the pieces of my life

Do people consciously put on their belts in the same direction? When I put on my jeans, I can never remember which direction my belt should go and then half the time when I go to the bathroom, I get confused and want to buckle the belt in the other direction. Unfortunately, I don’t take the belt out when I take my jeans off, so when I put the jeans on the next day, the belt is still backward. No, I don’t fix it. That would require more work.

The buckle has been bothering me more than usual, as I’ve lightened up so much on the running, because of the self-diagnosed plantar fasciitis. Not running makes me bitchy. Seriously bitchy. And belt buckles annoy me. But that’s what happens when you have plantar fasciitis.

Remember when I used Dr. Internet and her assistant Nurse Duchess and decided I had plantar fasciitis? I followed everything Dr. Internet told me about plantar fasciitis, and I rested my foot, rolled it on a ball, iced, etc.

Yesterday I caved. I went to an orthopedist. And I got my official verdict. I have a “textbook case” of… plantar fasciitis. (You weren’t expecting that, were you?) But the good news? I can still run. Dr. With a Medical Degree told me, “The plantar fasciitis will hurt you, but you can’t hurt the plantar fasciitis.” While Dr. Internet was correct on the diagnosis, he was off on the cure; there is no cure. I will be in pain for about six months to a year. But you know what? As long as I can run, I don’t mind hobbling a bit.

But I still won’t fix the belt buckle.

With my foot still in pain, I’m trying something quite new, quite different this morning. It’s an odd kind of exercise, but one that’s apparently been around for a while, but just hasn’t been something that appealed to me when I was a young and able-bodied person. I always thought this was something I might try when I’m old. Am I old?

Anyway, I’m meeting the Duchess this morning for this thing called “walking.” Apparently it’s in many ways it’s similar to running, but without the harsh pouding. But the thing is, I have no idea how one dresses for this activity. It’s currently 33 degrees/feels like 22. (Some day I’ll look back on this post and do a double take and think, “Wait, I thought this post was from April!”) Running means a pair of running pants and a long-sleeved shirt because after fifteen minutes, I’ll be sweating. But I’m pretty sure one does not sweat the same way on this walk-thing.

At first I suspected I was overreacting by not running, but one late-night dance party with my kids (and, yes, “late night”=9 p.m., so maybe I am old) and I’m hobbling. My dance moves never graduated from the ’80s jump up and down. I took the kids on a walk down memory lane, playing with the songs from my childhood. It started with “Run Joey Run,” the first 45 I ever bought (Pie: “What’s a 45?”). We moved on to Pink Floyd (Pie: “Pink Floyd? She is going to be awesome! Wait, that’s Pink Floyd? I hate Pink Floyd.”) We hit a little Depeche Mode (Me: “I could have sworn I had this song. Oh, wait, it was on a mixed tape.” Pie: “What’s a mixed tape?”). Meanwhile, the boy excels at the Robot (thank you “Mr. Roboto) and he can groove Billy Squier (cue making Adam uncomfortable as I explain what “The Stroke” is actually about). An excellent night. A hobbled foot. Such is life.

So I’m off to try this new-fangled exercise. We’ll see how it goes!

Shall we start by saying that Punxsutawney Phil is a big fat liar? The groundhog promised us an early spring. Guess who’s serving up groundhog for dinner tonight? Stupid Phil.

This morning I ran in as many layers as I did in January. Whenever I run in the brutal cold, I come home with huge swathes of red on my body, and it itches like all heck. I have to wait as long as I can to shower as when I do, the cold patches start to burn like pins pricking all over my body. I thought that this happened to everyone, but according to my friend (and running partner) the Duchess*, I have an actual honest-to-goodness known “thing” (albeit to a minor degree): It’s called Cold urticaria. I feel so special now!

At this one moment in time, I have that feeling of utter freedom as I’m between things. Last week I sent both my revised novel and marketing plan to my agent. Yesterday was the Women’s Seder at my synagogue, of which I am co-chair. It’s a big event, where we spend a year writing a new haggadah and then we have the actual planning/doing of the seder itself, which was no small feat. I was excited that we had 68 women come, and it seemed to be a rousing event.

(Of course, as I was leaving–wearing an actual skirt, jewelry, and a shirt with no rips [well, I thought there were no rips; one was discovered later, but the intention was there], I asked the boy, “How do I look?” He, never taking his eyes off the computer, answered, “Fine.” That boy is his father’s child through and through.)

So at this moment, I have no deadlines more pressing than next Monday’s Passover seder. There will be 20 of us, but others folks are helping with the cooking and I’ve got an entire week to prep, which is more than I’ve ever had, I think.

Time to tackle the more mundane to-do list and sneak in a movie or two off Netflix! Yea!

*By the way, I acknowledge that it’s odd that I haven’t mentioned this friend before, as she’s been my most faithful running partner for about two years now; however, running takes place in a “vault.” Everything said on a run is absolutely secret, as they’re basically 6-mile therapy sessions, so most of what I would say about her, I can’t, because it’s been vaulted. Hence, she is a mystery woman to you all.

Hockey season is fully underway. Tonight was the boy’s first game of the season after a few weeks of scrimmages. Full ice for him this year, and late ice times (so far he’s had practice/games at 7:40 p.m. on Sunday nights!)

The girl had her final day of soccer today. She loves the sport and watching her play is a joy: She truly gives it her all. The New York Times recently ran an article about how hideous running photos turn out. You feel like you’re a champ, giving it your all, and the race photos show a bloated middle-aged woman who looks like she’s out for a leisurely stroll. (“Runners with two feet on the ground look as if they are walking.”) Luckily, Pie has no such woes as this. You can tell that girl is flying.

Today, as the boy was putting in his many hockey pads–an event that takes him a good 20 minutes–I said, “Hey, Dad’s the only one without a sport!”

“You don’t have a sport,” the boy told me.

“I don’t?” I said, surprised.

“What?” he asked. “You mean running? That’s not a sport.”

Last weekend I ran a half. I started keeping track of my races late in the game, but it was the 14th half marathon I’ve run since I started counting. I promised myself I wouldn’t race anymore–training took the fun out of running for me and I grew to dread speed work and intervals and all the other miserable things you need to do to train–but I had a friend who wanted to run her first half. What kind of a loser would I be if I didn’t pace her?

I was pretty pathetic out there. I had gum surgery quite recently and my mouth is hyper sensitive to cold. Tap water makes the nerves in mouth scream in agony. So I was freaked at how to hydrate when the temps were just chilly enough to turn every water station into a waterfall of ice daggers to my mouth (note to self: work on metaphors). My brillant idea was about an 1/8 of a mile before each water station, I so elegantly dug out of my pants rear pocket a tube of Orajel. I gracefully opened it while running, slathered it on my finger, shoved it in my mouth, then put the tube back into my pants. It worked enough that I didn’t hurt myself on the run and had the bonus of disguising the taste of the gel, which I don’t like. My mouth was numb, but not so numb I couldn’t yell out drill-sergeant-esque insults to my running partner, my favorite one being “You can’t cry till you cross the finish line!” Her goal, she mistakenly admitted to me in mile 10, was a 2:20 half. She did it. She probably won’t ask me to run another race with her again, but I got her across in 2:18.

And I just saw the race photos. I look like I”m walking.

I’m not sporty, my ass.

Running has to be the least forgiving sport. Take a couple of weeks off, start back up again, and… splat. It’s starting from zero. Last week was readjustment week and I ran one miserable run, but I was so tired, it didn’t even count. But this weekend I had to start up again, so I plunged in. Although plunge isn’t the right word. Waddled in? Flopped in? Whatever it was, it wasn’t pretty, so I’m back to plodding along at a snail’s pace. I ran a miserable three on Sunday, a horrible six yesterday, and plan on making myself unhappy with a four or five tomorrow. Running sucks. The only thing that sucks more than running, though, is not running, so I guess I’m stuck.

We’re back in sprint mode. School starts this Thursday, today is full of doctor’s appointments, orthodontist appointments (yes! We are there! Orthodontia has begun!), errands, the start of soccer practice, and general crankiness. Seemingly overnight, our calendar has gone from lazy summer days to being filled with dance class, religious school activities, viola, piano, soccer, Girl Scouts…. I am dizzy just looking at it. And the Jewish holidays are smack upon us! Time to start baking hallah, finding new fruits, and planning the sukkah.

But it’s good for us. Pie has had a rough week without routine. She’s anxious for school to start and I know once the first day passes, she’ll be fine, but for now, there’s this little body that has been appearing in our bed in the wee hours of the night. And, frankly, I am dying to get back to writing! The second draft of my novel has been critiqued, and I am eager to get the third draft written. I’m excited about the novel (again! don’t worry; this feeling will pass), and I have been fidgety that I haven’t had any writing time for over a month. This Thursday, it’s novel time! My goal is to have it to my next set of readers come October, which means a lot of focused writing for me.

Run. Write. Parent. Run. Write. Parent. It’s going to be a busy fall!

This morning I went out for an easy five-mile run. On my way down the hill, I saw a friend running in a different direction than I normally go, but running with someone is always better than running alone, so I switched direction and tagged along. We had a lovely run for about a mile, although she pushed me a bit–I hadn’t planned on going quite so fast. I was huffing, but I felt great. We were booking. I looked good! And then she said it. “I’m sorry I’m going so slowly. I’m at the end of a 22 miler.” And sure enough I looked at my watch and we were running a blistering 10:37 pace. How humiliating.

When I was a kid, at bedtime my father often sang me a song about an old Cadillac trying to keep up with a Nash Rambler. (My father was not known for his traditional lullabies.) The gist of it is the Cadillac gives it everything he has and he finally thinks he’s going to take the lead, when the guy from the Nash Rambler calls out, “Hey buddy! How do you get this car out of second gear?”

I am a Cadillac. Old. Slow. Out of fashion.

I hadn’t run in over two weeks. In London, Adam left before 7 a.m. for work and no way was I getting up at 5:30 on vacation to go running. When we got back I had a wicked cold and then we had our lone snow storm of the year, so I’ve been out of commission for a while. I wasn’t really in the mood to start back up today, but Adam just left for yet another trip to London (I don’t envy this trip; he flies overnight to London, goes straight from the airport to meetings, then instead of getting to sleep, he hops another flight tomorrow night to Germany), and I knew that if I didn’t run today, it would be another week.

I did five miserable miles. At points I was running as slow as 10:45. Okay, that’s a lie. I was running 11:00 minute miles. Which wouldn’t be so bad if that hadn’t actually been 11:12 miles.

Running is hard. Stopping running and then running again is even harder. I hate being slow. (At my peak I was doing my “easy” runs at a 9:30 pace. I haven’t seen my peak in about five years.)

And this bowl full of Hamantashen dough isn’t helping, either. Mmmm, Hamantashen dough!

My routines have been completely thrown out of whack lately. My writing has slipped. My running has slipped. My general hygiene has slipped (many folks may recall that when I don’t run, I don’t see the point of showering). This is the week I take charge! Exercising! Writing! Showering! Getting through my to-do list!

Charge!

Although, at a 10:37 pace, it’s not really a charge, is it? It’s much more of an amble. If I could only get out of second gear.

This is the first year since 2004 that I haven’t considered doing a marathon. I ran New York in 2004; 2005 I skipped because Pie was born; ran New York again in 2006; Miami in 2007; Baystate in 2008; and Miami again in 2009. I had planned on running Chicago last year, trained, made it up to 18 miles, but ended up bailing on the race because every time I ran over 16 miles, something hurt. As I’ve mentioned here before, I have nothing left to prove. My PR (personal record) isn’t fabulous, but it’s nothing to be embarrassed about either (my first marathon I ran in about 5:19, I think; my PR, Baystate, was 4:13:46. I’m considering having that number tattooed on me. Just kidding. I think.).

So this is the first summer I’ve been able to feel laissez-faire about my running. I’m running primarily for fun. I’m cross training. I take a Piyo class (Pilates/Yoga) my neighbor runs once a week. I’ve been doing strength training videos. I’m walking a ton. I’m still running three or four days a week, but at a slower pace and for shorter distances. It’s more enjoyable.

I’ll be doing a half marathon in the fall, the same one I’ve done for the past four years. But as I’m not training for a marathon, I’ll need to do a little work to get up to speed for the half. I resigned myself to looking up a half marathon plan. Working backwards from the race date, I’ll have to start training about August 14.

Hal Higdon is my go-to training plan guy. So I went to his half marathon plans with a heavy heart. Do I really feel like getting back into the training grind? Am I ready for the commitment? I decided to go with the Intermediate plan. I’m definitely not a novice, but I don’t feel like putting in the effort (read: speed work) to do the Advanced plan.

So, with my eyes half shut to block out the pain of training, I looked at the plan. And—oh my gosh—it’s nothing! After all those years of thinking in terms of a marathon, I completely forgot that training for a half marathon doesn’t require much effort! Midweek runs max out at 5 miles. And there’s one—one!—12 mile run. I do anywhere from 6 to 10 miles right now on the weekends. 12 is nothing more. I know for a lot of folks 12 miles seems daunting. And it can be! But not from where I am.

I can be lax on running and still race safely. I can go on vacation and not stress if I don’t get the miles in. Half marathons, baby! It’s where I’ll be from now on.

I hate revising. I mean I really, really hate revising. Well, except when I love it. When I love it, revising is wonderful. But today I hate it. Today I feel lost in the morass of words that make up my novel. My novel is now about 6,000 words longer than it was. But are they good words? Are they words that further my plot, enhance the mood, create tension? Or are they just 6,000 more words?

To relieve the stress, I should go for a run. But, really, why? Because complaint number two is that my shot at Boston is gone. Okay, realistically, it was gone a long time ago, but I still had these dreams. My marathon PR is 4:13:46. I’m 42 1/2. At 45, the qualifying time for a woman is 4:00. Before I hurt my foot, that felt doable. Post-foot problems, I still thought I’d get my mojo back and succeed.

Not anymore. Oh, I still think I could make 4:00 by the time I’m 45. But 4:00 is no longer a Boston qualifier (BQ). Because the BAA deemed that too slow. Apparently, just anyone can run fast and the race sold out too quickly last year. So they made the times faster. And created a rolling admission. So even if, by some miracle, I could run the 3:55 that is now the BQ for 45 year olds (which I can’t), they’re going to let those who run it faster in earlier. Those who beat their required BQ time by 20 minutes or more or going to be allowed to enter the race on September 12. Those who beat it by 10 minutes, can enter on September 14. On September 16, those who have beaten it by 5 minutes get to register. On September 19, all those plebeians who just made the BQ are allowed to register. If there’s still room.

Complaint number three? My boy is sitting here and won’t get his finger out of his belly button. He is going to be in braces the rest of his life because he won’t get his finger out of his mouth, either. Seriously. That kid is not going to ever get a date for the senior prom at this rate. Because you can’t dance with one finger in your mouth and the other in your belly button. [He’s reading over my shoulder and says, “I don’t care! I hate the senior prom! Whatever that is.” Maybe I’ll remind him that there are no great rock and roll singers who suck their fingers. At least not in public.]

But it all leads back to complaint number one. I hate revising. Really really hate revising. Maybe I should start sucking my finger. Apparently it makes everything bad go away.

Gebre Gebremariam finished today in 2:08:14. I finished today in 2:00:47. Impressive, no? We’ll just overlook the fact that Gebre ran a marathon and I was running a half marathon.

I wasn’t in the mood for my run today. I wasn’t trained, I wasn’t feeling up for the hour and a half drive to get there, and I certainly wasn’t in the mood for a 13.1 mile run. But I did it. Because I am a glutton for punishment. I was so disappointed not to run Chicago this year, that I wasn’t going to let myself miss my annual half marathon. I made it up in my Chicago training to  18 miles, but my podiatrist had given me a brace for my foot and I found when I wore it, my knee would hurt. So I abandoned my marathon dreams for this year. I wrestled with it–what was I trying to prove? It’s not like I haven’t run a marathon before–but it still bothered me. My running became lackluster. Today’s half sucked pretty badly. Some races you run and you think, “This is amazing! I’m strong, I’m powerful, I’m feeling good!” Today all I could think was, “This sucks this sucks this sucks. What the F do I run? This sucks. How much longer?”

The scenery was beautiful, but it was seriously chilly and windy. The tide was so high that the waves crashed onto the street, making for wet toesies. But I just didn’t like it. Not enough to pull a Haile Gebrselassie, who has decided, at five years younger than me, that he’s too old to run. But enough that I’ll be taking a little break from serious running. I need to embrace my strengths. Like drinking. I’m a great drinker. So I’ll stick with that.

I so heart my podiatrist. I had my third visit with him today. My petroneus longus tendon has been giving me problems. Bad petroneus longus tendon! My podiatrist gave me a brace to wear and some exercises to do. It helped significantly. I can walk without pain. But the running is still an issue.

At the appointment today, I told him, “I know the no-brainer answer to my problem, but I don’t want to do it. My foot only hurts on long runs.”

He shrugs. “The no brainer being, ‘Don’t run long.’ How badly does it hurt?”

“I’m fine during the runs. But I’m totally hobbled after my runs.”

He nodded. “Well, I’ll give you a stronger brace to wear during your runs.”

I was elated. “You’re not going to tell me to not run?”

He asked, “Would you listen to me?”

Me: “Um, probably not.”

Doc: “So I’ll give you a stronger brace. But the minute that marathon is over, you’re coming back in for an MRI so we can see what kind of damage you did to yourself.”

He did assure me that because my foot is improving and that I’m fine on my non-long running days that my foot is recovering and I’m not exacerbating anything. So I’m probably not doing any permanent damage. Which is good enough for me right now, surprisingly so, as I’ve not really been into my runs and looking for excuses to get out of them. But I’ve hit that point where I’m far enough along in my training that there’s no point in backing out now. I did 16 mile last Saturday and I’ll do 18 this weekend, which is pretty much there, so why bother bailing now? It’s just two months till Chicago, which means just six weeks till tapering, which means I better get my plane ticket soon.

Another thing I like:

En garde!

When I signed the boy up for an intro to fencing class, I had to call and manually register him because he missed the cutoff of age seven and the web site rejected him. But he got in. When I took him to his first class, the teacher asked if anyone else wanted to fence. Not-even-five-year-old Pie jumped right in as did another little girl. The teacher immediately nicknamed the two of them Giggles One and Giggles Two. She loves it. They’re both so darn cute out there!

And now, for the things I don’t like:

G.E. My oven is still broken. Yes, people, we are on to six weeks now and the appliance company is getting tired of hearing from me, but not so tired that they’ll fix the damn oven! The part that was supposed to take 3 to 5 business days is now on its 11th business day of travel. If I can’t bake a cake in my own oven for my babies’ birthdays, G.E. is going to understand the meaning of a Mad Housewife.

Running. Yeah, I really don’t like it anymore. And yet… And yet. Ugh.

The fact that my Ivy League-educated husband is incapable of flipping a light switch off or closing a cabinet door/drawer. How hard is it to open the cabinet, remove your coffee mug, and then close the cabinet. Every time I walk into the kitchen, it’s like there was some mass rebellion by cabinetry. Today there were two doors open, the utensil drawer open to its fullest, the overhead light on, and the pantry light on. And then when I went upstairs, his sock drawer was lying wide open. Really that hard? Just a little nudge of the hip and it slides closed again! It’s a miracle! They open and close! What will science discover next?

How freakin’ much airlines now charge. We bought our tickets home for our yearly jaunt to Miami Beach, and we have never paid so much money for that trip. I’m pretty sure the tickets to Florida were on par to what we paid to fly to Israel. And according to Farecast, the flight prices are only going up, which I can verify because between when we priced tickets on Wednesday and bought them on Friday, they had already gone up $100 a ticket.

That I wanted to upload video of the armed punks (well, armed with plastic foils), but my videos are too big and I don’t have time to figure out how to shrink them. So instead of a cute note, we’ll end with a cranky note. Freakin’ oven, cabinets, plane tickets, running, video. Grumble grumble.

P.S. Adam just called. I said, “Oh, I was just trashing you in my blog!” He laughed and said, “Oh good! Another usual Monday!” I like that. So we’ll end there instead of with the grumble.