Rural Quietude

After today's training, which seemed particularly grueling even with other members of my training group yelling encouragement as they passed me, my husband and I took off for our quinta (a small country place) in the orange-growing region to the south of the city.

Since I had already given myself today's dose of physical abuse, I decided not to ride. It would have taken up too much time to jerry-rig a pulley-and-crane system to haul me aboard Bandolero, so I gave him his carrots--that's all he thinks I'm good for anyway, supplying carrots and fawning over him idiotically.

I don't know what comes to your mind when you think "countryside". Perhaps a green, gently rolling English meadow framed by hedgerows and harboring some placid, fat sheep. Or those endless amber waves of grain in the U.S. heartland. Or even the rough, mesquite-infested ranchlands in the Texas hill country. But I'll bet my Asics yet again that you don't imagine a place where the decibel level drives you indoors.

My husband and I settled comfortably on the porch in lawn chairs, a gentle breeze blowing; he had some work to do, and I planned to slip into a comatose state. It was not to be.

Suddenly the cicadas fired up, and it sounded like chain saws at a major logging facility.

"Good grief!!" roared my husband over the din. I knew he was saying something else because I could see his mouth move. He gathered his papers and beat a retreat into the house.

The din came in waves, falling off to a serenade similar to the sound of Italian motorbikes on a busy Rome street. During the relative lulls, the rest of the noise could be heard: birds that chirped, cawed, whistled, crowed, gobbled or screamed. There were sounds I couldn't identify--an odd hooning, and some sort of monotonous animal call. Once in a while, a goat bleated.

Maybe it's the drought that has affected the insects, but we couldn't remember this level of racket during other springtimes when sudden showers would discourage the cicada madness. There was one memorable rainstorm after which the frogs and toads came out in such numbers you couldn't hear yourself think and you couldn't find a clear piece of ground to step on. The only other time we had experienced such an invasion was during a vacation in Hawaii--we were trying to play tennis and had to take "toad breaks" to push the little devils off the court.

I'm indoors now and the cicadas are just a distant whine. This has been one of those days when I can't help wondering if a major rain isn't on its way--hope really does spring eternal--because this decibel level isn't normal. But no matter. If the cicadas don't get us, the toads will.

On a cool day

Today dawned cloudy, cooler, with a slight northern breeze. At seven a.m. the park was filled with strollers and runners of all ages, and as our weather heats up, it gets more and more crowded in the mornings. My horse vet and my ENT doctor both say that if they can't get out to run in the morning, then that's it; the afternoons are like Hell's waiting room.

Not to overdo it, I did an easy kilometer trot, then a short walk, then another K trot, then a long walk. These moderate sessions are always entertaining because I have time to watch other people. Today brought home some important lessons which I was fortunate enough to learn before I even began this adventure, thanks to Rodrigo and Hernán:

1-Your tendons, joints, and ligaments train up a lot slower than your muscles and cardiopulmonary system. If you don't start learning to run slowly, you will end fast.

2-If you don't get the right shoes for your feet, you will be injured right out of the starting gate. You can decide whether to spend the money on a sports medicine expert from the outset in order to evaluate your feet, or to spend money and lots of time on the injury you may get by going it solo.

3-You may not need a trainer, but you definitely need some kind of good running book that has training schedules and advice for beginners and advanced runners alike. You need specialized books and support from informed runners if you plan to run barefooted.

The reason I thought about these lessons today was because there was a young man on the running path who seemed determined to destroy every joint in his legs. He was overweight and wearing shoes with no cushioning whatsoever. The shoes did not look like running shoes at all, in fact, and were probably built for some other sport. As he pounded toward me from the opposite direction, then passed me, I turned to look at him and was appalled to see he was wearing a backpack which was obviously loaded. What was this young man thinking? Was he unsatisfied with the large amount of extra weight he was carrying in the form of fat and felt he needed to pile on more? Was he hoping to lose weight faster by torturing his joints this way? It occurred to me that maybe he had begun running to lose weight and had fallen into the calorie consumption perception trap: one tends to overestimate the calories used up in exercise and underestimate the calories consumed. That's because after you have struggled, gasped, agonized, and forced yourself through an exercise session, you just can't believe how few calories you have actually used up.

My running book has some very good advice for people who run exclusively to lose weight: Don't. Find other reasons. Run because it gives you a psychological lift that lasts all day. Run because it increases your immune system. Run because you enjoy the outdoors, the company of others or the solitude of a lone run. Do it because you want to improve your over-all health. Do it because it is the time of day that belongs only to you, an activity that you dedicate just to yourself and to no one else. You may lose weight while doing it, but if that is your only reason, you will miss out on so many other things.

Our miserable weather

The past two mornings have been unbelievably hot and humid--where the humidity is coming from is any man's guess because once more we are rainless and cooking under the sun. My fibro has kicked in big time, so I have stayed at home hoping that Monday will bring renewed energy, or something.

One of my cyber running pals has commented that I should enter a race, that surely people will be walking the 5K and I won't come in last. On the other hand, coming in last is rough work, and someone's got to do it, so maybe I should go ahead and find out what it's like to be in a race. All I can say is, if the weather keeps up like this, a race is almost out of the question. It's possible my body simply isn't acclimated to the combination heat-exercise; we'll see. Stay tuned.

Even the flat seems uphill...

The minute I woke up this morning and started to leave the bed, I heard a voice:

"What are you doing???"

"Well, after some coffee, I thought I'd go out and try to train..." I replied with a certain hesitation.

"My God, you must be mad! There is no better excuse than fibromyalgia for staying in a prone position!"

By this time, I realized the voice was my body, trying to get me to lie down again, or at least to watch the news on television. It was touch and go there for about half an hour as my body pulled in one direction and my weakened determination in another, but since the training routine for today was an easy one (ten minutes running, five walking, repeated twice), my flabby determination won out, but just barely.

By this time it was seven o'clock and the park was packed to the rafters. But off I went, cutting off a whole minute from my one kilometer time. Big deal. Nine minutes instead of ten! I'm still going to win the bet with Adrián.

It seemed to me like there was a weird crew out this morning. There were some very, very old men, considerably overweight, who looked like they really shouldn't be out in this heat. There was an old gal who looked at me with the most horrific scowl, as if she might be furious with me for being there; on the other hand, she looked at everyone that way. There was a guy I recognized from a few years ago; he had become incensed because I was walking my dogs and said I couldn't take them to the park because they would poop on the path. When I tried to explain that my dogs were trained only to poop in their own back yard or on grass, he would not even listen. I told him he needed a dermatologist, a barber, and a shrink, and I left him fuming while I continued my walk. He must not have recognized me today because he smiled, but I looked at him as if seeing a cockroach on a cake. He probably went home and told his wife that there was a really weird bunch of runners out this morning.

These are the days that I feel best about, because they are so hard. Every fiber of me wanted to do absolutely nothing, but as I managed to find a groove during the first ten minutes of my run, I realized I might manage to make it through. The second ten minutes were uphill even on the flat, perhaps because I had my long distance glasses on and misread my watch, adding an extra ten minutes to my run before I realized my mistake just in time not to actually run them. There is no way I am going to enter some race at this point, however...

Cross-training fall-out...

Impossible today to finish the whole training schedule! After riding for over an hour yesterday, training my horse and myself, today I woke up feeling like I'd been hit by a train. Tomorrow's activity is more feasible. But to my horror, Adrián is trying to get me to enter a 5K that is coming up, trotting 3K and walking 2. I told him I would surely make a colossal fool of myself, but he is going to become insistent, and since he is the trainer, I may wind up doing this. You know how it is these days: You can't make a single false move without winding up on YouTube, so whatever happens, if I enter the race I will have to concentrate on not crashing and burning, or having my sports bra explode, or undergoing a shoe blow-out.

God, with any luck the race takes place when I'm in Austin and I won't be able to enter! Yeah, yeah, lily-livered me!

This is Bandolero....

He is a Lusitano, the Portuguese version of the Andalusian horse. His name, which means "bandit", is because he assaulted my heart and my pocketbook with one fell swoop. He is my cross training!

The Comeback

Finally after seeing a ENT doctor, my dizziness is being treated and I hit the park this morning--along with the rest of Adrián's team which had survived the Houston triathlon. These things are superhuman. Can you imagine being in constant movement (swimming, biking, and running) for 10 hours?? The mind, once again, boggles.

It was not on my schedule today, but it was a psychological necessity to run the distance I had been doing before the inner ear problem; the shock was that Adrián informed me the distance is four kilometers, not three as I had thought! Four K!! Okay, okay, it took about ten minutes a kilometer, but hey!! Who cares? Five K is just a stone's throw away, and then I can work on time. I'm still going to win the bet, and Adrián is beginning to look worried at the idea of having to pay me a cake. Ha!

Once more, a comeback.

The Fine Print

Yesterday the running park was practically empty, either because there is a big event this weekend in Houston, or because the world ended yesterday while I was busy with something else. Surely the non-end-of-the-world is one of those "Is my face red!!??" moments for the whacky few who divested themselves of their wordly belongings in preparation for the big happening.


They really put out an effort to convince the rest of us, too, in one of those very common human foibles that makes us want to talk others into sharing our idiocy so that we can be confirmed in the truth of our beliefs. People like this can be danged pests; it's the matched pair of Seventh Day Adventists who ring your doorbell while you are trying to make lunch, or the matched pair of nuns from the church down the street who assume you are a Catholic and are pushing their way into your house to ask for a donation while you are trying to catch your cat, who has brought a dead bird into the living room. It's the matched pair of lady volunteers at your local hospital who come into your room to shower you with tiny cards showing the Virgin Mary or which contain prayers, making you wonder if your surgery went a lot worse than anyone is telling you. Some of these people are trying to do you good, but they seem to lack that part of the brain that would permit them to ask you what you want instead of imposing unbidden.

The most recent whackos stated that the Bible "guaranteed" the the world was going to end yesterday. You know how it is with guarantees: There is that fine print at the end of the page that conditions the guarantee, stating that if you misuse the product, fling it about, or stomp on it, the manufacturer will kick you out the door if you try to get your money back. Perhaps all religious-based writings should come with that warning, because if there is anything flung about, stomped on and misused, religion is it.

The most fun I've had with Seventh Day Adventists--although they may have been Mormons, now that I think about it, because the Mormons have just built a singularly uninspired, huge church not far from here--was one day as I was arriving from the store and unloading my sacks of groceries. Two matched pairs of good-news-ers wanted to give me some literature, and one of them (a gringo, no less) asked if I spoke English. They congregated around, all set to save my soul, and were about to be a major pain in the butt until in a moment of inspiration I announced that I was an atheist. It's as if the devil had popped up out of the sidewalk--they hotfooted it off down the street double time, much to my relief.

As I trotted down the running path (doing a bare minimum because of what now turns out to be a middle ear inflammation), running over in my mind the vicissitudes suffered by the people who from one band or another throughout history have claimed to be chosen by God, then I hope to remain a part of the unwashed masses who aren't chosen, by dang. And if heaven is populated by some of the characters who claim to be keepers of the Truth, who the heck needs hell?

The proverbial dog, sick...

Why do dogs have such a reputation for being sick? That's how upset my stomach is right now, and with this enforced day of time-off from the running path, philosophical matters can be attended to. It could be that the proverbial dog is what you are as sick as (how's that for tortured syntax?) because dogs can vomit at will--or as my mother pointed out one time, they can also vomit at Joe or Bubba. But dogs can't compare with a cat upchucking a hairball or something it ate which it shouldn't have--one of our cats, right after we moved from Mexico City to northern Mexico, was overly excited by the presence of cockroaches, something he had never seen before, and he downed quite a few. Now, that's sick! Nothing a dog could bring up holds a candle to a gutfull of partially digested roaches!

Another burning issue which after my 43 years in Mexico no one has been able to clarify: How could anyone in this country be constipated? It's like being constipated in, say, India. The mind can't get around it. Apparently I'm the only woman in the country who isn't, in fact. I've been tempted to ask these women if they have ever eaten the food here or drunk the water. Let me put it this way: There are desserts made with chile peppers, such as mango ice with chipotle (delish!). The range of chiles is endless, from the mildest to the nuclear chile habanero, yet with all the spices and fiber in the Mexican diet, most women seem to be constipated. One might suspect that the lining of the stomach and intestines has been evaporated by all these chiles and said organs have come to a halt. Some of the remedies are extremely tasty, in fact, and for that alone are worth the effort--nopalitos in salads and tamarind drinks, for example--healthful and vitamin-packed. But if I ate like that every day, I'd be like the tourist on a flight I took one time--he had to be strapped onto the toilet during the entire flight because there was no way he could sit anywhere else for more than 30 to 40 seconds. Now that, I can identify with.

Fortunately, I'm not blond.....

Since last Saturday, I've been under the weather with a mild stomach upset, a mild headache, and just enough dizziness to make life fairly pesky. Typical fibromyalgia sindrome. Yesterday, however, a plan was set afoot to collect a donation from those of us who volunteer some funds in order to surprise Adrián this weekend because Teacher's Day is coming up. (Mexico never misses a chance to party, by God! You'll have to read Octavio Paz in order to understand why.)

So in spite of my condition, weaving like a drunkard, I made my way to the park early in the morning. I stealthily handed off my donation to Ana, the one in charge of the surprise, said hello to my fellow trainees, and then thought, what the haitch, I'm here so let's trot a bit. You'll realize we are now brushing up against the skirts of fanaticism when the sick, the lame, and the halt drag themselves to the running path in order not to miss out on a training session.


My warm-up walk was somewhat uneven since I had a bit of trouble sticking to my lane; it crossed my mind to rejoice in my non-blond hair since I couldn't be accused of being a dizzy blond, although several people may have wondered if I was, in fact, a drunken grey-headed old gal who had partied all night and was still feeling the effects. Oh God, if only such carousing were possible! It was, however, quite true that I had been up all night feeling the effects, but these latter belonged to an anti-dizziness medication that contained enough caffeine to wire a cast of thousands.

By this time you may be asking yourself if the medication also destroyed neurons by the millions. Well, let me just tell you that it doesn't matter, because in that state I managed a 3.4K run without stopping so much as to tie a shoelace or rescue fallen glasses, and even ended with a small but significant (for me) sprint. You know how training seems to progess by a series of plateaus; I am now past the eight-minutes-of-this, two-minutes-of-that stage and am aiming for a very, very slow 5K now.

I can see now the newspapers that will appear next February: "All categories of Austin 5K taken by old lady expat living in Mexico; drug testing reveals humongous quatities of caffeine. Fight breaks out at finish line as victor's Asics are stolen by infuriated younger contenders who demand that shoes also undergo drug testing."

At last, rain!

On Saturday, my husband and I took three of our grand-daughters to the countryside, and to our infinite pleasure, it rained! It rained after seven months of drought. After the rain had let up a little, the girls dashed around finding all our "pet" toads, which had left their dens: a couple of them are so big that over the years we have given them names, such as Marcus Aurelius and Julius Caesar. My daughter's mother-in-law, who went with us, said she's never seen toads so big as the crew that inhabit our place in the country.


It has rained for three days so far here in town, and today will be my first day training since the weekend. The weather is downright cold. Great!

Hal, redeemed...

Hal must have gotten religion, because he replaced the two blogs he had wiped out. Either that, or he is planning something worse. On the other hand, what could be worse than a robot with religion? Sarah Palin?

The Righty-Tighty, Lefty-Loosey Condundrum, or The Single Boob Paradigm

Let's digress right away: Hal is back, just as I predicted, and he eliminated two whole blogs. There is no measuring his degree of resentment, apparently.

Also, since TrainingPeaks seems to be on the blink also, I haven't received my training program by email, so this morning (after two days of aches and fatigue) the functional part of me dragged my body out to the running path and I finished 3K without stopping--I've done it before, once, but this time it was a lot easier. Not having to keep tabs on my timer, my mind wandered. I started two hours later than my usual time, so it was like a Tokyo traffic jam. But the viewing was even funnier that usual as a result.

At the beginning of the running path, people gather to stretch, exchange running anecdotes, or drink water. Off to the left is a dumbell (I refer to the weight, not to any individual) made up of an iron bar with two big clumps of dried cement at each end--the poor man's version of gym equipment, I guess. It's always there because no one in his right mind would want to steal the thing. Today a man was standing right by the path lifting the dumbell, stopping every lift or so to look around, oh so casually, to see if anyone was watching him. It must have been frustrating, because no one paid him any attention at all. He moved closer to the path. We saw him, all right, and had to swerve away from him in case he dropped the blasted weight on someone's foot. It was fortunately at the beginning of my run because I was struck by an attack of laughter which, had it occurred later on, would have brought my run to a halt. The real burning question is, did whoever had the dumbell constructed choose cement in order to prevent thievery? It worked.

On to our subject. It has been mentioned in another writing that the running culture doesn't care what you wear. It should have been noted that it also doesn't care what you don´t wear. People run without shoes, and in Austin at least not even pants are de rigueur, which adds quite a bit to the general atmosphere of high spirits. And, you can run without a sports bra. It's painful to watch--you can almost feel the tissues tearing and you know that woman's old age will find her boobs down around her knees.

It never occurred to me that anyone might object to the Kevlar-steel-reinforced, no-boobs-at-all look my own apparel produces. I love it, because with my washboard fat bouncing along with each trot, I don't want to add anything else to the sad spectacle.

But one of my virtual running mates revealed that she just doesn't like the single-boob look. She may have more to work with than I do, however, which would explain her tastes in this vital matter. I didn't even know there was a single-boob option. This means that the classification of sports bras needs a revamping. My suggestion would be to eliminate most of the sizes now available and replace them with: No-Boobs, Single-Boob, and Double-Boob options. This latter could even take into account the one-size-fits-no-two-boobs problem and include Righty-Tighty, Lefty-Loosey fitting choices so you could pull up or let off on the reins, so to speak, for each boob.

You'd think someone would have come up with an idea this great long before this, wouldn't you?

Footnote...

It has to be experienced to be believed. I am online with a ghostly presence who announces his name on the chat support network, and then disappears. My blackest suspicions have been confirmed--people are running like crazy to get away from having to help this old gal in Mexico and her wayward computer. I have actually typed in "Mexico to India, Mexico to India, is anyone there?", only to get no response. When I ended the chat, made another chat request, and got someone on the other end, it turned out to be the same person!


Rosetta Stone wants my profile so it can get me going online, but the profile must be so harrowing the program withdraws like a salted snail. Does Rosetta Stone tremble at the part about me living in Mexico, or just Monterrey? Meanwhile, my messages on the chat are getting more and more, ah, shall we say, original and non-formal in nature. God, I hope I haven't started some kind of international incident....

The Rosetta Stone Nightmare

Yesterday and today have been fibromyalgia days, so I have scaled back my activity. It seemed like a great time to fire up my Rosetta Stone course in Italian, which has an online option so you can speak with other students, play games, and also talk to native speakers.

How can I possibly explain the almost insurmountable glitches trying to register for the course and have access to the online options? I have spent literally HOURS during the past few days as a bunch of very patient, very kind people in India have worked through every problem that comes up. And let me tell you, the problems have been at every single step of the way.

First, I couldn't activate my course. The activation code is a string of numbers so long that if I lay the series down on the sidewalk, I'd have to run a 5K just to read them all. When some poor bloke in India finally got that straightened out on the chat support service, it turned out that my course was activated, but I could not access the online options.

Why could I not activate the online options? Well, among all the other things, I had two IDs for the course. This morning, working on the initial part of the problem, again with some poor soul in India, our chat was cut off in mid-solution. Natch, when I tried to get this person back, he was busy with someone else, so I began again with another long-suffering computer nerd who must have thought I was severely challenged, intellectually speaking. Okay, we discovered that my computer was a day ahead of the date, and thus my requests to get online with others involved a time warp the system couldn't handle. We got that fixed. (No, I had never noticed my computer was a day ahead of the date because I never look at the date.)

Now another in what seems to be an endless stream of glitches and malfunctions has taken place: a nice little webpage asks me to tell them something about myself in order to "enhance my learning experience". What I've learned, however, is that the webpage can't save my data, so this is as far as I've gotten now that I'm online. I'm almost afraid to contact those folks in India on the chat support, for fear of getting someone I've already spoken to. I can see people fleeing their computers at the very mention of my name.

All this is subsequent, of course, to other more manageable issues such as installing a headset with integrated microphone so the language program can correct my pronunciation. The reason these issues are manageable is because I didn't manage them--my reliable computer nerd did it for me. He's a nice fellow who insists on showing me what he is doing on the benighted assumption it is going to sink in, so I hate to disappoint him. I nod sagely, every now and then inserting an enlightened "Ah, now I see!" or "Yes, of course", just to prevent him from launching into an even more bone-headed explanation on the outside chance of lowering his standards of teaching to reach even me.

My bravery falters at the prospect of going back to the online chat support, but there is nothing for it. My husband is coming home for lunch early today, so I am going to relax in the kitchen before tackling the next Rosetta Stone problem. Fortunately, I can now tell you che io sono una donna, which does not mean that I'm a donut. I can identify articles of clothing, activities, and conjugate a verb or two. The rest of the course is marvelous, but I refuse to give up on the chance to play games in Italian or talk to others as confused by the online options as I am--assuming there are actually others out there who have managed to get online. Stay tuned.

The Running Culture

In a place where our headlines every day document the shoot-outs provoked by drug cartels, the arrests, people stealing iron and steel from cargo trains, international problems of intolerance and violence, the epic, abysmal stupidity of our congress in Mexico and the know-no-nothing minority in the States that redefines how low the human race can descend, it is a joy to be among people who don't care how old you are, what you look like, or how much you can do. Whether you are trying to get into shape or training for an Iron Man competition, you are going to be supported because everyone who is part of the running culture knows how hard you have to work to reach your goal. It doesn't matter whether you are brown, black, orange or purple, what kind of clothes you wear, or what language you speak. It is assumed that if you are making the effort, you belong with the rest of the crowd.

People who run suffer much less depression than the general population, and that may be one of the reasons for this atmosphere of happy support. There are not many places outside of family--and certainly not every family--where the negative de-emphasized to this extent. The complaining and whining one hears, from the newspapers to so-called news networks with their ranting proponents of hate, fear, and stupidity, have no place in the running culture. They are consciously set aside.

Maybe for these reasons alone, it is worth the effort to get into better shape. It works on much more than your body. Your soul can use it too.

Back at the daily grind...

Rain is predicted for tomorrow and Thursday, but no one believes it. For weeks now, it has clouded up every afternoon--big, dark, roiling clouds--but nothing happens. Or it is cloudy in the morning and then the sun comes out to bake us all. The only positive part is that the early mornings are cool enough to enable me to run.


It was back to the daily grind today, but somehow it just wasn't as hard as it was two weeks ago. Nevertheless, I told Adrián that, much as I appreciated his knowledge and dedication, the idea that I could run 5K in 25 minutes by August borders on the hallucinatory. I told him I had virtual running pals who could back me up on this. He laughed and told me to figure out what kind of cake to bake when I was proven wrong, since he loves goodies. At that point I made a formal bet with him--from my end, a dark chocolate French tart with chocolate crust. He will have to go out and buy a cake for me, but I'm going to ask for a "tres leches" cake. Stay tuned for the outcome.


This morning the Ski Pole Lady gave me a beaming smile when she saw me. Did she miss me? I smiled back, and maybe if we can eventually slide into a conversation, I can ask her what the hell she is doing. The curiosity is killing me. It's those ski gloves that put her over the top, and I've simply GOT to know what is up with this gal.

Hal seems to have given up, but he may be waiting in the wings for something worse than the destruction of paragraphs.

It's off to the store with me, again....

We left cool and rainy Seattle yesterday, where everything is so waterlogged that slugs and other huge, unidentified gelatinous invertebrates attempt to get out of the earth and on to sidewalks, making a simple walk an exercise in goo avoidance. There were some spectacular snails with bright yellow shells, a wealth of ducks and other birds. The place is just gorgeous.


But now we are home and yours truly is in a full fibromyalgia attack, thanks to the plane trip and the change in time zones. Today's training program has been put on hold, but tomorrow is another day, thank God. My mental fog is such that when I went to the store, planning to stock up on meats, I got everything but. It doesn't matter that much since we are having crispy baked shrimp á la Jamie Oliver, however, as I said, tomorrow is another day...at the store. Off I go now to soothe my aching self with a good dose of Advil and to unpack my nifty running clothes, á la Target.

The Slug

Today was the first time I had to run by distance instead of time, and it's a darned good thing I was practically at sea level and in cool weather. It got to the point where the gorgeous surroundings weren't going to be enough to get me through it, and my mental game really began to go off the rails--an exciting fantasy of shooting a couple of narco hitmen with my .38 Special kicked in when I was, unfortunately, heading uphill, and I found myself zipping along and spending all my energy on the upgrade instead of cruising easily and zipping dowhill instead. Alarmed at my poor hill-running strategy, I immediately turned to a perusal of favorite recipes, which slowed me down, but reminded me of how horribly hungry I was. Visions of macadamia nut pancakes began to drift through my mind, so as I battled to find some sort of internal pep talk that wouldn't sink me, I noticed this poor slug trying to slime its way across the sidewalk.


"Go for it, oh fellow creature," I thought, "I think we're in the same league."


On my second kilometer lap, I was appalled to notice that the slug, biological differences taken into account, was actually doing better than I was. At that point, though, I was worried about how to talk myself into believing I was two-thirds into my distance goal, which was going to take some creative math, sort of like the creative financial math used by the CFOs of some recently notorious banking institutions.

On the final lap, when my only objective was survival, leavened by a certain sense of smugness as I realized I was really going to be able to do this, I noticed that the blighted slug had completed the equivalent of a slug marathon while I only wanted to reach the parked car that indicated the finish line of my struggles--having done a mere three Ks with a short walk between one K and the next. The whole weight of psychoanalytic theory about the death instinct and Kleinian envy rushed to my mind and created an intellectual excitement. As a result, I didn't step on the damned thing in a spasm of resentment.

My footnote is that I may never walk again; every part of me aches--except, not to put too fine a point on it, my knees--and also, this computer loaned to me by my daughter-in-law does not have the Hal curse!!!

The glories of Seattle...

Ah, yes, near sea level and working out as if one were really good at it! All that oxygen! All that cool weather! Even getting rained on! After the horrors of hot, dry, wildfire-cursed, and dusty Monterrey, this is fabulous--beautiful trees, wooden tubs filled with blooming tulips, flowering cherry trees, and everyone and his uncle outside running. Well-behaved dogs, too. It feels strange to be in civilization....

This weekend my training group goes for the triathlon. It's hard for me to believe the human body can do that, but after reading about Wendy's incredible barefoot race on her blog, it is evident we underestimate what we can do even before we've tried anything. There is a lesson here, but precious few will have the intestinal fortitude to put it into action. Nuff said.

On to Seattle

Today was a disaster. Since I couldn't train yesterday I decided to finish Monday's program this morning, especially since tomorrow will be a long travel day with no movement to speak of. After a very bad night's sleep, I was appalled to discover I could only get through half the routine, which usually is easy enough when done completely. My exhaustion was total, and I didn't recover until after lunch. Could it be a calorie thing? The other possibility is that I have had a protein complement for the last two days, and it seems to be making me feel bad. Either I feel bad because it's just time for a fibro attack, or there is something about the complement that I need to stop having. Oh well. It's on to Seattle and cool weather, minus the protein, and we'll play it by ear......Could that massive dose of chocolate ice cream from last night have anything to do with it??? Naaaah.....'course not!