Twenty Minutes til Race Time!

Just a quick note to say: I'm really excited to be supporting the Be the Match Registry in Philadelphia this morning! Thanks to Mandi for letting me know about this race and to both her and her husband, Eric, for putting me up last night! Hoping for a good run today…

Why, yes, I AM still running…

…or, technically, I'm running again. I did lapse for a bit.

But more on that later. Right now, I'm excited to announce that I've just registered for race number eleven, in Philadelphia, PA, and it's for a great cause!

Ever heard of the Be The Match registry? Check out my personal runner's page to learn more and, if you are so inclined, to help me toward my fundraising goal! I've set a very low goal because the race is so soon (Sun 10/12), but I'd love to blow way past it! Can you help?

More on my road back to road racing soon…

O-H! 1-0!!

Nothing reinvigorates a flagging project like a good numerical pun! (Okay, like a numerical pun, anyway.)

That's right, constant readers (hi, Mom and Dad!), I've completed my tenth race and I did it in the Buckeye State while visiting my good friends Lee and Holly and their adorable son, Oscar. Here I am with Lee, while waiting for the awards ceremony following the Tigertown 5000 to begin:

Gotta love a fuzzy selfie!

And why was I sticking around for the awards ceremony, you ask? No, I didn't magically develop the ability to run at race-winning speeds. Rather, I sort of accidentally brought attention to this blog and to my fifty-state project ... that is to say, I waffled so long that I missed the registration deadline and kind of begged via email to be allowed to participate, anyway, using this project (and my numerical pun) as reasons why it would be so cool for me to get to run the race. Well, race coordinator Doug Desgrange was so enthusiastic that he not only said I could still participate, he comped my race entry fee and made me promise to stick around after the race! But more on that soon.

I made sure to find Doug and thank him as soon as I was checked in on race morning.
But, as I've said, more on that soon. (photo by Lee Fearnside)

As seems to be an ongoing theme in this blog, I've been having trouble motivating myself, lately. In fact, I've only been running a few times since Race #9 (Brooklyn) in April. Part of that was due to the bronchial plague I developed just after that race, part of it was end-of-the-school-year busyness, and part of it was, well, being a big, lazy lump. There was also the whole either-sweltering-or-pouring ridiculousness of this summer's weather, but I don't need to pile on the excuses just now. Point is, I just wasn't feeling much like running.

I even decided against running a race at the end of the week I spent in Vermont earlier this month, even though that state is still on my to-do list. It's sort of funny, how a state which is really not that far from where I live has ended up being one I've now delayed twice. It ended up being a good idea: on Saturday, July 20, it was around 100 degrees Fahrenheit. In Vermont. I mean, seriously? And also, for being so close to home, it makes sense to run there on a weekend when someone from home has time to come up and watch me, which wasn't the case this time.

Maybe Vermont will end up being #50? That would be sort of funny ... we'll see.

Back to Tigertown, aka Liberty Center, Ohio, where the 10th annual Tigertown 5000 was run yesterday morning, Saturday, July 27, 2013. It was a perfect morning for running: cool and overcast. I was nervous and excited, and not sure what to expect after Doug's enthusiastic emails, but when I tracked him down after watching the 1k Ricky's Race fun run, he was extremely friendly and just glad I was there. He made me feel like a real VIP, even introducing me to the mayor and the sheriff! This simple girl from Little Rhody didn't feel worthy of all the fuss, but it was really nice to be so warmly welcomed.

By the time we were gathered at the starting line (having found my 28:00 pace group), I was in pretty good spirits:

Photo by Lee Fearnside

... and, especially for not having trained much at all, I ran a pretty good race! I beat my Race Judicata (#9, Brooklyn) time by officially 3 seconds, setting a new second-best time: 28:22, which was good for 18th in my class, 114th among women and 314th overall, out of a field of 493 finishers. (I'd like to be closer to the halfway point in terms of place, but this was a fast race, obviously!)

As I approached the finish line, I was excited to be setting a new PR-except-for-the-Gaspee (which is a Thing, in my world, because of how much faster I ran at that race than ever before or since), and to be hitting the 20% mark in my Fifty States project:

Photo by Lee Fearnside

And then, for the awards ceremony. May I just take the opportunity to say: If you like door prizes, hie thee to Liberty Center next July, because I have never seen so many door prizes in my life! Doug did a great job of passing everything out as quickly as possible, and making sure pretty much everyone left with something: from Monster drinks to Sauder furniture to Mizumo pint glasses to Michelob running shirts, and let's not forget the most popular item, some locally-made pies that looked absolutely scrumptious!

Late in the ceremony, Doug called me up on stage to introduce me and mention this project. I got a big round of applause for making the trip, even with my visit to Lee, Holly and Oscar being the main reason for my excursion. Everyone was so nice!

Photo by Lee Fearnside

I didn't get any pie, but that was just as well, because—as I had mentioned to Doug in our email exchange—I am gluten intolerant and wouldn't be able to eat it, anyway. But, thanks to Doug and to event sponsor Anheuser-Busch, I did go home with a special prize: a six-pack of Redbridge beer! (And yes, Mom, I still have some left.)

For some more event photos, check out the Facebook page for Dave's Running Shop, which was an event co-sponsor and also gave all runners a mystery-discount envelope. I got 20% (appropriately enough) off some nifty new running attire and one of those oval car stickers. Now that I'm 1/5 of the way done, I feel I can claim my preferred race distance:

It's not 26.2, but it's honest!

I haven't decided where #11 will be, nor whether it will happen in 2013 or 2014, but I do feel reenergized to keep up the running and the blog. Hard to believe I've gotten this far in just over two years!

Oh, did I mention? I did another race.

Did you ever have that thing where you were working hard toward something, then once it was over, you collapsed into a giant pile of torpor? Like maybe, for example, you were struck down by a nasty, respiratory infection of some kind, unable to motivate yourself to do much more than dragging yourself back and forth to wherever you absolutely had to be, and spending the rest of the time flaked out in bed or in front of the television?

Why do I bring it up? Oh, no reason.

Ok, obviously this is my stated excuse for only now getting around to blogging about my latest race, which was over two weeks ago. Seriously, I ran a little harder than I really intended, so I was pretty winded after running, and I thought that was why my lungs felt a little rough, even the next day. But, when my breathing felt even rougher by the morning after that, I realized it wasn't the race. I don't know what it was, exactly, except that it's still not all the way gone, so I haven't run again yet, but I'm going to try soon. Maybe even tomorrow?

Enough about my health woes, though. On to the race ...

It was a gorgeous day in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, if a little gray and chilly. This was also my first race where all three members of my immediate family (Mom, Dad, sister) were there to cheer me on. Mostly, they were there to wave and clap as I rounded one of the last turns, and belatedly snap one photo of my back after I'd passed, but I'll take it!

It makes a great Facebook cover photo, anyway!

To be honest, although I'd had some great training times leading up to the race, once I was in it I thought it was going terribly. I felt tired and slow, and was a little worried about getting through in under half an hour. So, imagine my surprise when I rounded the corner toward the finish line and saw that I was coming in under 28:30! Official finish time, 28:25, which was good enough for 64th place out of 134 participants. This is my second-best time ever—I will probably throw a raucous party if I ever beat my Gaspee 5K 26:59 finish—and was good enough for a top-half place, so I'm plenty happy with that!

After the race, the rest of the weekend was dedicated to family time, focused in part around my sister's Christmas present to the rest of us, which was tickets to an amazing production of Julius Caesar by the Royal Shakespeare Company at BAM. But we also spent some time checking out the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, and enjoyed seeing some of the flowering trees at the peak of their bloom. For example ...

... and it wasn't just the trees that were in bloom ...

What more could I say? Even with the transportation concerns (which were nicely managed by driving to New Haven and taking MetroNorth, something I'll have to remember as an option for future visits to NYC), it was a fabulous weekend!

Next stop: probably Vermont on July 20, possibly in Shelburne, although I haven't decided for sure. And Ohio and Minnesota are on the horizon ...

For now, I'm just hoping to breathe well enough to run again soon! Wish me luck!

My transportation hassles pale in comparison to greater events.

Race day tomorrow! Brooklyn isn't all that far from RI, and the Northeast Corridor has this public transportation thing pretty well worked out ... most of the time. Under normal circumstances, grabbing a train to the city on a Friday afternoon would be an easy solution to the question of how to be in Prospect Park for a 10am Saturday race check-in. Leave school around 3, grab a 4:00 train, be in the city in time for a late supper and a good night's sleep. Right?

In case you haven't heard (and in that case, seriously? how?), today's circumstances bear absolutely no resemblance to "normal." The iPhone app from which I'm posting apparently doesn't allow me to create hypertext, so here's a link to a page full of haunting images of deserted Boston streets during today's lockdown: http://www.buzzfeed.com/annanorth/16-eerie-images-of-boston-on-lockdown?s=mobile

I guess Amtrak isn't equipped to originate trains from Providence, so all service between Boston and Penn Station has been canceled, at least until after the time of my train, and there is (unsurprisingly) no room available on later trains.

All of this is to say, I'll deal. I'll find a way to get to Brooklyn (current strategy involves driving to Stamford and taking MetroNorth), and I'll race tomorrow. And if I don't, somehow, I'm out a $35 race fee and I'll find another race another day.

This whole thing is so much bigger than my little weekend plans, it feels ludicrous even to type the words.

Thinking of all the scared people, the medical and safety professionals in harm's way, the people locked down away from where their loved one are, even those who are simply inconvenienced by not being able to leave home for the day. All of those people, and many others, have it much worse than I do. Even if it is supposed to be thunderstorming in Park Slope at precisely the time I expect to be walking from the subway to my sister's co-op. I have a rain jacket.

Perspective.

Peace be with you.

Incomprehensible.

I've been planning, for a while, to start updating this blog again. Now ... I understand that the prevailing wisdom in light of events like yesterday's is to "keep calm and carry on," but it seems impossible, even without having been directly affected. I was not in Boston yesterday. I am not a marathon runner, nor do I particularly aspire to be. Boston is, however, the city of my birth. I grew up in its suburbs, in a town small enough that, when traveling more than a few miles from home, I learned early that the answer to "where are you from?" was always "near Boston." I've never actually lived in Boston, chose to go to college in California rather than Cambridge, but I did spend six weeks at Boston University during the summer before senior year of high school, along with every Sunday afternoon for the five school years I played with (what was then called) the Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras. I grew up knowing that the Celtics were World Champions, the Museum of Fine Arts stands among the finest collections in the world, and the BSO is the standard against which all other orchestras should be measured. The "Pru," located right near the finish line, has always been my favorite sky-scraper, small though it must appear by the standards of Manhattan, never mind Dubai. Boston sets itself up for a lot of jokes at the expense of its lofty self-image, but it's always been the Hub of my Universe.

And Patriots' Day? That little town where I grew up was once part of Concord. I haven't really aspired to running the 26.2 miles from Hopkinton to Boston, but I have regularly walked the approximately seven miles to the Old North Bridge after gathering in our town center at daybreak. By the time we're home again, the Marathon is running and sometimes the elite runners are already crossing the finish line.

To think someone would want to spoil that, to cause such willful harm ... I just can't. The injuries I've heard reported are just horrifying. I will never understand the cowardice necessary to do something like this. On top of that, several of my friends remember that I'm a runner and know I live in the general vicinity of Boston, and at least one person was genuinely frightened for my safety yesterday. Although there wasn't any chance of my being there, the concern of my friends brought the events even closer ... and I do have friends and colleagues who were in Boston yesterday, and thankfully made it home safely.

So. Totally freaked and saddened though I am, the best I can do is to keep running and feel blessed that I have that opportunity. My goal hasn't changed, and I have plans to make progress this year. I'll keep updating this blog, albeit sporadically, as I go.

Here's what I've been doing lately:

I realize I let this blog's first birthday pass without fanfare, while in the midst of a long winter's nap of non-posting. Trust me when I say that I've been doing any followers out there a favor: during the winter, when conditions can be dark and icy and otherwise unappealing, I stay reasonably in shape for running by regularly doing a thirty-minute "free run" on Wii Fit Plus. For those not familiar, this means I hold the Wii remote and run in place, watching something else on TV or listening to the radio, for thirty minutes. There is no balance-board feedback, and the distance reported means absolutely nothing in relation to how far I typically run in thirty minutes on the road. In fact, there is really no reason why I need a Wii in order to do this, but I've tried just running in place while watching TV (or holding the TV remote), and I couldn't keep it up for more than ten minutes. "Free run" tells me when I have 15 minutes left, then 10, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 10 seconds ... and then plays a happy little fanfare and tells me I'm good. Apparently, I need this validation. My point is, though, that this would make for some very dull blog posts.

Now that it's spring, though, I've managed a few runs outdoors (which I've logged with RunKeeper but forgotten to update in DailyMile, which is why the widget hadn't changed until I finally got caught up after writing this post). I braved some near-freezing temperatures during my March break to get out in the daylight hours:

Smith College campus, about 8:45 a.m. on Saturday, March 21,
end of a 3.16 mi run in 32:50.

 It's even starting to get light out early enough to run before work:

Monday, April 8, about 6:15 a.m., along Narragansett Parkway in Warwick.
3.00 mi in 27:26.

And I have a race coming up this Saturday! It's really strange to think of racing after yesterday, but then again, I think the best thing we can do is to keep going and show we're not going to be cowed. I feel it's appropriate, somehow, that my next race is in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NY, not far from the location of messages like this one:

And more like it, shown here on Gothamist.

Even with everything that's happened this week, I'm excited for this race. My training times have been (a little) faster than ever, lately, and this will be the first race where all three members of my immediate family will be able to be there to cheer me on ... well, unless the current weather report is right and it rains, in which case they'll be cheering me on in spirit from a warm, dry location.

NY is number nine, and I will hit #10 this summer (possibly Vermont on July 20, if another one doesn't come up sooner). I'm going to keep at it, and be thankful that I can, and over time, I'll cross 50 finish lines in 50 states.

Sweet Home ... Tennessee

42 is the answer, but what is the question?

Currently, it's: "How many states do I have left to cover?"

Yes, indeedy, I did another race!

Let me tell you a little about Fayetteville, Tennessee: It's the seat of Lincoln County, in Middle Tennessee, established in 1809, 85 miles SSE of Nashville and 25 miles north of Huntsville, AL. Moore County, where one can find Lynchburg and the home of Jack Daniels Tennessee Whiskey, is the next county over and just a short drive away. Fayetteville's population, according to the abovelinked municipal website: 7007. One of those people is my Aunt Kate.

My dad grew up in Fayetteville, along with his three siblings. Their mom grew up here, too, and her parents. In fact, four of my great-great-grandparents are buried in Rose Hill Cemetary. I've spent school vacations and family trips visiting here throughout my life, and although my "Ole Dad" never missed an opportunity to call me a Yankee, it's safe to say the Elk River metaphorically runs through my veins. (And every time I visit, I make sure some caffeine from the Elk River Coffee Company literally runs through my veins.)

Since retiring back to Fayetteville several years ago, Kate has volunteered her time in a lot of organizations in the community, one of which is the Imagination Library. The original Imagination Library project was started by Dolly Parton, to support early literacy and access to books for children in her home county in East Tennessee. The project has been a great success, and she has shared the model with communities throughout Tennessee and the rest of the country, as well as in the UK and Canada. Each chapter is locally funded, however, which is how we get back to the subject of yesterday's race.

Yesterday was the third annual Imagination Library 5k Run and 1 mi Walk, supporting the Imagination Library of Lincoln County. It was an absolutely gorgeous day, with clear, blue skies and temperatures (at race time) in the upper 60s/low 70s fahrenheit. The start and finish were located in Stone Bridge Park:

The replica bridge was built in June, 2000, according to the plaque.

My sister and I flew down for the weekend, separately, from our respective home bases (she's in Brooklyn). We did our best to coordinate our arrivals into Hunstville International Airport, but to paraphrase what is apparently a Yiddish proverb, when travelers make plans, airlines laugh. Juliet's flight got in a little early of her scheduled 7:30ish p.m. CDT arrival time, and mine was due at 8:35 p.m. Well, long story short, by the time it was 8:35 p.m. CDT, I was still sitting in the US Airways boarding lounge at National, waiting for our crew to come in from somewhere else so that our perfectly ready-and-waiting aircraft could take off and actually go to Huntsville. We finally got in sometime after eleven, and rolled in at Kate's house slightly after midnight. By the time I'd settled in enough to get to bed, I only had 5 1/2 hours before I had to wake up.

All of that considered, I was ready for an underwhelming race performance. It's taken me over half an hour to finish a 5k race before, and if that was to be my fate again, I was resigned to it. But that isn't to say I was going to give up before I started.

In fact, and I couldn't tell you exactly why (except that I'm still getting good returns on Coach Adam's advice), I had a pretty good run! The course was pretty easy, with just a few relatively gentle hills, and we passed right in front of Kate's house around the 1.9 mi mark, which was exactly when I needed to see my cheering section.

1/2 of the non-human portion of my cheering section, photographed before the race.

It was a lot of fun to run around a town I've gotten to know so well, through a lifetime of visits, and by the time I rounded the last corner and saw that I was fixin' to come in under 29 minutes, I was ready to sprint for the finish line!

Many thanks to Tom Wallace for this photo!

I haven't seen the overall standings yet, but I believe I came in 3rd in the female, 35-39, division, with a time of 0:28:55. [Edited: The results are posted here. My time is posted as 0:28:56, for some reason, but I'm not quibbling over one second. Turns out I came in 22nd overall, out of 76, and fifth overall for women!] That's better than my times in Portsmouth, NH, or San Francisco! Not bad, for so little sleep. In fact, not bad, full stop. And more importantly, I'm told the event raised over $3,000 for Imagination Library. That's a lot of books that can now find their way into eager, little hands and minds. Many congratulations to Teresa Brown and the rest of the organizers and volunteers!

Kate and Juliet came and met me at the park, shortly after I crossed the finish line.

We stuck around for part of the post-race prizes, during which I was very kindly presented with a mug from Elk River Coffee Company, just for having come all the way from RI for the race. (At which point I also realized I can honestly claim to have come in first place among runners from New England!) We would have stayed for the whole party, but we had to get to the Lincoln County Humane Society's casserole sale:

I'm told those brownie are "celestial". The gentleman who makes them does not give out the recipe, so that people will be sure and buy them to support the Humane Society. Not being able to eat brownies, I opted instead to get a big bag of locally-grown okra. Also, tater tot casserole is apparently a thing.

After doing our part to help the Humane Society (and support Kate's next-door neighbor, Rhonda, who organized the whole thing and still found time to run out and cheer for me as I ran by her house), we met Kate's friend Eugene for coffee at, you guessed it, Elk River Coffee Company.

The rest of the day was pretty much about napping. And some excellent vegetable biryani for lunch, which Kate had picked up for me the previous night at Sitar in Huntsville, while they were waiting for my flight.

So, my friends, that's eight down, forty-two to go, and I believe I'm done for 2012. But stay tuned, because I'm seriously considering starting off 2013 with a race in Jacksonville on Saturday, January 5 (currently still shows the 2012 date, but their calendar gives the 2013 date).