One Thousand Miles

I started running in the summer of 2001 after my daughter was born. I took a break to balloon up and birth my second child in the spring of 2003. As soon as my son could safely be strapped in, I'd stuff the kids into my trusty double jogger and take 'em along. Some days it was the only place the kids would sleep.

I've never been really sure how far or how fast I've run, aside from a few scattered 5 & 10K races (best time: 46:10 for a 10K) - until I got the Nike+ kit about a year ago. Since then, I've tracked my runs by time, mileage, calories...and enjoyed the rah-rah encouragement of Lance Armstrong and Paula Radcliffe when I'd achieve a personal best time or distance. And now, I've passed a major mileage milestone. (Nice piece of alliteration, huh?)


One thousand miles; 126 runs. Average pace: 8:30 per mile, which translates to 8,513 minutes or the equivalent of nearly 6 full days. During those miles, I've wandered, worried, suffered, dreamed, schemed, observed the world around me, and incurred sunburns and chafing in unpleasantly unmentionable places. I've done about a third of those miles on the indoor track at the JCC, so I've run the equivalent of nearly 6,000 laps around that tiny track. No wonder I spend so much time staring at the pickup basketball games.

Since the milestone came on Academy Awards Sunday, I'd like to take a moment to thank all of those people, places and things that have empowered my running:

1) My husband Will, who watches the kids so I can hit the road (weather depending) and for whom I am trying to stay fit and remain (become?) a MILF into our golden years.

2) My job - for being stressful enough to force me to engage in regular strenuous physical activity to burn off frustration (the alternatives being alcoholism, Scientology, kicking dogs, or tearing up hotel rooms.

3) My kids - of course, they are the little loves of my lives. But like all kids, they can be such a pain in the ass at times. I am determined to stay healthy in order to live long enough to be a pain in THEIR ass someday.

4) My father in law, Jim - you've inspired the belief that bad knees be damned, I have still many miles in front of me.

5) My ass...I'm no Heidi Klum but after two pregnancies, I'm not displeased with its current shape, size, and elevation.

Running has become a part of my life, my identity, and my blood in a way that I never could have imagined. It's taught me to be proud of what my body is and what it can do, instead of worried about what it looks like and what other people think of it.

Maybe someday my kids will be running next to me. That would be welcome. But alone or with company, I hope I'll always have my runs...the sun on my back, the crisp air in my lungs. The knowledge that the faster I run, the cooler the breeze.

Thanks again, everyone.

Click here to read more.

The Unsung Glory of Middle Age Sports

I'm a serious runner. Been doing it since The Girl was born, took break when the boy came along, and since then, I've been running about 30 miles a week. But I'm also a complete weather wuss who won't run outside when the temperature drops below 40 and yet hates running on a treadmill. This leaves the track above the gymnasium at my local JCC as my only option. Only issue is that the track is 1/18th of mile. I run 8-10 miles per run... you do the math. It's about as close as I've ever come to understanding what a hamster must feel like.

So the other day my iPod had a bad shuffle (I think it got recently dumped, it was all quasi-alternative emo The OC kind of soundtracky stuff, big fat downer), but luckily, there was a pick-up game basketball game of middle-aged men in the lower gym. Now, even better would have been a pick up game of hot young male off-duty strippers, but you take what you get.

So I'm watching the guys, and finally a decent song kicks in. (I define a decent running song as anything with a driving hip-hop or techno beat, with lyrics that generally contain boasting and copious swearing). Thanks to my trusty Nike+ sensor, and the music, I blast out my next mile in 7:44, and am feeling pretty good about myself.

At that moment one of the guys (we'll call him Sheldon) catches my eye. I'm not sure if it was the t-shirt (Red Bull logo, completely soaked with sweat) his head (baldly glistening in the harsh gym lights) or his hair (that was primarily located on his back and bristling out from under the aforementioned t-shirt) that did it. But I'm watching him, and some other guy passes him the ball. The guy guarding him hustles up and gets all up in Sheldon's grill, and Shel kind of stumbles, fades away, and tosses the ball in a hope-for-the-heavens hook over his shoulder. And wouldn't you know? SWISH.

I think he got an ass-pat or two from his buddies for his prowess. But what really struck me was the momentary look of pure joy on his face. For that one shot, Sheldon wasn't thinking about the mis-labeled transactions he had to organize on his spreadsheet back at the office. He was thinking, 'Damn...I'm Michael Jordan.' And at the same time, I was thinking, 'maybe I'm not too old to run the marathon.'

So...not to get too "real men of genius" on you all, but to Sheldon: Master of the Misintentioned Basket: I salute you.

Click here to read more.