Little Halter Tops

Our weather is heating up, though the mornings are still nice. Still, I writhe with envy as I see women dash along the running path wearing these cool little halter tops made of nifty synthetic fibers that whisk your sweat away so it can evaporate. That way you don't end your training session like I do: in an oversized cotton tee shirt so soaked with sweat that it hangs down around my knees. It would be completely viable for us women to wear just our sports bras, since they are formidable pieces of clothing meant to act as independent devices, resembling medieval armor.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The problem is not so much what to wear as what to show the world. Nothing on God's green earth would induce me to reveal the excess rolls and tires clinging to my torso. It may be true that after years of doing crunches I have the much-envied washboard abs, but at the moment they are overlaid with washboard fat. By running in the early morning, it is entirely feasible--as far as sunshine avoidance is concerned--to wear refreshing halter tops, but it aint gonna happen as long as these many extra pounds still adorn my midsection. Unfortunately, my appetite is ferocious as a result of running, so whatever calories are consumed by that are replaced with peach crisp topped with a dab of ice cream, Tuscan roast chicken with balsamic vinegar, slices of whole wheat bagette dribbled with olive oil and sprinkled with parmesan cheese and toasted under the broiler, and pan-seared grape tomatoes--also done in olive oil. The rest of the day I fight off hunger--usually losing the battle--with water, coffee, glasses of skim milk, and fruit. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------But now there may be hope. Again I managed to finish my training routine with energy to spare (!!!), so I ran an extra block. Not trotting, not jogging, but running. With some luck, I may be hitting the break-even point in calorie consumption and utilization, and perhaps, just maybe, there is a little halter top in my future.

Tarzan and the Broomstick Jedi

A couple of notes just to start off with: a young woman hired as a nanny by one of our local families qualified for the Boston marathon, and a passing of the hat paid for her trip to Boston and her stay there. Way to go, Nanny!! Also, a member of my training group qualified, and he has gone off with the general "Hurrah!" of our gang. On a considerably lesser note, I managed to finish my entire training routine today, with energy left over, after a week of acute fibromyalgia and a stomach bug. The key was discovering that I was running too fast instead of trotting very, very lightly. My learning curve is almost a straight line, it appears.------------------------------------Yesterday my son, who usually runs in the afternoon, and I were discussing the oddities to be seen at the running park at different times of the day. He, too, had been sidelined by the Swishy Ski Pole Lady, and also by an elderly gentleman (more power to ya, Pops!) of at least 80 summers who barely plugs along but moves his arms as if he were boxing Mohammed Ali. My son greatly admires this old guy, but he says seeing him always causes a burst of hilarity.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Nevertheless, we have two contenders for our title of Most Impressive Weirdo Working Out: one is a woman of about 50 or so who strides along carrying a broom; she thrusts the broom up into the air here and there, apparently following some kind of pattern only she can discern (or, as an alternative, she is hallucinating and her broom is a self-defense weapon she uses to fight off aliens). I haven't seen this marvelous sight, but my son has, and he says it is awesome indeed.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Our other contender is Tarzan. He runs in the afternoon. This tall man has a long, flowing mane and has elected to run without a shirt. My son says he travels along sweating like the proverbial pig and flinging said sweat far and wide. Apparently he is viewed with considerable repugnance by the female runners on the afternoon shift, but I'll bet you my Asics he thinks he is masculinity personified. He probably sees himself swiftly going along, muscles rippling and in full view, glorious mane flying out behind him, just knockin' 'em dead.---------------------------He probably does, too. Such a macho wouldn't dream of using deodorant, so he doubtless has the impact of driving past an industrial cattle fattening outfit on a hot, Southern summer day with no wind. It's enough to sear your nostrils before you pass out.-----------------------------Although the Broomstick Jedi rates plenty of points, my vote goes to Tarzan, because he is more or less sane and to me at least a lot funnier. He also has the added attraction of making sure I do my running in the morning no matter how wiped out I am.

Running herds, or herds running

A certain increase in energy can be detected in the park these days. The numbers of serious runners have upped considerably, and they are zipping along with a vengeance. My training group informs me that next month there will a local triathlon, and they are planning on entering.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------May is without doubt the worst month in the year for us; it shows the most extremes of temperature changes, and the hottest days of the summer (even though it is supposed to be springtime). People who will compete in the triathlon may have a day of a lovely 60°F. or a hellish 115°F. The sun may burn down like Death Valley, or it could rain enough to turn the entire event into just the swimming part. With only a month to go, the contenders are training like gangbusters, and the park is a weird combination of a traffic jam and a Nascar event.-------------------With the changes in temperature around here right now, and ups and downs in the barometric pressure, we fibro sufferers are having an acute flare. I could barely finish my training schedule on Monday and had to crawl home in order to save energy, so today I decided to trick my fibromyalgia into thinking it has the upper hand. I went over 5K, but I did it by walking for two minutes, then running for two minutes. It worked just fine, so fine, in fact, that I plan to stick to this mode until the current attack wears off.-------------------------------------------------As usual, since I got to walk, I saw some pretty oddball stuff going on around me. But one nice thing was that there are people in their seventies and eighties chugging along determindly, and they even have enough breath to say "hello, how are you today?" I acknowledge with a wave of the hand in order not to waste oxygen on speech. Let me mention at this point that the Nascar runners are able to carry on a complete conversation as they pound along, even telling jokes and laughing uproariously; since most of them are men, one is impressed by a very serious lack of vocabulary, which may explain why their conversation seems limited to remarks about running time, injuries, and automobiles, punctuated every couple of seconds by an insulting epithet--sort of like teenage boys making idiots of themselves by pretending to hit each other, laughing foolishly, drooling, and ogling the girls. Not that our Nascar runners do that, but their conversation is on the same high plane. The fact that woman are present all over the park doesn't register with them, because some of the expletives are gross indeedy. Oh well.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Today I had a good look at one of the odder participants in our mass madness. This woman carries ski poles. At first you might think she is training for a cross country ski event, but closer examination ("Watson, tell me everything, leaving out no detail, however insignificant...") it just can't be. Cross country skiing is the most aerobically demanding sport of all, since one's heart rate climbs to about 220 and stays there kilometer after kilometer--you get into a groove, all right, but it's a killer groove. This woman's body moves in two modes: with her legs she is simply strolling along, being passed even by me. But her upper body is wiggling from side to side as she moves the ski poles, in a fashion no cross country skier would be caught dead emulating. The overall effect is hilarious-- a kind of swishy git-along augmented by a superior, transcendental smirk on her face as if the rest of us are mere insects. More than once I've seen a runner stagger off to the side of the path, apparently afflicted by a side stitch, upon passing this woman, but I know for sure that runner is laughing his guts out. I think, in fact, that if running events really wanted to challenge the participants, they could sprinkle the route with weirdos like this gal. It would take mental discipline above and beyond the call of duty not to lose precious minutes and even more precious oxygen each time you came across one of these distractions. "Die laughing" could take on a whole new meaning.

Mom told me there'd be days like this...

Well, no, actually she didn't, but it works as a title. By my accounting, after having run 3.5K, my trajectory has been one step forward and two back. This leaves me with an accumulating debt of one step per workout, so like someone who has a mortgage he can't pay, I get backwarder and backwarder.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------It makes me wonder if my training schedule isn't too hard for my age and fibromyalgia, or am I just listening to my body as it shouts, "Stop, you cretin!!!", and paying too much attention to it? The "Complete Book of Women's Running", the bible I haul around, says in a nutshell that going from jogging to running is a matter of attitude, not speed, and that one must learn to get past that point where your body is begging you on a metaphorical bended knee to give up and go have some chocolate ice cream. The book doesn't go so far as to endorse wholeheartedly the "no pain, no gain" philosophy, but it implies that you'd better get used to the hurt. Or, as a woman advises on a runner's website, stock up on Advil.------------------------------------------------------On the other hand, this is the way it often goes: you have a sudden spasm of progress, then backslide for a few days, before you have another leap forward. This must be my backslide stage but it sure is lasting a long time. Nevertheless, I still have a tactic or two up my sleeve. I'll report on them if I survive the weekend. In the meantime, I'm going to lie low and concentrate on cleaning the refrigerator.

Active resting

As has been mentioned here, active resting to me means an implacable determination not to leave the couch, but this is not what Adrián, my trainer, has in mind. By the time I was through training Bandolero (the sport is called dressage), my abs, shoulders, and arms were howling, and then I got Thursday's training confused with Friday's and spent yesterday trying to run uphill instead of an easy trot on flat land.-----------------------------------------------------------------------The upshot is that today from the get-go, it was obviously going to be a bad day, so I opted for a forced march instead of a run, but I did manage 4.8 K. One of the advantages of a brisk walk is that you can hear the nesting doves cooing, watch the sky lighten, notice that suspicious car going round and round the block, and discover the various styles of hitting the ground as runners go by you. When you are running, the only thing you notice is where the next dose of oxygen is going to come from.--------------------------------------------------------------------There are the pounders, those runners who slam their feet down. They are a mystery to me. How can they do that without permanent joint damage??? Then there are the pancake turners. These runners flop their whole foot down at once, and it sounds like a big pancake being flipped. They too are a mystery to me, because I don't see how they can get their feet in that position unless they have no movement in their ankles. There are the expensive-running-shoe terminators, who scrape along the pavement destroying their Asics. Last but not least, there are the big cats, those runners who land on the forward portion of the foot and sneak up on you silently, breathing quietly, scaring the bejesus out of you because you thought you were alone and could relieve that uncomfortable bloat left over from the tinga tostadas you had for lunch yesterday.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------When I went to see a sports doctor, he told me not to let anyone try to change my way of hitting the ground as I run, because at my age, he told me diplomatically, you just can't teach an old dog new tricks. That's okay, because when I grow up, I'm going to be a big cat.-----------------------------------Take that, Hal.

An "active" rest day..

This means, as my trainer has diplomatically indicated, that I can't spend the day ensconced in the couch watching all the series of "Law and Order". So I'm off to ride Bandolero, where anything that isn't sore from yesterday will get a workout and I can even up the pain. If I get a good picture of him, I'll post it later. Have a good run, friends.

No More Nice Little Granny

Okay, Hal, the gloves are off. Your mother was a cheap toaster with a fork stuck in her heating elements, and you dad was a calcium-encrusted steam iron that spit all over the clothes.