Hola Amigos/as !

It seems We are mudded. That means white walls and even primed and ready for paint.

Many thanks to The Action Team including: AlienAllan Carr, Jimi Owens, Brian Mccarthy, Mark GutzGutzmer, Jimmy theK Kleinman, Rev Barry White, and Wifey Nancy for their intellectual, physical, and ergonomic efforts. It's starting to look like it might get done. Stay tuned...

RIP Uptown Bar

So many wonderful, fun memories, from dating days to married days, hanging out with Michele & Mort Necros & all our other neighborhood pals, eating nachos, enjoying the best chef salad in Mpls, curing hangovers with bloodys and hash browns (and the #7 with fiberglass cheese). It was Steve's after-bartending hangout. Steve went to the second-to-last concert there last night and got to sing with the band - dressed in his Elvis suit. Sigh. All good things come to an end :(

The Race

It was the wind that woke me up - the sound coming into my fragmented sleep, shaking the leaves, whooshing up the street. I got up and looked out at the streetlight, taking in the inch of wet snow on the ground and the horizontal slashes of snow in front of the light. A good time to pee.

I knew the bad weather was coming. You train and train and train for a marathon, but when the day comes, nature sees it as any other day, and any random crazy weather thing can happen. So on this day in early October, nature’s randomness produced snow and sub-freezing temperatures. Okay. What are you gonna do? Go back to bed, get a couple more hours of rotisserie “sleep,” and see what it looks like at 6:30.

At 6:30 the snow had stopped, there were pretty, puffy clouds scooting across a sky with occasional peeks of just-dawn blue, and the temperature was 25. At this point the questions are purely practical ones: What will the weather be during the window from 9 AM to 1 PM when I’m running? Tights or capris? Tee-shirt under the jacket or long-sleeves? I know I have Steve planning to meet me at miles 8, 16 and 20 along the course, so I will have the option of dumping clothes or taking more on, but I’ve also learned that it’s good to be prepared for your person not being there at all (anything could happen! It could snow in October!) I dress in things I know I can handle for the whole distance. Just in case.

The other thing is having a backup race plan. I want to run this marathon in under four hours. Bad. In 1991 I ran my first marathon. I finished in 4:00:51. Since then I’ve run eight more, none of them faster, and a few far slower. But the last two have been good - my most recent one in May qualified me for Boston in 4:04:40. My plan had been to qualify for Boston in today’s race, but by the grace of the running gods I got it in Madison. So here I am with my final running goal: break four hours; a goal I’ve had in front of me for almost 20 years. It’s bigger than Boston. It’s personal. And, almost 20 years after I almost got there, I really wasn’t sure if I could do it.

But the thing about goals like this is that if you fail to meet them, you feel crappy - and I don’t want to feel crappy about finishing a marathon, or even attempting to finish one. I still recognize this as a pretty cool accomplishment. So - the backup plan. I have three running plans: the “in my dreams” sub-four-hour time, the time I know I can do, and the “I’m just gonna finish” time. Today, though, because the weather was looking very iffy, I had a fourth plan: bail out and run a different marathon two weeks later with the hope of breaking through the four-hour wall then. Part of the reason to have Steve at miles 16 and 20 was to have the option to say, “Uh-uh - not today.”

Yeah, but I still really want to do it today. And when we get to the start, the wind has let up, the snow has stopped, and the morning is actually, truly, quite lovely. Snow hangs on the leaves, which have all their fall colors. The sun breaks through the clouds. Every breeze shakes down crystals of snow that sparkle in the sunlight as they fall against the reds and yellows of the leaves. It’s cold, but cold is better than hot for running as far as I’m concerned. It’s, well, perfect. And after a couple of manic photos, we are off.

It takes a couple miles to get into the groove, and after that, it takes some concentration to deal with the dirt trail on which this marathon is run. It’s loose in the middle, and the sides are only slightly better. But, man, it’s awfully pretty, and soon the miles are clicking by, and the trail is improving, and I’m feeling good, very good. I see Steve, I reach the halfway mark at almost 1:59, the spectators and race volunteers are wonderful, I see Steve again at 16 and finally again at 20, still feeling very good, and then somewhere between miles 23 and 24, I start running out of steam. This is where it gets real. But I am still on track to finish in under four hours - all I have to do at this point is maintain anything under a 10-minute mile. And I’ve been running just under 9s. I know I’m going to make it. This alone is enough jet fuel to get me through those last three miles.

The wind had picked up a couple hours into the race, but it’s been felt mostly as a tailwind or maybe a crosswind as we’ve run the forested course. But at mile 26, making the turns in the open to the finish, we feel its full force. It is a mighty wind that makes me grateful I wasn’t running into its maw for 26 miles; I just have to suck it up for the last two tenths. How hard is that? And look at my time coming to the finish line - 3:54!! I pump my arms and smile huge: a good day to run after all.

Happy Vacation Wonderland

Vacation=wake, coffee, run, breakfast, newspaper, read, adventure, hammock, fish, cocktails, dinner, fish, read, doze, repeat.

Bayview lodge was almost a month ago but recent snow[s] remind of us blissful 2 weeks of perfect sweatshirt mornings followed by sunny afternoons. We scored on the weather and lost track of days= perfect. Mark and Jenee joined us for tequila, action was tempered with idleness, and relaxation was achieved. So good to return to magic place of boyhood wanderings [?].

We could handle being retired up here ...

Ankle Envy

It’s pretty sad when you look at your friend’s brand new baby, all fresh and new and gurgly, and your eyes wander down to baby’s pudgy little ankles - the right ankle, to be precise - and all you can think of is how brand new and undamaged all those fresh, new ankle ligaments and tendons are. How unsprained.

I’d grown complacent, obviously. After surgery five years ago to tighten up my loosened ankle tendons caused by too many sprains to count, I had gone without a single injury to my bionic ankle. It was like new! Like that baby’s! Except for the hideous surgical scar, it even looked normal. Sigh.

And so, early one morning three weeks ago, I ran on the dirt trail next to the paved path around Lake Calhoun. I do this because it’s easier on the knees (irony here). The morning light was wan, dusky, inarticulate. I was still half asleep and distracted by the noisy conversation of the two chattering women running a little bit behind me. And I stepped on a big, fat rock in the middle of the path - one that’s been there forever, and which I have not stepped on, ever, in years of running that path. I’ve since gone back and found the rock. It’s a tip-of-the-iceberg rock; completely undislodgeable. I want to paint it bright orange to warn others, but I fear that they’ll be so distracted by the orange rock that they’ll actually step on it and be similarly sprained.

I knew immediately it was bad. I even heard a crack when it happened - not super loud; just enough under the decibel meter to allow me to think, “It could have just been the tendon snapping over the bone. Yeah. It was that.” It swelled instantaneously. I mean, literally - I pulled down my sock and it was all puffy, right away, like that baby’s pudgy ankle, but in a really bad way.

I recently read about a study that was done, presumably using college students, showing that cursing actually makes people able to tolerate pain better. (I told a friend of mine about the study and she said, “They had to do a study to show THAT?”) I hope those women behind me knew I was exercising pain management that morning. I do know that all the effenheimers I expleted helped me get to the endorphin stage, where my body basically deadened my ankle pain for the mile I had left to get back home. (Just so you know how sickly addicted I am to running: for a brief moment, I actually thought, “Maybe I can run through it.”)

After the urgent care x-rays showed no broken bones, I was told to see a specialist a week later as follow-up. I sheepishly went to my old surgeon, whom Steve fondly calls “Dr. Cheeks” (because he’s always running a little behind - thank you Bart Simpson). The bruising went from my toes halfway up my calf. I told Dr. Cheeks, “I’m so sorry - I ruined your beautiful surgery.” And he told me I could run. I had to take it easy, I had to wear a horribly uncomfortable brace and pay attention to pain and swelling, but I could run.

So, I think I’m back. I replaced the Brace-of-Torment with strategically placed athletic tape. Last Sunday I ran 12 miles and it was good. I’ve run this week. I’m planning 14-16 miles for tomorrow, depending on how it feels. But I still look at the skinny, undamaged, colt-like ankles I see running around the lakes and, indifferent to the people who own them, I covet them.

Weekend Workstorm

Hola  Amigos, 

The Carpenter here, with the news.

The remodel progresses.

All rough-in, and Utility inspections have been approved. The Cabinets are here, the tile is here and the walls are only just insulated. Drywall is  necessary to install both. We are ok per tile but behind on Drywall. It’s been a productive solo effort this weekend as Nancy is doing homework, too.

Optimism is beneficial,and necessary. A fire under your butt gets some serious mojo working. 

It’s madcap hijinks, and also serious fun. Sleep is for the weak, progress is good !

Enjoy the sunlight, and sleep fast !

-Stelvis 

[after a busy weekend and some good jamming at Paul and Marys Skishindig]

The Unbearable Tightness of Flying

Remind me never to fly into Philadelphia again. It’s close to other eastern city airports. Tell me to fly into them, rent a car, and then drive to my Pennsylvania destination.

To keep things in perspective: it was not the quintessential undiluted nightmare scenario of sitting on the tarmac for 13 hours without food, water or working lavatories, which is my personal standard of the truly horrible air travel experience. It was only an hour and a half waiting in Minneapolis because of the back-up in Philadelphia, and then another hour waiting in Philadelphia after arriving, and then on return to Minneapolis two days later, waiting again for almost an hour in Philadelphia because they were all backed up. On that leg I was next to John Ginormitron, a six foot five inch, circus big, hairy white guy IN SHORTS who took up fully half the air space of my seat. Sitting on the wing would have been more comfortable. Unfortunately I couldn’t fully hate him because his air travel sob story was way worse than mine. He and his family (yes, screaming kids, too. But that’s still a choice) got to the airport at 4:30 AM, and, after a number of ridiculously unlikely fiascos, wound up finally on my 5:22 PM departing flight that actually took off at 7:30. And he was a pretty nice guy, even after all that. A nice, super huge, guy. I just made myself a two-dimensional, piece-of-paper-person pressed up against the inside of the plane, face shmooshed up against the window, coveting all that nice, open space outside the window.

Even though, and in spite of all that, I still love flying. What I love best is the take-off when this huge, multi-ton, metal container goes faster and faster and faster and you fear you’ll just run off the end of the road but then, LIFT, up up up up, and you’re flying. Flying! What a crazy, miraculous thing. And you watch the earth drop away from you, and your stomach feels buoyant, and you see this living geography below you, with cars and the lakes you just ran around this morning, and it’s like seeing it on TV because it’s framed by the window, but it’s real, and those are real people in their cars, talking on their cell phones and texting like idiots. You are detached from the earth, like a spaceship only in a lower orbit, and if you’re flying alone, all your people are down there, and here you are, in space, flying above everything. It’s pretty cool.

A funny thing happened on the way to the finish line ...

I sit here on our lovely screen porch, having some Chex mix with peanuts, listening to the wind blow through the trees, admiring Kismet's ability to sleep 20 hours a day.  The gimlet helps medicate the still-sore quads from yesterday's race.

And what a race it was.  I set out hoping for a best time of 4:15 on a hilly course.  I ended up running a whole 10 minutes faster, finishing in 4:04:40.  Which qualifies me as a 50-year-old woman to run the Boston Marathon.  AIEEEEEE!!!!!  Don't think I didn't think of this as I saw myself within one hour of the finish at 20 miles.  I only had to keep cranking out 9-minute miles - a pace I generally don't run even in a 10k.  Which was exactly the distance to the finish.

But I did it anyway.  Yes, I made pathetic little crying sounds the last two miles.  But I made it in with, technically, one minute & 19 seconds to spare (because the qualifying time is 4:05:59).  And I ran the second half of the marathon faster than the first (2:03:38, 2:01:02).

But enough about me.  Steve ran the quarter marathon and did 100% of the driving on the trip.  We had a little adventure with a flat tire in Eau Claire on Friday night, and got to meet the nice people at Saturn of Madison on Saturday to get a new tire put on.  We got to spend some time with folks from our running club, the Minnehaha Marathoners, who were running the 4-person relay at the race.  It was good.

But the best part was qualifying for Boston.  I still can't believe it.

50

Well, it does look like a big number, but then again, it depends on the context: it’s what you’d pay to buy Baltic Avenue in Monopoly (or is it Mediterranean Ave?). If it were a lottery payout, you’d think it was a pretty small number. Compared to the age of the universe, it’s a blip. So, 50 is really only as big as you make it. If you even want to make it a deal at all.

But it is kind of a deal. If I don’t do something stupid and die before I’m 100, 50 is smack dab in the middle of middle age. It feels like a bigger deal than 40. I suppose when I turn 60, I’ll be saying the same thing about 50. But it’s kind of a landmark - like New Year’s, it’s a time to take stock of your life.

Phrases like, “take stock of your life,” automatically make me want to rebel and go out and break minor laws. The words are uttered in a faintly British accent, in sonorous, serious tones, and I’m fairly sure the products thusly stocked involve Serious Endeavors, Reproduction (and of not just average children, but of highly achieving, Mensa members), A Lot of Money in the Bank, and A Very Clean House.

I have none of these things.

What I do have is the memory from a bicycle trip where my bike was leaning up against a picnic table, panniers front and back, and I looked at it and thought, “That’s all I need.” So when I look at our messy, mid-remodel house, and my messy, unemployed delight of a husband, and my I-love-it-most-of-the-time job (and the fact that I have a job at all), not to mention my sweet family, my most excellent friends, and my most adorable and fuzzy kitty, well, I have to say, I feel like I’m doing okay.

We’re up here in the very frozen northland of Superior, Wisconsin, on the edge of Lake Superior, which is ice for a good mile out from the harbor. The ice buckles up into a ridge where it meets the open water, and the ridge is visible from the shore. It makes a person feel very small and easily frozen.

But somewhere between the expanse of the whole wide universe and the minutiae of me lies the Anchor Bar in Superior, and the in-the-moment pleasure of a great burger and fries and excellent beer. Life is where you grab it and make it great, and may you do so whether you’re 5 or 25 or 50 or 89. Cheers!