Instant Panic

No sooner did I sign up for the Austin 5K than I began to panic: I'm only doing a maple-syrup-in-wintertime 3K right now; I have barely begun to make up for everything I lost during the summer; what if I actually come in last behind the 100-year-olds who walk and the wheelchair competitors?

The actual possibility that anyone on the face of the earth will even see me are infinitesimal. Hundreds and hundreds of people enter the 5K, which is an event that supports the finances of the Paramount theater. People are still strolling through the finish line as the marathoners dash by, and all the excitement is with the marathon and half marathon. You are completely authorized to make as ass of yourself in the 5K, the crowd will roar its support of you no matter how slow you are or how foolishly dressed. People have been known to run in fancy dress costumes or running gear so old there are more holes than material. They run with dogs. They run in teams, they run in pairs. That's the thing about these events: you've got more support than you could ever imagine, and Austin being weird as it is, you too can be weird--you'll get applause.

The Food Revolution

And speaking of food, check out Jamie Oliver's website and sign the petition to make school lunches something edible instead of the horror usually inflicted upon students. There is something wrong happening when first-grade kids in Southern Italy (the poorest area of the country) in a public school get organic products in school lunches, and they can identify red peppers, eggplant, asparagus, and other good stuff--when in the U.S. you could be talking about nuclear physics if you mention an eggplant to kids that age. Join the campaign.

Three K today at a continuous trot; it is the weather--so much cooler. Hope springs eternal. Two of my kids are going to the Austin events in February, so I guess I'll sign up for the 5K. Heck, even if it's at a crawl...

A Hectic Two Weeks

Had a wonderful trip to Querétaro to meet with my two closest friends, and the results were marvelous. One lives in Querétaro, one in Mexico City, and of course moi, in Monterrey. One is Spanish, one is Mexican, one is, of course moi, gringa. We've been friends for over 30 years and in spite of our cultural differences, we've always been on the same page.

However, because of the altitude difference, I didn't go out to run. We have had rain, and our weather continues to be cooler, so slowly, slowly, I'm working my way back into shape after a summer that has convinced me and my husband that next year we are going to spend it somewhere else. Mexico City or Querétaro, for example.

While wandering around in the supermarket, still in my running gear, a woman (also in running gear) came up to say how much she admired me. I was taken aback since I didn't know her, but she is out in the park when I am and watches me struggle past her at my geriatric jog. This gal has just begun to go out and walk, having become terminally bored on her treadmill, so I told her to stick with it no matter what. Now she waves each time she sees me.

It also appears that our team is about to get team tees, which according to Adrián, will be phosphorescent green. Or, as I imagine he really means, radioactive green...Maybe he should put a disclaimer on the back of mine in order not to discourage potential trainees: "This old gal has a training tee only because she bought it, folks." Either that, or maybe he should mention my age: "Sixty-seven and still hot-footing it! Join us and wind up like this old lady--except for the wrinkles, we can prevent that too!" You never know what will be a selling point.

And speaking of selling points, here in the land of the overweight and obese, a regular meal supplement war has broken out. There is the York system, and now the Cambridge system, both of which cost a king's ransom and promise to make you look like...hmmm...well, take your pick, your fantasy is as good as mine. Two friends of mine are selling the competing brands. I got one can as a protein supplement, but it tastes like medicine. My other friend gave me some samples of the next brand, so I will try one tonight. I am not optimistic, but this friend and his mom and dad have lost a lot of weight and claim the stuff is delicious. I suspect the parents have invested in the project and this has affected their perception of the taste. I happen to be of the Julia Child persuasion, with a marked dislike of the food police: nothing is good for you, except things you wouldn't feed a hog; you are encouraged to avoid gluten even if you are not intolerant, and yesterday on television a couple of the food police were preparing a pizza made of some kind of bird seed (I kid you not) mixed with herbs and Parmesan cheese, covered with roasted garlic and onions and more cheese, baked in the oven till the crust is "crunchy"--I don't buy that, it looked pretty darned floppy to me. There they sat, the two food coppers, as the credits rolled by, choking down the birdseed pizza in very small bites. Why can't we just have good, unprocessed fruits and vegetables and proteins in moderate amounts and enjoy our meals, for gosh sakes?

If any of you have ever watched "You Are What You Eat", you know what I mean. This Gillian character locates real fatties and subjects them to the same process each week--she scolds, she horrifies, she browbeats them into eating almost purely vegetarian meals, some of which look ghastly. Don't get me wrong, I love vegetarian, but I've tried one or two of her recipes, and no thanks. And this gal may be saving the lives of the people whose diets she revamps, since she also gets them off their butts and moving--but how tiresome the show is!! I don't like seeing fat people being used for entertainment purposes, but I guess if you volunteer for it, who am I to complain?

From the Mouths of Little Boys

Yesterday evening, after my husband and I had returned from the quinta, our grandkids Sofía and Ian came over with their dad. Sofía was sound asleep and was deposited on a couch, but Ian was full of life and had much to say.

Ian is six. He is adorable. He has big brown eyes, lashes to die for, and a non-stop personality. He sat at the table with me and my husband while he polished off an orange, and he filled us in on the latest:

"There are bad guys on the road to the quinta," he calmly asserted.

My husband and I looked at one another.

"Who told you that? What bad guys?"

"Dad told me," he replied.

"I'm going to have to speak to your dad, then," I said. What in the world was going on? Why was Rodrigo scaring Ian about going to the quinta? Ian adores the quinta.

"You can't do that, he's Dad," stated Ian flatly.

"Oh yeah? Well, I'm your dad's mom, so I can set him straight any time I need to," I clarified.

"They stole Felipe," added Ian.

"What??? Who's Felipe?" chimed in my husband. Things seemed to be going from bad to worse.

"I don't know," said Ian with irritation, as if Felipe's identity was a minor matter, "but they stole him. Bad guys," he added, since it was evident his grandparents were not the sharpest crayons in the box.

At that point Rodrigo came in and we demanded to know why he was scaring Ian about going to the quinta. Rodrigo was totally perplexed and never could find out from Ian who Felipe was or who told him these things. My suspicions lie with Alejandra, who is frightened of everything going on in Mexico (justifiably so) and thinks driving to the quinta is taking your life in your hands.

Then my husband proposed taking the children to get an ice cream cone, and while he was getting an umbrella (it rained last night!), Ian was giving me a big hug and climbing into my lap. He looked deep into my eyes and said:

"Hey, you look like an iguana! You've got that thing under your chin that hangs down!"

As soon as I reach my desired weight, it's off to the plastic surgeon, by dang.

Running Path Oddities

Yesterday was rheumatologist day, a routine visit which takes place every couple of months (the man is a stickler for monitoring fibromyalgia), and I made the mistake of going to get blood drawn straight from the running path. Apparently exercise alters the results, and it did, but fortunately my doctor--being an exercise fan himself--took it into account. This guy, I may have mentioned before, used to run but had to change to bicycling when his orthopedist found he had a loose vertebra that tends to slip around.

Since the good doc lives in mortal fear of the notoriously bad drivers in our area, he took up the mountain bike, much to the horror of his wife. The gal has a point: what is the improvement over running when you risk crashing and breaking bones? In fact, this year the doc broke his collar bone falling off his mountain bike when he hit a patch of ice coming downhill.

"It's like I told my wife," he stated, "a broken bone heals, but an injured heart is another matter entirely."

I say all this because it might help explain his instructions to me. At the moment my fibromyalgia pain has decided to settle in my back right between my shoulder blades, so yesterday I got put through the wringer: had to touch my toes (with no warm-up!), twist this way and that, and then get pounded on hard enough to get toppled over if the man hadn't been holding me upright at the same time. Man, he hit every single fibro pain point.

Then, after prescribing a muscle relaxant, he told me--and I quote--"to increase your usual training by one kilometer". This after I told him it was all I could do to finish 5K trotting and walking since summer hit.

"Are you daft? Half the time I finish on my hands and knees as it is!" I protested.

"Oh, you'll get used to it, then you can increase up to ten K."

The man has taken leave of his senses, but after hearing about his adventures on his mountain bike, we find all the earmarks of a fanatic. I can understand and identify fully: as far as I'm concerned, a horse is better than travel, fine food, and sex. Of course, when I talk about me, I prefer to think I'm passionate in my interests, but when my rheumatologist ups my training by a kilometer, he is a some kind of nut.

I was thinking about all this as I did today's 5K at a forced march--this was a light training day. There was no way I was going to add a kilometer, at least not yet. As I marched along (sweating as much as if I had been running), I noticed that the grass bordering the path seemed covered with some kind of pointy black objects, some of which stood straight upright, others lying down. When I put on my glasses, I saw that the objects were long feathers. It was amazing. We have tons of starlings that make a huge racket in the trees that line the park, and it looked like they had gotten into some kind of massive battle that involved pulling out each other's tail feathers. I say tail feathers because for several days now, I've seen starlings in my back yard minus precisely these feathers. I began to look at the starlings I could see on the ground, and several of them looked oddly stunted in the rear. It must be hell flying with no rudder, but the bigger mystery is, what the dickens is going on here?

Things are out of whack. Starlings losing tail feathers, my jacaranda tree is blooming (this only occurs in springtime), doves crashing into our windows. It feels like the ominous build-up in a Stephen King novel!

Blast-off

Last night, the president of a club my husband has joined invited the members and their wives to a wonderful supper replete with anything you wanted to drink and delicious food. There were some shrimp that were to die for.

To my consternation, an announcement was made that all the women would sit in the living room "to get to know one another", while the men gathered outdoors in the pleasant garden. I thought maybe this was a temporary arrangement, but as the evening wore on and we women had more or less shot our conversational bolt with topics such as how nice the house looked, people we know (not me, I don't know anyone in the rancid aristocracy of the neighborhood, at least not women), and other burning topics, I noticed with horror that there were two tables set up--one indoors and one outside. My head was beginning to ache and I was getting angry at the primitive social arrangement that might have been great in Yemen or Saudi Arabia, but not in my 21st century world.

Finally I decided that even at the risk of being thought forward and rude, I'd had it. Either I went out and joined the men, or I would not be responsible for what came out my mouth. I was not feeling particularly spry anyway, having ridden that morning in a sitting trot until I drew blood. I was also slightly dyspeptic.

So I excused myself, got up, went outside and announced to all concerned that I was going to sit with the men. There was a great, though quiet, rejoicing, since it seems the men were not thrilled with the arrangement either. I told the men they need have no qualms about cursing, either--I'm a clinical psychologist and I've heard it all. In fact, I could probably teach them a few choice phrases.

My compadre Armando then went in and brought his wife out, who was near a comatose state from terminal boredom. She had a kind of fixed smile on her face that she really had trouble removing--her mouth was going into rigor mortis thanks to the living room excitement. And a really good time began to be had by all, especially me. At supper we were not segregated by gender, and the other women seemed relieved to be out of the harem too--one, a financial investment expert, must have been near death by negative numbers of mental stimulation, poor thing, but she perked up and had us fascinated with her travels and ideas.

The evening was so entertaining that my tiredness dissipated, but not my dyspepsia. A few bites of the excellent food and my digestive system went into terminal flatulence. I may have sunk my chances of being invited to join the club, the first woman member, by the fact that the explosions were not under my control. My husband said the conversation was so lively that surely nothing could be heard over it, but I told him that if you were in the northern hemisphere, you knew what was going on.

On another front, however, things weren't quite as serious: in the garden, a number of those anti-mosquito smoke bombs were slowly simmering, so at least I didn't gas anyone. Well, at least not anyone at a certain distance. I'm tempted to ask my comadre if she noted my problem, since she was right by me, but I'm afraid she might say, "Jesus H., yes!!! What was wrong with you??"

Plodding along...

Something must be working in spite of the heat, in spite of fibromyalgia kicking in with barometric changes, and in spite of the move because I am managing to lose weight rather painlessly. None of this would have been possible without a training group and without an athletic rheumatologist. Almost everyone else has recommended doing, basically, nothing except perhaps some mild yoga, but my rheumatologist told me to fight fibro with running. I think he thinks I'm going to become flooded with endorphins and thus be able to leave off medications.

Well, the endorphins are there but they can't hack the work, and when I tried to leave off one of my medications, after about a month I noticed that my aches and pains began slowly to increase in intensity, so I went back on the medication. Now I'm back to my usual level, some days bad, some days good, but familiar.

There seem to be a considerable number of people running with injured knees, more than I have seen before for some reason. The vast majority of runners appear to have healthy knees, but there are a lot of people running with tight bands below the kneecaps to keep them from moving down, a few with complete knee support with only the kneecap exposed. I was sure that my knees were going to act up when I began trotting because they have been banged up over the years--falls, slipping in the bathroom, being hit by a running dog right on the kneecap, tripping over sleeping black dogs in a dark hallway, you name it. More than once I've had a hugely swollen knee bandaged in order to manage to walk. And yet, for some wild and incomprehensible reason, the old knees have held up just fine, thank you. Not a twinge, not a single groan, nothing whatsoever. If this keeps up, lordy, what tremendous luck.