Surfing

Life is not unlike the experience of riding waves in the ocean. During low tide, a person can essentially just float on his or her back and allow the ocean to ebb and flow in a warm comfort. However, when the tide comes up, it's a struggle. Despite a person's valient attempts to dig into the sand, the currents still pull the individual ever stronger. Every few waves, one comes and pounds down on the precarious swimmer, causing the hapless individual to do unintended somersaults. The swimmer surfaces with hair tussled, snots hanging out of the salt-drenched nose, only to be smacked down by the next succession.

Right now is high tide in my world. The tumult of work pressures pound away as I ride along on a ship navigated by a somewhat haphazard captain. The captain can't be questioned though. Unfortunately, mutiny is not an option. Meanwhile at home husband has been furiously preparing for the bar exam. Tonight I sent him off packing to his "host hotel." Upon departure, he nearly forgot his keys, his wallet and his watch. Normally, husband rides low tide and somehow has mastered sun and moon to maintain an inner sense of calm through most situations. He is my rock. The seaweed content to ride the waves listlessly, rather than the one to dig in. Yet, high tide has pulled us both. After Wednesday at 4:30 p.m., the tide will turn with the conclusion of the examination, if we can both just weather the anxious agony of the next few days. While he churns in his inner tumult, I share his pain sympathetically. Being the compulsive worrier, I worry right now as he is probably checking into his hotel whether he has enough pens, the things necessary to get into the exam, the will to get up on time and not miss the start, etc. I worry that he'll get a flat tire on the way to the testing site which should not be far from his hotel. I've not shared my worry with him because it would make him just worry more.

Water seems to be a theme permeating life especially given the weather conditions. I've been trying to ensure that I consume enough fluids for hot weather runs. Thus far I've managed morning runs on these truly warm days, rather than evening runs when it would still be in the low 90s. Tomorrow morning I'll wake up early for my first tempo run of the schedule. I still haven't exactly determined exactly how I'll execute that (go to a track, brave the dark morning streets, etc.). I tried to drink today during work. In the past two and a half hours I've probably consumed about 64 ounces of water and will probably finish the evening with some sports drink.

We continue to shed tears over our beloved cat, Riley. I never imagined that losing her would be this hard. Husband and I both catch sight of something out of the corner of our eye thinking it's Riley, only to finds it's a dog toy dormant on the floor. Early one morning husband woke up at 5:30 a.m. thinking that he felt her jump up on the bed. Sometimes I hear her little purrrup that she used to make when she'd hop up or down somewhere. I've cried more over Riley than I have over any human companion or emotional situation. Nonetheless, I gained significant life lessons through my seven years with my feline friend. We have much to learn from cats, especially the importance of naps.

Right now I'm listening to another Taj Mahal album entitled Sacred Island. If you don't know Taj Mahal, you really ought to. Check him out in the blues section of your local music store or download him to your iPod.

The Life of Riley

My husband said a couple of times "from the first moment Riley saw you, she loved you."

Riley and I connected immediately, which is why it was so hard to let her go yesterday.

Only nine years old, Riley struggled with kidney problems for the last four years of her life. It was four years ago that she started crying in the middle of the night at 3:00 a.m. - we knew something had to be wrong. Unfortunately, she was afflicted with kidney stones making her rather sick. We subsequently rushed Riley to the nearest vet school where they performed surgery to remove some of the stones, but not all. This condition would be one that she would live with and we'd try to manage through special food and daily medication. These efforts weren't enough to prevent complete kidney failure which started on Thursday. We laid her to rest in the family pet plot on Saturday. My husband and I were there when the drugs were administered to put her into eternal sleep. We knew we had made the right decision to let her go and end her suffering. Both of us suffer from a deep sadness from this loss. We miss her so much.

Riley was so special to us in so many ways: the way she'd talk back when you'd talk to her, the way she was a stubborn bed hog (only on my side of the bed, of course), the way she'd burrow under the covers of our beds, the way she'd stubbornly lay on your chest, purring, and wouldn't flee at the slightest twitch unlike most cats, the way she would insist on being where you were, even if that meant the bathroom, the way she'd contentedly sleep on our clothes, the way she'd whap at the dog.... She was so sweet. It will take us a while to grieve her loss to our household.

Now it time to clean up her toys, get rid of the litter box and continue to remember her fondly.

And then, there's pavement....

There are days when running truly is my salvation. When life gets too hard, there's running. Yesterday I had a major meltdown as I left work and on my train ride home. I was simply overwhelmed by life and hit by a major sadness. Many factors contributed, including a hectic day at work involving hosting out of town important people, listening to superiors override the opinions of others in open discussions and getting coffee on my pants while cleaning out the gargantuan coffee pot. I don't even drink coffee. So, there I am, this sniffling sad girl with coffee all over her pants. I probably looked like a crazy homeless woman who'd pissed her pants. Nonetheless, I hit the road after arriving home which served to be the best therapy. I couldn't cry as I ran because when I started to cry I couldn't breath. So, running was much more important than crying. As for the sadness, well. I think things will improve soon with the passage of time.

This week represents the start of marathon training for Chickamauga. Following Pfitzinger's 18/55 plan, I did a 7-miler with 10 strides last night. Still no Garmin (though I've e-mailed) so I'm a bit hazy as far as my overall pace. I hit the splits on my manual watch about when I think the miles are, but I'm not sure. I've got nine miles planned for tomorrow, with a 4-miler and 12-miler this weekend. If I get desperate, I may just have to get some new pace-tracking gadget.

Music of the Moment: Taj Mahal, Hanapepe Dream

Peachtree Road Race Report

The much anticipated ginormous 10K has come and gone with much fanfare and glory. Here's how it went down for me.

My good friend and running buddy came down with her husband to run the Peachtree Road Race with me. We had a great weekend of fun together. The race went down like this:

We set several alarms, with running buddy's to be the first to go off at 5:00 a.m. to prepare for the 7:30 a.m. start time. My running buddy woke me up shortly there after, allowing me to shut off the two back up alarms I had set. We sat for a while in the morning quiet, and then finally ate a Powerbar and some Gatorade. After scurrying around a bit more than I would have liked, Running Buddy's husband took us to the train station at around 6:20 a.m. or so. Although it was only one stop to the race start, I was nervous nonetheless. When the train arrived at the platform, it was completely packed. There didn't appear to be one iota of room left, but we were assertive and made people squeeze so that we could fit. One stop later, a mass of runners oozed out of the train and proceeded to the starting area.

We headed towards our corral area and the portajohns for our timegroup, 1A. The Peachtree Road Race organizes corrals by seeding from the elites to anyone who submits a time under 54:99. Only these people receive timing chips. The remaining timegroups 2-9 are mostly assigned randomly and do not receive chips. One of the drawbacks to being in the upper timegroup is that unlike the other groups, you share a mass of portajohns with everyone. There was a mass of confusion around the portajohns as there were two rows facing each other. Long lines spanned the parking lot for one set facing one direction, while the other direction had virtually no line, but the lines for these johns are largely inaccessible. We struggled our way to a short line and were in and out while others waited in the snaking lines.

After a five minute warm up and some stretching, we made our way to our starting corral to await the race start. After several minutes of waiting, I never heard a gun go off, but rather the mass of people started to stream forward. As the race got underway, I was surprised by how slowly the crowd moved despite the fact that the people in the timegroup had to qualify in decent times to be admitted. Not only were we confronted by the challenges of speed, but also the horrible stench of some people's body odor and slow people crawling on the left hand side. The crowd finally thinned after around a mile or so to lend a bit of breathing room.

I had a good three miles at the start with times under 8:00 miles. The infamous hills on the course start just after mile three, at which point I slowed down by nearly :30 per mile. The finish time was worthy of our time group with a chip time of 49:57. Running buddy and I finished with the exact same time.

My MAJOR bummer of the week was that on Sunday my Garmin Forerunner 201 somehow got possessed by some evil spirit. During a nice morning run, the Garmin started turning off and on by itself. It continued to turn off and on all day long until the battery finally ran out. I've written Garmin to see if it can be fixed, but I'm also considering investing in something more trouble-free given that I'm on my second Forerunner in a year's time. Six months doesn't seem like a good life for this product. If anyone can suggest something that works better, please leave me a comment.

I'm getting ready to start training for the Chickamauga Battlefield Marathon which takes place on November 12. This coming Monday I'll embark on the Pfitzinger 18/55 program. I'm really hoping to work hard and shave off some minutes. This week, I hope to get around 34 miles in.