial weigh-in at Weight Watchers in mid-March – after already having cut back on bad foods, and so on – showed me at just over 210. Successive weeks have confirmed one or two gains of a few fractions of a pound, but otherwise steadily losing, week after week, anywhere from barely half a pound to (last week) 2.6 pounds; current weight (well, as of last Thursday's meeting) is 204.

I really don't want to lose any more rapidly than this; my gut instinct (har, har) is that it should be a gradual process. Having nearly lost a close loved one to anorexia many years ago (not a danger for me), I do have a clear idea of the other extreme.

After the first week with Weight Watchers, I cut out the tasty but stupid McDonald's breakfasts, switching over to a couple light yogurts and banana and/or a fiber bar in the morning, for dinner a Healthy Choice or Smart Ones frozen dinner (as few Weight Watchers points as possible – I buy & eat those listing six points or fewer per dinner/entrée on the package); lunch, when I have it, is various fruits and vegetables… or sometimes a Roy Rogers roast-beef sandwich (no fries!), which is extremely lean – so lean, in fact, that it's served sideways.

I, uh, still have a horrid breakfast most Sundays (I won't detail it for you folks; suffice it to say that slender, health-conscious Shellie really did hang up on me in shame when I admitted the components to her). But that's my one last indulge-me meal each week, and I'll be cutting them out soon, too.

Beyond this, I admit also I'm not really following the Weight Watchers diet plan very closely yet – mostly working into it; swimming out to it from the shallow end – though heeding the various menu/discipline suggestions discussed at the weekly meetings.

Still, I find myself already giggling at how my pants are already getting a little loose around the waist, and how on one of my belts I'm down to the narrowest notch. I don't think I've lost more than an inch or two there yet – but that was a thirty-eight waist in January… and it was only thirty when Shellie was a baby, and I weighed maybe one-fifty -minus.

I haven't set a firm target weight yet; younger brother Doc (maybe an inch taller; he was raised free-range) has a little hint-of-a-gut of his own, yet asserts he masses only 78.5 – kilograms, that is; for the rest of us not graced with a couple years in the Antipodes, it's about 173 pounds. Thus I confirm his theorem that I'm denser. Older-brother Sarge is a little shorter than me, and weighs about 180-something – but he's a Marine; by definition he's not just denser, he's got more muscle mass.

So I think I would like to see myself reach the one-eighties to begin with; a ten-percent weight loss, for instance, would have me at 189.

That's 86 Kg, Doc – now stop buggin' me, and go eat your vegemite.

Coming up: The Aging Child resumes running.

In One Year and Out the Other

Actually, I wanted to title this posting "In One Era and Out the Other", with a nod to humorist Sam Levenson, of course. But the transition from 2007 into 2008 – we’ve almost made it through this millennium’s first decade, folks! – was hardly an epochal leap.

Of course, unlike some New Year’s Eves, I wasn’t sleeping through this one… I quite literally did not take it lying down!

I mentioned on the last of the year – a week ago, already, this past Monday – that brother Sarge had twisted my arm lightly and persuaded me to take in a two-mile run out on the periphery of Pennsylvania Dutch country, near the large town of York, as the year closed out. (York’s not far from Harrisburg; you older-timers would remember that area for the Three Mile Island (or TMI) near-meltdown back in 1979.) We’d be joined by my sister-in-law-in-law, Choggun-Nunim, who generally goes along when he’s out working up a sweat in the midst of a herd of runners, up to and including maratha (the plural of "marathon", people – don’t you know any Greek?).

It was a pleasant, couple-hour drive there… and the night promised to be quite cold, so I had on my running shorts and shirt under my jeans and thick flannel, plus my best running shoes. On the way there, one bank clock/thermometer was suggesting the temperature as about 32°F (0°C for the entire rest of the world). Still, my brother’s brute-force, black-and-white Marine approach of "Why not?" had caught hold, and I was committed.

This had been billed as a "fun run" – a new concept for me, and one I’d have concluded was oxymoronic, like "jumbo shrimp", or "kosher ham". But, as the officials explained to us during the signup, the stress was on the "fun" part – no official posting of completion-times, and so on… which was fine by me.

"Fun" meant, especially, costumed runners! Well… why not? Here are some of the characters who ran with us (most were twenty-somethings, though there were kids and senior citizens):

• Speaking of senior citizens, a youngish gal with a thick grey granny-wig, colonial-style cap, wireframe glasses, and (under her generous homespun) a huge posterior to which a hapless stuffed Jack-Russell terrier was fastened, as though sat on and suffocated;

• And speaking of dogs, two or three people were geared up as beagles – complete with doggie-snouts, flappy ears, and irregular tan and brown patches;

• Another youngish gal with flappy ears; she had pill bottles attached all over her sweats, and a hand-written sign on back: "I’m Sick as a Dog!";

• A father-and-daughter cowboy pair, both in full regalia (except, sensibly, their cockroach-killers): she with grin and twisted, battered cowboy hat; he with full (genuine) red beard, excellent stetson, a bandana (which he wore over his face as the run began), and a coil of rope;

• Another couple, these in well-inflated sumo wrestler-costumes: she dressed as a he-sumo, and he as a she-sumo, complete with tutu, in his case – and both had to turn sideways to get out the door of the community center where we’d converged before and after the race;

• One more twenty-something pair: I spotted them just before we started; he was trim and in very good shape (my daughters would have been drooling), and wearing absolutely nothing but his sneaks, socks, and very skimpy shorts, to which were attached several… leaves? He was grinning, and jumping up and down to stay warm, since by this point (ten till midnight) it had to be no more than +28°F/-2°C. (I spotted a dusting of snow in a couple yards later on.) His, uh, running-mate was one lovely young eyeful: she was also similarly skimpily attired (below and above) in almost-nothing-to-the-imagination, plus leaves here and there – I found out later that they’d gone as Adam and (New Year’s) Eve!;

• A fellow with a mustache and shaved head, in full business suit and tie (though sneakers instead of wingtips); I ran behind him for a bit, and noticed he’d added a red cape and devil’s-horns… and pitchfork. The early part of the race had us coursing through the crowds on the square downtown, and quite a lot of the people cheering us on held out their hands so Satan could give them a merry slap on the way past! I chatted him up for a while after the race, and it turns out (I couldn’t see from behind) that the horns were part of a rubber George W. Bush mask; he’d even written on his cape "W for Eternity"… that would be Hell!;

• Another fellow, who turned out to be one of the co-organizers of the event, had on snug pink satin shorts and matching camisole; he’d strategically dropped a pair of oranges into the camisole to complete the ensemble… I’m guessing he was a, uh, drag racer;

• And, finally, there were three guys each wrapped in grey-painted cardboard, holes cut for faces and arms. I thought they were, for whatever reason, supposed to be running cigarettes or cigars, and – I quipped to another runner – they’d be getting shorter as the race progressed. Nope. Someone explained to me that they were, in fact, three of the TMI cooling towers! In fact, running beside them were three more men, these dressed in orange jumpsuits, obviously nuclear-emergency technicians… and one was carrying a geiger counter!!

I had never giggled so hard while running.

I did keep on my flannel and jeans, and windbreaker (it was cold), so I hardly looked the part of a runner, either – but no way, with the above company, could I have considered myself costumed.

Well, so what?

I’ll tell you so what – that little York County town had more steep hills on our two-mile, winding-through-downtown-at-midnight trail, than I’ve seen anywhere this side of (photos of) San Francisco! Downhill, yeah, gravity was in my favor… but uphill, I trudged, limped, and panted.

Some folks – including Adam and Eve – managed to finish in under eleven minutes; your truly – embarrassed-but-defiant blush – crossed the line a bit after twenty-seven minutes, well behind fifty-something Choggun-Nunim… who’s been practicing with Sarge, of course. She also weighs little more than the weight I’d like to lose. I was probably the last to complete. But I did complete.

I didn’t get home till almost 3:00 (AM)… and was still giggling as I fell asleep.

So, yeah, I’m going to do that again next year – whoops; at the end of this year. I’ve got a monk’s habit (fake), with hood, so I’ll probably run wearing it. I’m trying to persuade Chuckles to fly up from down-thar in dixie and join us for a few days, including during the run. She has connections in the medical field (she’s kept them employed and wealthy all her life), and used to work for a veterinary office – so if she comes along, she’ll probably jog in scrubs (with or without white cane – legally blind, remember); we may take turns pushing each other on a gurney, come to think of it.

I’ll probably need it, come the first few fireworky minutes of 2009.

46:31

That's right, folks – I gained nearly two minutes on my last 5K.

This particular run/race/schlep (the latter being more my form) was in that quaint, large small town in west-central Maryland, Frederick – home of an Orioles farm team (more farm than team), the Keys, who are named after erstwhile resident Francis Scott Key. Town's just down the road from Camp David, so some Fridays when I've been in Frederick at just the right (or wrong) time, I've seen Marine One (and a decoy) flying over, northbound. 

Most interestingly, anyway, the evening run was not through the cobblestoned downtown (an awesome little town to stroll through: antiques, restaurants, quaint shops, etc.), but was essentially two laps through a cemetery (where Francis Scott Key is buried, by the way)… with a finish around the Keys outfield.

I'd been trying for weeks to get the rest of the family to join me, starting with older brother Sarge, who ran a 15K right after my last 5K a couple weeks ago. But he'd already registered for an event the next day (tomorrow) and won't ordinarily run on back-to-back days. Younger brother Doc had plans with his daughter; first sister Mew had plans; her athletic son Siege is having knee trouble – though her husband Arn might be able (he didn't). And second sister Alicia is about three months pregnant… and lives in Boston. 

So I turned to family friend and actual Frederick resident, Chuckles. She's legally blind, and writes scripts for various TV shows – from "The Simpsons" to "King of the Hill", "Star Trek", "House", and so on. I hope to begin posting some of her scripts here or on a sister blog I'll set up specifically for her work (which is copyrighted, thank you).

Chuckles' mother and sister are both buried in that cemetery (section QQ), so that may have been her inducement – yes, she joined me for the race/trudge. (My family adopted her – she was once our neighbor – after the sudden passing of her sister, and then her mother, just a few years ago.) She's been ill, having lost (for reasons still unknown, despite some of the best minds at Johns Hopkins throwing their hands up in the air over it) in excess of ninety pounds over the last few years. I think they passed over to me, in fact. 

Her finish time was just over forty-nine minutes… which basically means that I can barely run faster than a seriously ill, blind woman! What's worse, I got passed once by a really cute little Asian-American girl, all five years of her (and her mom). I passed her again, but a little later she passed me once more, and I never saw her again… so I can't even run faster than a five-year-old girl! I'm laughing about it, though. I finished, all right?

Credit, though, goes to brother Sarge (even though he bailed on me!) for getting me started on these things, and another "Sarge" of sorts, neighbor Rosie, whom (along with her well-toned daughter) Chuckles and I almost literally bumped into, milling around and stretching before the start of the race – and an extra brownie point to her for helping me shave off that almost-two minutes. Her daughter is a marathon-runner (and vanished seconds after the starting-gun missed me). Rose is a compact, fifty(?)-something grandmother who serves as drill instructor for a boot-camp style exercise regimen. And like her daughter, she too runs marathons, half-marathons, and so on, with impressive frequency. 

I soon had Chuckles somewhere behind me (and I apologize to her for the view); Rose, though, downshifted and stuck by me the whole way through. She pointed out better methods of breathing, and made other pacing suggestions, all of which I appreciated, since that cemetery had a number of slopes and long hills that my shins and hips made painful note of. Her encouragement and presence by me had me running (well, trotting) for longer spans than I have before, even though the slopes had me walking (though fast) more than I wanted. And at one point Sergeant Rose literally pulled my leg (and ankle) to get some of the shin-splint pain down to a more tolerable level.

This event, by the way, was for many (maybe most?) of the participants, including Rose Jr., an easy warmup for tomorrow's marathon, also in Frederick, Maryland. Pass! But for them it was literally a walk – well, pleasant run – in the park. 

PS: I'll link up some photos once they're online.

PPS: Thanks again, Sergeant Rose!

PPPS: And thanks for putting up with the browbeating, Chuckles – see, even sick and handicapped, you can still almost run faster than a man!

 

48:02

Yes, that was my time for today's 5K: forty-eight minutes and two seconds – and I overheard one of the record-keepers saying that the clock was four seconds fast. Well, I'll take that oh-two anyway. I'm not embarrassed or ashamed of the time – I finished. Oh, I'd certainly like to improve it; a few years back, my time was under forty minutes. But a few years before that, I wasn't running at all. I will improve my time, which I can do by running more on these courses, and walking/trudging them less… plus more practice.

Older brother Sarge ran a 15K that started an hour after ours, and his time was ninety-something minutes (and he looked beat afterward… but he, too, had completed his run). Although I won't normally post pictures of myself or/and of other people mentioned here, I'm adding here a photo of Sarge (left, of course) and me (right) as we're about to cross the finish line.

Sarge's regular companion, Chonggun-nunim, my sister-in-law-in-law, joined me for the 5K, though once we passed the first mile-marker, I began my jogs/sprints, and she finished several minutes behind me. Now, this evening has my face and arms quite red – this early in April, there was no leaf-cover over the trail we ran, a former railroad-track now torn out and replaced with a fine gravel. I'll slather on the aloe today and the next couple days, and be fine – though I should have used the sunblock I'd brought.

I called Spartacus as we were starting out, and again when I finished, since the town where we did this is the same town where he and I attended a couple years of elementary school together, mumble years ago. On the phone, I cautioned him, "Look, just because I called you panting, doesn't mean it's a compliment!" He laughed it off. I offered him to join us sometime (we're of similar circumference), maybe even head up to his seaside state for a run; he declined for now, and insisted there'd have to be an ambulance. "Okay," I said cheerily, "you can drive the ambulance, and I'll ride in back – just keep the paddles warm and greased up, okay?"

This being lovely, bucolic, rural southern-central northeast US, it wasn't surprising that in the 5K there was a farm-figured Mennonite woman in homespun, prayer cap, and sturdy black walking shoes – and, amazingly, she pulled the event's bright orange tee shirt down over her green, feedsack-pattern dress. Here she is as she nears the finish line:

At a couple points before and after the race, we also saw some of this area's regular horse-and-sulkies (though no buggies this time). The air, too, was rather obviously that of horse- and farm-country… not extremely so, however.

Chonggun-nunim and I started out at the back, with maybe three to six people behind us, all walking (though briskly at times), and I did pass some more as the event progressed, but this wasn't an objective. I didn't quite catch up to the nun in crutches, the guy walking on his hands, and the trio of one-legged runners. Maybe next time.

Just kidding! Some folks had brought li'l ones in strollers, and ran or walked with them, others their larger dogs. In fact, even while trudging along, I managed to toss out a pun at a woman headed back the other way (we were running out just over a mile and a half, turning around, and heading back, to get the full 3.2 miles). She was running with a light-colored, sleek-looking greyhoundish dog. I greeted her with a cheery "Now, that's one way to set a target, and whippet!"

We stopped by our dad's grave, and were pleased to see a beautiful little purple-blossomed forsythia growing near his marker. This had been planted by our sister Mew on her visit a month or so ago. The cemetery asks that we not plant flowers, so eventually the mower will claim this pretty sight… but it was still sweet to see, especially with purple being Dad's favorite color. Sarge got a couple photos (I may post them later), and then got an additional photo of the steeple of Dad's church, which can be seen from his grave – which was the prime reason we chose that particular spot. And Dad loved his church (and denomination) very much, so this is just right. Here's a photo of it that Mew took last Fall:

Nearby is also visible the tall Victorian tower of the main building at the university where he taught nearly forty years. This, too, must please him. The official name of that building is Old Main (as you'll find at many universities and larger colleges); typical of him, he deliberately twisted the name – in a process he called Mangled Saxon – into "Old Pain".

Likely he's delighted by his neighbors. A nineteenth-century marker close to his commemorates a Jonathan Sebastian (Dad loved Bach); the immediate neighbor to his left is a woman with the odd name of Ditty Delilah (which I pronounce as "Dirty Delilah"), and to his right a – no kidding – David Butts… might be Seymour's brother?

A Step Forward: In the Running

This weekend I should be able to get a little more backfilling done here: address comments from Spartacus (he and the family are on Spring break, so who knows where they're Roman! heh-heh…), insert URLs/links, and so on. Weather looks like it'll be ugly… although there won't be any more snow for the next seven or eight months, unless Ragnarok's around the corner. Good. 

Next weekend has me and Marine-brother doing another 5K (first since October), back in the Pennsylvania town where we buried our dad. And in May, there'll be another 5K in the beautiful, big little town of Fredneck – er, Frederick. That's a rural, west-central Maryland town I wouldn't mind settling down in: some cobblestoned walkways downtown, nice shops there selling everything from antiques to Wiccan gear to Catholica (great little Catholic bookstore there I've found), good restaurants, and occasional claims to fame, such as Barbara Fritchie, Francis Scott Key (they named a shopping center – and their minor-league baseball team – after him!), and – do I have this right? – a military base where chemical and biological weapons are tested. 

Bear in mind that I stand maybe five-ten, five-nine, soaking wet; on my tiptoes I weigh <very embarrassed cough> about 220 pounds… yet a mere quarter-century ago I was under 150. Sassy-lassie daughter Shelly says I looked hot when I was twenty-two (which was when her mom and I were dating, and got married) – obviously I've grown out of that embarrassment as well. Anyway, I'm in borderline-poor shape. Blood pressure's quite nice (around 118/78), but at my last blood test, my cholesterol was too high; most of the exercise I get is running up and down the steps at work, or striding (I don't merely walk if I'm by myself) up and down the halls, or scooting my chair around behind my desk. 

So a more realistic – and demanding – regimen is called for. Still, if I start a 5K, I finish it. Of course, I'd like to finish it on the same day, you know? Just kidding; I do it in about forty minutes, maybe less – although I walk and trudge it more than actually run it, even when I don't get shin splints: my determination is there, but my stamina still needs oomph. But I can't not run. And I know I can do something about my equator, as Dad used to call it. He lost (my guess) fifty-some pounds over just a couple weeks, back in the late eighties; all it took was nearly dying of diverticulitis. My own regimen will be a little less demanding than ending up with a <weak drum-roll> semi-colon. 

Having a Marine brother helps. During my last run in that Pennsylvania town (that's that one last October), he circled back around for me, and started using his best drill-instructor encouragement… but kindly and encouragingly, and more than once I got my speed back up. And that was a 10K, the first I'd ever tried (been running these things, on and off, nearly ten years). 

So, sure, I'd like to be hardly more than half the man I am now. This will be difficult, and I will not set my sights that far down the road, so to speak. Today first, then tomorrow, then next weak – I mean, week.