Happy Family

Christmas has come and gone. Much in running life and personal life has transpired and I haven't written much.

The holidays were spent with husband's family, exchanging gifts, eating homemade goodies and relaxing. We received what we call "Big Ass Santa" from an Aunt and Uncle. Big Santa is about 30" tall or so, and will adorn our home next year at Christmas. However, my most cherished gift this Christmas was a complete surprise from my mother. This year she had our old 8 MM film reels of family occasions put on DVD. The picture above is of my chubby self playing in a sprinkler one summer afternoon in our backyard. Husband and I spent an afternoon watching all of the countless clips of birthdays, births, Christmases and Easters that our family spent in the final seven years of familyhood. Oddly enough, the camera broke not long before our family dissolved in divorce. Husband remarked that we all looked so happy in the videos. However, the smiles and glee apparently belied some latent depression and sadness that brewed beneath. There were some signs of uphappiness, mostly in my oldest sister who was something of a misfit amongst the five of us anyway. She basically spent most of her time in her room reading that I can remember. At one moment in the filming, as she's the focus of the camera, she looks over and clearly says "what?" looking rather perturbed. Nonetheless, it was nice to witness a time when we were intact and when holidays were spent with extended family on both sides of the family and there wasn't a shuttling around to houses as negotiated by prior arrangements and my mother's work schedule (she usually had to work on the day before or the day of a holiday). We showed the DVD to husband's parents who remarked that if we had children they could cute just like the little girl in the video. This "encouragement" may be more a threat. The fact is I was an extraordinarily chubby child. I hadn't realized. Husband's family seemed utterly confounded that our weird family would color raw, not hard-boiled eggs for Easter. I'm not sure why it was done that way, but it was our tradition. The other funny aspect of the tape was watching our father cut hair. Dad was the unknown innovator of the "Flo-bee" product that was on infomercials maybe ten years ago. He would take a cut off hose of a running vacuuming and suck in the end of the victim's hair, and arbitrarily snip the locks. To watch my dad cut as my brother received his first haircut as a child, it's a true wonder that any of us still have eyes left.

The video has essentially been the highlight of my holiday. My running life is currently non-existent. I've been saddled by a bout of ITB issues with my right knee. Last week I took three days off before testing the knee again on Saturday. Sunday I punished myself with a hilly five miler leaving me hobbled for many days. I've since purchased a foam roller (which is utter torture) and some yoga DVDs. Yoga is much harder than I ever anticipated, but enjoyable nonetheless. Attempting to follow the sessions leaves me feeling utterly out of shape. Hopefully the knee will improve and I'll be back at it. I suppose the November marathon took more out of me than I knew, and I was pushing my body past its limits in attempting to rebound so quickly.

Still Rolling

On mile 12 of a 16 miler a couple of weekends ago, I decided a January marathon was out of the question, simply because as I was ambling along, my inner thigh, groin and butt all seemed to seize up right about the same time. The final four miles of that run were not so fun. Since that point I've waffled. Last week I ran a measly 20 miles for the entire week, but on Monday or so, I thought that I could still cram in a few long runs and try it. The bottom line is that's just plain stupid. My body is simply not right at the moment. Maybe a half marathon would be just fine.

For some reason I have this awful feeling that if I make certain life changes that my life as an independent person who runs will be over completely. However, I need to remember that running is a part of who I am. Regardless of future challenges, I am committed to somehow remain true to myself.

Since I'm not running mad twenty-milers, feeling perpetually sore or worrying about getting injured, I've had a new cross-training activity that husband and I share together: bowling. During our dating days, husband and I have gone through our hobby phases of golf, tennis and bowling. We've gone a couple of weekend afternoons to roll a few game just for fun. Somehow, on one of the games I got into a groove and bowled a 178. I don't know that I've ever done that well. Perhaps the most entertaining portion of this activity is to watch the varied cross-section of individuals at the bowling alley. Last Sunday featured the gamut of small children aided by parents, a very pregnant young woman with a gang of other early twenty-somethings and a band of cursing cowboy-hat wearing country folks who surprisingly didn't attempt to wear their cowboy boots and elected to wear rented bowling shoes. Bowling is sort of the universal "sport." that virtually anyone can do. It really doesn't matter if the score is high or low, sometimes the camaraderie the activity affords is enough. Perhaps running is the same way.