Lori's rants on life, science, and running to save lives

my first race

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 02:26:42 GMT

Someone in the running group I post to asked for other members to briefly write about their very first race. I thought I'd post my answer here, too.

My very first race was probably a 5k "Jingle Bell Run" in high school, but I don't really remember it. My next organized road race was the Wineglass Marathon, in Corning, NY. I was in college. It was in October, and I had trained all summer, though I never ran further than 18 miles prior to the race day. It was a beautiful, slightly warmish fall morning. The trees lining these long rural streets were in gorgeous color. It was mostly flat. I ran the first 15 or so miles with an acquaintance I ran into that morning. My boyfriend at the time cheered me on from his bike along the course. Around mile 20 I ran a bit with a very old lady who was not entered but was training for another race; she called me a clydesdale and I wasn't quite sure how to take that. I started to really hurt with about six miles to go but was able to finish in 4:32, without walking except at the water stations. I don't remember the drive home but I was quite out of it for the rest of the day, and I nearly failed an exam in one of my classes the next morning.

For a long time after, having completed this race was a motivation for me in many aspects of life. I found myself saying "I ran a marathon, I can do x, y, or z".

Recent foodings

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 19:56:07 GMT

a very orange meal, plated
Originally uploaded by cloudnine37

I sometimes take pictures of kitchen creations. Occasionally these creations are disastrous, because I tend to modify recipes. Sometimes the modifications are intentional "experiments", other times they are the result of negligence on my part, such as forgetting to add milk to a pumpkin pie (yes, I have done that). In this post I catch up on some recent dishes. The first ("a very orange meal") is my own concoction, the second (beef stew) was from the Joy of Cooking, the third (hot dog sushi) was put together by my friend Donna.

Two weeks ago I threw together a soup/stew based on some foods I happened to have. It started with cut up sweet potatoes, onion, and carrots. Then I threw in chicken broth and curry. I poured in coconut milk and the white liquid bloomed orange; it was then I then realized the color theme I'd inadvertently created. Shrimp, noodles, and rice rounded out the meal.

The end product was disappointingly "slimy" in texture, though the flavor was nice and warm and slightly spicy. The next day I added more chicken broth and it became a much nicer, savory soup.

After I cooked the orange meal I laughed to notice that I was also wearing an orange sweater (It's surprisingly difficult, by the way, to take a picture of something on your torso).

Last week the weather here turned gray and cold, and my body called for the warmth of beef stew. Here it is in progress, right after I had braised the chuck and sprinkled it with marsala vinegar, but before I added the liquid and potatoes to the pot:

And finally, last Saturday for lunch Donna wanted to eat up some leftover hot dogs and ended up making hot dog sushi. It was a nice comfort-food twist on an Asain dish. You are skeptical, of course, but let me assure you this this was absolutely delicious. She made the sushi rice in advance; it was a combination of regular rice, sweet rice, and rice vinegar. She then fried up scrambled egg and sliced it in strips. Next, she cut Hebrew National Hot Dogs in strips and fried them in a pan, which resulted in funny curly-q's. Finally, we rolled these and cucumber slices into nori paper and dipped them in soy sauce. Yum. No, seriously - yum.

Ice in the forecast.

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 22:18:32 GMT

I'm starting to get it...living in Maryland means having to deal with ice storms. The National Weather Service is predicting a quarter inch of ice tomorrow, following 1-2 inces of snow. Last February I was out of power for three days. I blogged about it, and took some pictures of the glistening "morning after" jsut as the sun finally broke on the second day.

Incidentally, last year's storm fell on Valentine's Day (story here). I had cozied up to a fire with blankets, a book, and a bottle of wine. It was a pretty good Vday! This year's was a little nicer, however, owing to the addition of a boyfriend who cooked dinner for me :) That was preferable to my backwards job of cooking on a sterno (which does not work, by the way).

URGENT - WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BALTIMORE MD/WASHINGTON DC
238 PM EST THU FEB 21 2008

DCZ001-MDZ009>011-013-014-VAZ027>031-040>042-051>054-WVZ055-501-
502-220300-
/O.UPG.KLWX.WS.A.0003.080222T0200Z-080223T1100Z/
/O.NEW.KLWX.WS.W.0003.080222T0300Z-080223T0300Z/
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA-MONTGOMERY-HOWARD-SOUTHERN BALTIMORE-
PRINCE GEORGES-ANNE ARUNDEL-SHENANDOAH-FREDERICK VA-PAGE-WARREN-
CLARKE-RAPPAHANNOCK-FAUQUIER-LOUDOUN-CULPEPER-
PRINCE WILLIAM/MANASSAS/MANASSAS PARK-FAIRFAX-
ARLINGTON/FALLS CHURCH/ALEXANDRIA-HARDY-WESTERN GRANT-
EASTERN GRANT-
INCLUDING THE CITIES OF...WASHINGTON...GAITHERSBURG...COLUMBIA...
BALTIMORE...ANNAPOLIS...WINCHESTER...FRONT ROYAL...LEESBURG...
CULPEPER...MANASSAS...MANASSAS PARK...FAIRFAX...ALEXANDRIA...
FALLS CHURCH...BAYARD...PETERSBURG
238 PM EST THU FEB 21 2008

...WINTER STORM WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 10 PM THIS EVENING TO
10 PM EST FRIDAY...

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN STERLING VIRGINIA HAS ISSUED A
WINTER STORM WARNING...WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM 10 PM THIS EVENING
TO 10 PM EST FRIDAY. THE WINTER STORM WATCH IS NO LONGER IN
EFFECT.

A STORM MOVING IN FROM THE SOUTHWEST WILL BRING PRECIPITATION INTO
THE COLD AIR ALREADY IN PLACE OVER THE REGION. THE RESULT WILL BE
LIGHT SNOW OVERNIGHT...FOLLOWED BY FREEZING RAIN FRIDAY INTO
FRIDAY NIGHT.

LIGHT SNOW WILL BEGIN DURING THE LATE EVENING HOURS TONIGHT...
LIKELY CLOSE TO 10 PM. ONE TO TWO INCHES OF SNOW IS EXPECTED
OVERNIGHT. THE SNOW WILL CHANGE TO FREEZING RAIN EARLY FRIDAY
MORNING.

THE FREEZING RAIN WILL BE ON AND OFF DURING THE DAY ON FRIDAY AND
INTO FRIDAY NIGHT. SIGNIFICANT ICING...AROUND A QUARTER OF AN
INCH... IS EXPECTED. THIS WILL LIKELY CAUSE SUBSTANTIAL TRAVEL
PROBLEMS AND POWER OUTAGES. STAY TUNED TO THE LATEST FORECASTS
THROUGH THIS EVENT.

A WINTER STORM WARNING MEANS SIGNIFICANT AMOUNTS OF SNOW...
SLEET...AND ICE ARE EXPECTED OR OCCURRING. THIS WILL MAKE TRAVEL
VERY HAZARDOUS OR IMPOSSIBLE.

No photos of the lunar eclipse

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 22:04:28 GMT

The snow last night was a treat, especially under the lunar eclipse. Matt and I attempted to take some photographs of the moon over an agricultural field, but none came out.

Okay, so I'm the stubborn idiot who tried to take pictures of a dim object in a dark sky, at the edge of dark woods, without a good tripod. Matt stood in the cold air, occasionally trying to talk some sense into me. I listened, and I appreciated the input and much appreciated the company, but I am not one to follow reason.

"um, i wouldn't go down that bank. It's all full of sticks, and stuff"

"No, the floor lamp in your trunk that you were going to give to Donna will not work as a tripod; you should just put the camera on one of those fenceposts "

ten minutes later...

"It's cold out here"

"Why don't you just let this be an event that is not documented but is really pretty in person"

I'd love to say I proved him wrong and got a fantastic photograph, but in the end the eclipse proved elusive. It WAS really pretty out there. We both enjoyed the serenity of it, even if we got a bit chilled.

Beef stew

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 21:32:30 GMT

Last night I made beef stew. It was done at midnight, so needless to say it was not my dinner yesterday - it is my dinner tonight! It's snowing now, so I'm really looking forward to a warm cozy, savory bowl of homemade stew. Yum.

Um, weatherchannel.com says that it is partly sunny and 42 degrees right now. I disagree.

A spot on the island

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 02:33:35 GMT

Researchers in my lab occasionally have the privilege of studying the ecosystem at the Caribbean Coral Reef Ecosystems Program (or CCRE) on the island of Carrie Bow , off the coast of Belize. CCRE is funded by the Smithsonian and is part of the Smithsonian Marine Science Network of research facilities which includes the lab where I work - the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in MD, facilities in Fort Pierce, FL, Panama, and a 96-foot research vessel. This boat may very well be larger than the entire island of Carrie Bow, which is so tiny that it can house only seven researchers at a time. Seven - keep in mind that's less than half the number of people that start off as contestants on Survivor, and you think their accommodations are sparse!

Actually, Carrie Bow is furnished with reasonably modern comforts, save for a real toilet. Despite the space constraints and the expected friendly competition for a one-or-two week long slot at the facility, some really great scientific work is done here, on topics ranging from the bacteria that grow on mangroves to the manatees, fishes, and jellyfish that swim around them. In fact, since it opened in 1972, over 500 scientific publications have come out of this beautiful, remote place!

Since I interviewed nearly two years ago for a job at SERC, I have hoped to go to Belize. In my life I've snorkeled and scuba dived (scuba'd?) three or four times in tropical waters - once, last year, for my diving certification - but have never taken a look at a tropical marine system from a research perspective. This prospect is to me - a kid who grew up watching Cousteau and later Discovery Channel documentaries - what playing at Fenway or Yankee Stadium would be to a former little-leauge warrior (I take no regional allegiance, however).

So, imagine my thrill when on Friday, an otherwise dull February morning at work, my boss phoned me at my desk to tell me that I had been granted a spot on the island! One of our graduate students will be studying jellyfish there and will need my help as a scuba diver for one week in May. My hope is that in the following months after this trip perhaps I can craft a proposal for a creative project of my own that would merit my return to Carrie Bow.

Of course, I would have to appeal to my boss as well as the "Jeff Probst" of the Marine Science Network to make that happen.

It's easier to be a happy idiot, but I don't want that to be me

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 05:47:48 GMT

I don't know if it's because I'm approaching 29, or perhaps because it's February, but lately I've been getting irritated with my own excessive self-reflection. Crap! I'm running out of play-in-my-20's time; I need to figure out if I'm on the right track in life!! Granted, I KNOW that the process of self-improvement never stops, and thus the feeling like you've arrived at "Life" never quite happens, and yet I let a rainy, blustery winter day get me drear-ified (my invented term). I almost want to slap myself, but what good would that do?

Lots of songs have been written about this feeling of searching for belonging and purpose, of needing to check off life -list items optimistically penned at age 23, and of trying to be more than just a number while at the same time actually bringing home a paycheck. One in particular caught my attention a few days ago. While stopped at a traffic light on my way home from work, my ears perked up at the line:

Caught between the longing for love/and the struggle for the legal tender

That's ME! Right NOW! I thought. And everyone else in the world, I chuckled. Ah, and I didn't even know what the song was about, though I recognized the artist as the soulful 70's singer-songwriter Jackson Browne. So, since the internet knows everything, I Googled the line.

Here are the rest of the lyrics, and a youtube video.

Im going to rent myself a house
In the shade of the freeway
Im going to pack my lunch in the morning
And go to work each day
And when the evening rolls around
Ill go on home and lay my body down
And when the morning light comes streaming in
Ill get up and do it again
Amen
Say it again
Amen

I want to know what became of the changes
We waited for love to bring
Were they only the fitful dreams
Of some greater awakening
Ive been aware of the time going by
They say in the end its the wink of an eye
And when the morning light comes streaming in
Youll get up and do it again
Amen

Caught between the longing for love
And the struggle for the legal tender
Where the sirens sing and the church bells ring
And the junk man pounds his fender
Where the veterans dream of the fight
Fast asleep at the traffic light
And the children solemnly wait
For the ice cream vendor
Out into the cool of the evening
Strolls the pretender
He knows that all his hopes and dreams
Begin and end there

Ah the laughter of the lovers
As they run through the night
Leaving nothing for the others
But to choose off and fight
And tear at the world with all their might
While the ships bearing their dreams
Sail out of sight

Im going to find myself a girl
Who can show me what laughter means
And well fill in the missing colors
In each others paint-by-number dreams
And then well put out dark glasses on
And well make love until our strength is gone
And when the morning light comes streaming in
Well get up and do it again
Get it up again

Im going to be a happy idiot
And struggle for the legal tender
Where the ads take aim and lay their claim
To the heart and the soul of the spender
And believe in whatever may lie
In those things that money can buy
Thought true love could have been a contender
Are you there?
Say a prayer for the pretender
Who started out so young and strong
Only to surrender

Disney report - part III: top 10 motivators

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 05:05:31 GMT

Lori and Figment
Originally uploaded by cloudnine37

After my last attempt at a race report tuned out as a long-winded tale of race morning, I thought to try a different approach.

So, in lieu of a third stab at a race report, I give you the top ten things that kept me running to the finish line.

Though this race was for charity first and for fun second, I have too much desire to be competitive, at least against my own prior results, to have simply "finished" this race. A 2:08 proved to be about as fast as I could go that day; I know I gave it what I could that day, and for this I am happy. For the first two-thirds of it my goal was to keep a pace that was challenging but juuuust sustainable enough that I could get to mile 13.1 on a near-empty tank. Unfortunately, the low fuel light came on with four miles to go, but fortunately, I found the finish line.

Top 10 motivators at the Disney Half Marathon:

10. The energy of 16,000 people running. Call me too new-agey or corny, but I actually visualized that the collective forces of all that positive energy were propelling me forward.

9. Each mile, trying to figure out what my finish time might be. This wasn't as easy as it sounds, and it became an amusing math game to play. Complicating matters was that my iPod was calibrated wrong and reading dishearteningly slower pace, so I stopped using it. Plus, for the first hour and a half, I couldn't even read my own watch because it was still dark, and I was afraid of hitting the buttons wrong and re-setting my clock. The clocks on the mile posts had the time since the first runner crossed the starting line, and I didn't quite know what time I had gone across; I only knew that I hit mile 1 at about 13:45. Maybe my time was 2:45 to 4:45 behind the clock? I didn't know until mile 6.

8. The girl in front of me around mile 4. She had hand-painted a very cute, sparkly fish on the back of her shirt. Next to it read "KEEP SWIMMING". For a few minutes here and there I imagined that I was not running, but swimming.

7. The gladiator. For most of mile 8 (I think) there was a spartan warrior running just in front of me. He was a nice sight physically (as far as I could tell from behind), sporting shinguards, a cape, no shirt, and a helmet. I wanted so badly to catch up to him! In fact, I wanted to catch up to him and finish with him, or at least run long enough that one of the official race photos would show me next to him. I never did, but the thought got me through the first of when I really started to feel sore and tired.

6. The knowledge that I had trained, had done my long runs, and was capable of going the distance. Experience is invaluable. Also related to this thought was thinking about how incredible the body is. It's capable of achieving really incredible feats. 13.1 miles is short and easy compared with many other acts of endurance and strength.

5. The music, live bands, and DJ's along the course. There were stretches when it seemed there was a new song to groove to every 20 seconds! And the last was a gospel choir, right before the last turn of the race; if ever I needed some spiritual help it was in that last half a mile when I was praying for the finish line!

4. Running through Magic Kingdom and Cinderell's Castle. Just awesome, full stop.

3. Having my boyfriend, Matt, there. I couldn't wait to see him in Magic Kingdom, and knew that he was also waiting in the crowd at the finish line.

2. The support of volunteers, spectators, and other runners. It was absolutely mind-blowing how many people were on the sidelines giving out water and also just there to cheer us all on. People seemed to be yelling my name a few times per mile (it was written on my race jersey). Everyone was cheering everyone on, but the support from Team in Training in purple was especially phenomenal.

1. Running with a purpose. Everyone from TNT was running in honor of blood cancer patients. I was running in honor of these as well as for loved ones with other cancers. To these and also to the many people who donated to my campaign with TNT, I felt a responsibility to be able to say that I gave it everything I had. There's a saying: "if you think a marathon is hard, try chemotherapy". That saying really means something when running a race actually benefits the person undergoing chemotherapy!

Disney race report - part II: the morning of

Sun, 20 Jan 2008 18:31:59 GMT

Fishish!
Originally uploaded by cloudnine37

Better late than never!

There are some things that I wanted to report that I didn't have time for in my last post. So, here it goes...

When I rowed in college, I thought getting up at 5 am for a race was a chore. I was unaware that another sport holds the prize for the earliest definition of morning. No, not fishing; that's not an athletic sport. Sure it's on ESPN, but so is poker - but I digress.

November: Coach Nancy warns us that we won't sleep much on race night. It's okay, she assures us, just sleep a lot two nights before and you'll be fine. The Disney race pack arrives indicates that the last buses depart from hotels to the staging area at 4am. Ooo-kay, I think, I'll get up at 3:30. Fast forward to Friday January 11, at the team meeting after the pasta party: staff manger Damian informs us to meet at 3 am in the hotel lobby. 3 am!! That's 45 fewer precious minutes of sleep! By the time I'm ready for bed (10pm) I no longer care. I'm excited, jumpy, and nervous that I'll forget something in the "morning". Sleep seems impossible now. Matt's been asleep in the other bed for nearly an hour already.

11pm - 2am: I wake frequently. I get frustrated at the tossing and curse the 3 am meeting. At some point I seriously wonder if I ever want to run a race again.

2:45 am: The alarm blares. According to Matt, I grumble and declare that because I didn't sleep I'm not going to be able to run very fast. I dress, chomp on half a banana, grab my bag of gear (bodyglide, gels, water, $5, garbage bag, ClifBar) and head downstairs. Matt gets another few hours of shut-eye before his wake time of 5am (he is to cheer me from mile 5 in Magic Kingdom, around 7am).

3:00 am: the lobby food mart is open, and I buy a cup of coffee. TNT folks fill the lobby, taking pictures, putting on timing chips and writing names on race shirts. The bus arrives and sweeps us away to a parking lot outside EPCOT.

4:00 am: I'm awake now, but feeling quite spacey. Dozens of us head across the lot and into the staging area, which is framed by tents - tents for checking gear bags, tents for charity organizations, tents for post-race massage, tents for first aid, etc. Spotlights greet us, as well as a very talented cover band. Goodness, I think; I bet the band never even went to sleep last night. Their music is way superior to the poor selection of elevator music that was playing at the expo yesterday. A group of 6 of us Marylanders look for a grassy place to plop our buns, but finding none, settle down in a circle on black pavement. We have an hour to kill before our bags are due to be checked in and before we need to start the 20-minute walk to the actual location of the race start. We stretch, talk, eat (I eat my cliffbar). I put my Ipod into a nifty pocket on my sports bra, which I had bought the day before at the expo just because it offered that feature. At 4:40 I head to the bag check and then to port-ajons. Some folks dressed in ballet tu-tus are in line ahead of me. I try to keep track of the average time each runner is in a jon, (to calculate how long I can expect to wait) but give up. It takes a full 20 minutes to get through that line. There are lots of jons, but there are also 16 thousand people running this race today.

5:20 am: Almost done with the walk to the start, in a crowd of thousands also moving slowly to the gate, I ponder why so many people are marching together in the dark. Of course I know the real reason, but it just seems zombie-ish. I've lost my teammates and keep an eye out for them. I notice a line of cars waiting to park, and I see runners trotting over grass and fences to join the parade. Damn them, I think, arriving just now - they knew something I didn't! They got more sleep!

5:25 am: More port-a-jons greet us as we near the start. Long lines are forming there, too, and make a second trip myself with only a 5 minute wait. Figures are scattered along the treeline - people are giving up and using the woods instead. An enthusiastic, very Disney-esque emcee is in the speakers. He interviews some top athletes between music. I exit the port-a-jon to a Beatles montage dance re-mix. "She's got a ticket to ride, but she don't care...she's a big teaser, she took me half the way there...all you need is love, love...I don't know why you say goodbye"

5:30 am: I continue the march to the start, now passing what might be a half-mile of people gathering in their respective "corrals". This is so the faster runners can begin first. The "chips" clock when each runner passes the start, which for some won't be until a half hour or more past the "official" clock time, when the elite runners begin. I'm in Corral B, Wave 1, relatively close to the start. Like ushers at a concert, volunteers check our race numbers for our corral letters at the end of each corral as we walk up the road. I finally get to "B" and think how strange it is to have nearly 14,000 people BEHIND me, and we haven't even started to run yet. I see a trashcan and toss the garbage bag that I was wearing as a disposable sweater. Temps are in the 60's perhaps; pretty good for a run.

5:50 am: I'm feeling the electricity of the crowd, the lights, the music. The emcee announces a moment of silence for our service men and women. After that, he says something about cheering for the military runners, which I do - and people turn and look to me, puzzled. I stop, and ask two runners next to me what the emcee actually said. Apparently military runners were to announce their presence - I'm embarrased. Nope, I'm not in the military, I admit; I just cheer when I'm told.

5:55 am (I think): Wheelchair athletes start. Fireworks go off; I'm jumping at the bit. Minutes later Corral A is let loose. The crowd moves forward; slowly at first, then the pace quickens. I see the starting line and prepare to start my Nike+Ipod and my watch as I pass under the gate. It's about five after 6 when my chip beeps across the line.

And finally, after 4 months of training and three hours waiting in the dark, my 13.1 mile race can begin.

Sorry for the length of the blog. Tune in later, for the ACTUAL race update. Guess that'll be part III.

Disney Half Marathon Race Report

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 04:54:46 GMT

The short report and numbers:

I had a fantastic time at Disney and really enjoyed the race on Saturday morning. 16,000 people came out for the half marathon and the sight of them gathered at the start in the dark at 5am just blew my mind. 18,000 ran the full marathon, which was held on Sunday. Nearly 2,000 runners and walkers from Team in Training came out in total for both events, and raised 5.6 million dollars for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. I was proud to be one of those "in purple" and loved to be part of team running with purpose and a cheering squad of thousands. Following the race, people passing me would congratulate me on finishing and some would simply say "thank you". I've never been thanked for an athletic achievement before, so this was a really great feeling.

While this race was about so much more than running and time, I sill like to track my progress and see if I am pushing myself as hard as I should be. I finished in 2:08:27, which is between my goal time of 2:05 and my realistic time projection of 2:10, so I am happy with that. For some perspective, the top female finished in 1:18:07, however a lot of people walked this event and many needed the full three and a half hours to finish. In my age-sex group, I placed 134 out of 918. Overall, I finished # 2,508 of about 16,000; and 904 of all women.

This was my first half-marathon. Although I had completed four months of training and done progressively longer weekend runs, I wasn't quite sure how fast I could expect to be. In the past three years I've done a handful of races: three 5 K's (24:32), one 8K, a 10K(57:13), and a 10-miler(1:38:26). I also ran my first and only 26.2 miler, the Wineglass Marathon (Corning, NY), in 4:31:44, but that was EIGHT years ago. I'd like to start training more consistently through the year and entering more local races so that I can continue to feed off of the energy of other runners, and hopefully see some improvement in my times. Being part of TNT was amazing and I'd love to continue to run for charities as much as possible - maybe once every one to two years. It's really a win-win situation.

It was great to have Matt there as my biggest fan. But, more details to come later.

Who put the screws to my head?

Sat, 05 Jan 2008 04:45:34 GMT

The weeks following the holidays are special, too. It's the most wonderful time of the year...for cold viruses!

I have one week until the Disney Half Marathon, and I've been laying low the past few days. I've only run once since my Saturday long run. Perhaps I'm taking being a bit sick as an excuse not to run, but this is the way I see it: I'd rather risk a little loss of performance by not running then risk having something like a sinus infection at Disney World.

Right now I'm feeling okay, and I'm glad to be rested for tomorrow's 9 miler. This morning, however, the pain in my head took on a personality in my dreams.

In the dream, I was scuba diving with our lead dive guru M. The water was clear and deep for the first 10 feet, to the halocline, where the denser, saltier layer shimmered like frosted glass. At this point I realized (oh no!) that my air wasn't connected. Somehow I was still breathing, but when I turned to M. to tell him what was up, he shuttled me into an underwater chamber, where he matter-of-factly told me he didn't think I would make it.

I didn't understand. Why would I not make it? He instructed me to look in the mirror (that was conveniently located in this convenient underwater chamber) to see how bulged out and bruised my eyes were. "And your nose is broken!" he added. It was true, the mirror didn't lie: my eyes were blue and looked as though they'd been under suction for days, and my nose and teeth were bleeding. Clearly my face was under some intense pressure and was about to burst.

Before I could attempt the ascent, I awoke (which might be the opposite of waking before the end of a falling dream), and nearly had to laugh despite myself. However, first I got out of bed to take some Advil, sudafed, and put a hot pack over my eyes and nose.

Happy New Year!

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 04:29:32 GMT

Matt and I celebrated the new year in New Jersey, at my friend Jeremy's house in Metuchen. (Metuchen is a town in Central Jersey, about 20 miles from NYC). Every year he and his Metuchenite friends have a shindig, and every year their rendition of a New Year's Ball Drop gets more highly engineered. In the first year of the ball of lights, it was simply that - a mass of Christmas lights on strings. Each year it has grown in size and this year it finally graduated to an organized series of larger lights emerging from a chicken wire mesh around a circular frame. Also new this year was a pulley system to better raise and lower the ball from a tree limb over Main Street; the pulley proved far easier, and safer, than simply throwing an extension cord over the tree limb. Of course - as has always been the case in things that Gurzo et al. have contrived - I can claim no credit to its creation, but have been entertained watching it come to life.

Thanks to Gregg for the photo!

a moment of peace

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 01:41:47 GMT

During a trip to Bed Bath and Beyond tonight to return a broken toaster, I ended up in one of those Homedics shiatsu massage chairs. One minute I was browsing plush bath towels for Matt, and the next I was heeding the call of an animate object; twenty minutes later I was in the store in a physical sense only. It's a nice vantage from which to people watch. There were more men shopping there than I would have expected for a home goods merchant. One of them, about 75 years old, was partaking in the free massage in the chair on the opposite side of the display from me. On my way out, I thought to say "nice to get away for a minute, isn't it?" but thought better - wouldn't that defeat the purpose?

Matt didn't score any towels from that trip, though. The chair put me in such a zen state that I was able to get the "buy, buy, buy" bug out of my head. Besides, he's so picky I'd probably end up returning them. Which wouldn't be so bad; maybe on the trip back I'd have product tested the neck massager.

miles since I bought my iPod

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 04:26:42 GMT

http://nikeplus.nike.com/nikeplus/v1/html/milestones/print_certif.html?id=682292259®ion=us&language=en&locale=en_us&dateFormat=MM/DD/YY

I've reached my minimum!

Sat, 01 Dec 2007 20:27:01 GMT

This afternoon I took the last envelope of bills and two bags of coins from my candy sales to the bank. I raised $293 on candy that I sold at work alone! I also raised $84 selling candy bars outside my grocery store in October, for a total of $377. A number of folks must have given donations in excess of the amount of candy they took, since if I had sold all of the boxes I purchased it would have netted only $300.

I'm thrilled that I could raise almost $400 with such an easy task. Granted, it was difficult for me to ask people for money as they were leaving the store with their kids, groceries, and dry cleaning, but the candy sales at work were just amazingly easy. It took about two months to sell 450 candy bars (or rather, to have 450 candy bars practically walk off on their own) and with the holidays and folks starting to eat a lot of baked good, I think the timing couldn't have been better. I think this is an example of working smart, not hard (something my father is fond of saying, and something which I tend to do do in reverse).

As of this moment, I have raised $3807! I had pledged to raise $3800 by January, and I would like to raise a total of $4500. When I started, $3800 seemed such a frighteningly large number! I'm just so happy to have made it with a month to go. THANK YOU to everyone who has helped me along the way, whether with donations, help with fundraisers, or just words of encouragement. Your generosity will go a long way towards finding a cure for blood cancers, and I really appreciate having your support.

This morning we ran 11 miles. Thankfully, it felt much better than last week's run! My sister is in town this weekend from MA so I am off to go join up with her for some fun.

Writer's Block: Sunday Songs

Sun, 25 Nov 2007 19:24:39 GMT

What's your favorite music for a Sunday morning?

View 501 Answers

It's not "music", but I like to listen to Car Talk and Weekend Edition on NPR. Right now I'm listening to Badly Drawn Boy.

more abuse

Sun, 25 Nov 2007 19:13:12 GMT

I just helped some friends move out of an apartment into their first townhome. There were four sets of hands, and it went pretty well, and I'm impressed with how quickly everything got moved (two Uhaul loads, four hours).

Still tired from yesterday, my body is wondering, where's the love?

Tough loving, that's the only way to get stronger.

the ugly side of running (not for the squeamish)

Sat, 24 Nov 2007 17:12:13 GMT

Well, I did finish my 12 miler, and while I'm happy that I did it, I'm not so happy at how sluggish it felt.
I finished it in a little over two hours, however my ipod unit was again off by about a quarter mile despite the fact that I calibrated it last night. To prevent the pebble from shifting around, I cut a slit into the tongue of my shoe, shoved it in there, and sewed it in. Then I headed to the gym to calibrate it on a treadmill. I think that next time I'll calibrate it at a track.

2:08 is a minute faster than my goal time for the half-marathon (13.1 miles) so I'll need to pick up some speed in the next month and a half. This morning was cold, yes. As I've experienced before, from rowing in the snow, something about having really cold fingers and a heated body makes me feel sick and nauseous. Of course, our coach Nancy claims that the Saturday morning run after Thanksgiving always feels sluggish because of all the alcohol and rich, fatty food that we indulge in is really slow to metabolize. Hey, you are what you eat - I really do believe that. I haven't been kind to my body in that sense for the past three weeks now, and this morning my body let me know.

It's important to refuel with protein soon after a long workout. Not feeling at all like eating, I reluctantly downed a chocolate milk and a Snickers Marathon bar in the car on the way home. By the time I arrived at home, my belly was screaming at me. Something was ripping my insides out! Running is not kind to the digestive tract, as also evidenced by the number of port-a-johns at road races.

My feet and legs are pretty sore right now, plus I have a new under-the-toenail blister. I got two after my run in the rain a month ago, which are slowly resulting in the loss of the nails on those toes. I suppose the good news is that I still have seven good toenails, and also that it is no longer flip-flop season.

it's getting cold

Sat, 24 Nov 2007 03:39:38 GMT

Oh boy. It's going to be 35 degrees tomorrow morning, with 12 miles on the running menu. Can I skip to dessert?

Performance of my Nike+iPod unit

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 00:36:29 GMT

As I've mentioned, I have a neat little electronic device that tells me how far, how long, and how fast I run. It is an accelerometer (fancy pedometer) from Nike and Apple that works in tandem with my iPod Nano. This is how I've generated those little graphs of my runs that I've embedded in previous posts. I love data, and I love that I can track my workouts online, quickly and easily. I just plug my iPod to my laptop after my run and it automatically uploads my run data to the Nike website.

Wait a minute, am I about to write a product review? I'm not sure I want to spend that much time researching for this post, and really I shouldn't, since I have a few thank-you notes to write tonight! Oh, and I wanted to print some photos of me and Matt to send to my grandmother...why the heck didn't I use the photo viewer on my iPod to show her pictures when I was home? She would have loved that. Paper pictures it is, but should I go to Kinkos or Walgreens? Shoot, I'm getting hungry too and I need a shower. And the Bachelor finale is on in about an hour - should I finish writing this first or stop to put my laundry in the dryer? Do I need Ritalin? (Next on my to do list: write a new to-do list). At any rate, this is not a review, but rather a smattering of thoughts I have about my use of this product to date.

1. attach accelerometer to shoe 2. plug radio frequency (RF) receiver into iPod. 3. Run, and it tracks and tells you your time/ distance

Sure, I could track my runs the old-fashioned way: by driving my car around the route to see how far it is between different points and intersections, and track my time through various waypoints by a watch. But in this culture of instant feedback and connectivity, I now have the luxury of knowing, at the push of a button, exactly how many miles, to the tenth, I have run. I need no notebook, no watch, not even a map. And I have to admit that I have quickly become an addict.

What do I mean by that? Well, like any junkie when I can't get what I want, I get irritated. Like today: after work I went for a run with some friends. While it was a really nice run through the woods, I was annoyed that I had forgotten the RF receiver (see picture #2 above). Thus, for the second or third time this month, I have no online record of my run. While it was my fault that I forgot the RF thingy, Nike could improve upon the web workout tracking interface by allowing me to manually enter time and distance for a run. I've run this course before, so at least I know that it was 3.2 miles. But for some reason Nike won't let me enter a run without the data from the Nike+iPod unit, so there is no record of it in my website. This is by far my #1 gripe, but I am hopeful that if enough people like me pester the developers enough they will cave and let us have our way. Supposedly there is a way to hack it but it's kind of involved and definitely not worth my time.

The most common question I get about this is how good of a job it does at estimating distance run. Since it works on tracking cycles of your foot rise and fall, and not actual distance via GPS, one has to wonder: how accurately it can really track your distance, and subsequently, pace?

I think the answer is all in calibration. I initially calibrated it by running a mile on a treadmill. Even then, it was pretty close to the 1 mile, but re-setting it to my particular running style made it work even better. I ran for a few weeks like this, thinking that it was doing a good job. And then I ran the Cold Turkey 10 K, which is a 6.2 mile course.

My Nike+iPod set told me that I ran 5.94 miles (.1 of which happened in the 20 seconds between my finish and when I was able to get the iPod out of my back pocket to tell it that I was done). Does that really matter? Well, 0.25 miles over 6 miles becomes a half mile (or about 5 minutes) over a half marathon, and a full mile (nine to ten minutes for me) over a full marathon. Believe it or not, that actually is a very significant amount to runners, even the far-from-elite like yours truly.

This doesn't mean that my unit is faulty. I blame not the technology, but the user! The accuracy of it depends highly on how the sensor (the little pebble thingo that goes in your shoe) is situated in your shoe. Now, in my case (and for most people who don't actually wear Nike running shoes) I had to tie the sensor to the tongue of my shoe since Mizuno doesn't have a special place in its shoe for a Nike product. The problem with this "shoe hack" (visit the Podophile blog for more info on this) is that if the sensor shifts a bit during your run, its accuracy is compromised. In the case of my hack, I did little more than stuffing the sensor pebble in the toe end of a nylon and tying that to my laces. I think I'm going to have to buy a velcro pouch now.

The Nike+iPod interface is really nice, and I can listen to podcasts while I run. I'm a fan of Podrunner, which is a free 1-hour, weekly podcast of re-mixed techno tracks, and also of This American Life , a weekly audio essay about, well, interesting aspects of daily life. At any point in my run, if I press the big center button, a friendly female voice tells me my time, distance, and pace. At each mile point, the voice tells me how many more miles remain. And once, at the end of my 10 mile run, Lance Armstrong's voice congratulated me on my longest run ever (at least the longest that iPod knows about).

There are probably better units on the market that work via GPS, but I think the $30 price point (plus $150 for the iPod if you don't already have one) makes it a smart choice. I like technology, but I don't want to be bogged down on my run by TOO MUCH gear. iPod+Nike = good. iPod + separate GPS unit + heart rate monitor might just be pushing it. But ask me about that again in a year...

So many thoughts...

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 06:06:52 GMT

There are so many things I would like to blog about, but I just don't seem to have enough time to write them down! Right now it's 1 am; I should have been asleep an hour or two ago.

I would really like to have the time to craft really well-written entries to this blog, but I think from now on I should either craft great one paragraph posts, or simply jot down a few paragraphs and ignore the grammatical errors inherent to a first draft. Oh well, no one is perfect.

My rambling post to make up for lost time

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 05:49:08 GMT

Wow, it has been a while since I've updated this journal!! Fans, I hope you can forgive me. It's just that I've been so busy lately, what with the talk show appearances and the wardrobe fixes for my night life. I'm so tired that I almost fell out of my SUV tonight! I swear - if it wasn't for my pilates classes I would have totally wiped out.

In case you didn't get it already, I'm not a drunken celebrity. But I have been busy and I am sorry I haven't posted recently!Two weeks ago I flew to Providence, RI for a conference. The first night I was able to meet up with my father and Kathy for dinner, because they were coincidentally driving from Boston to CT. From Monday through Thursday I listened to dozens of research talks (and gave one). I had to work on my schmoozing skills between and after the talks, but on Wednesday night got to party with Felix and Warren, two friends from grad school (the latter of whom boosted my ego near rock star status with the remark "do you now know what an amazing catch you are?" Thank you, and yes, I do :)). Top that with five pitchers of beer and the 22 year old student who approached me at the bar wanting to know more about my research (my first groupie!) and I kinda felt like a drunken celebrity. It was fun.

Mom picked me up after the conference ended and I spent five days with her in CT. She threw an early Thanksgiving feast, because I won't be driving back this week. We went shopping (without buying very much). We visited my sharp, lively grandmother who, after mentioning that her car needs repair, quipped "I never thought my car would go before me". We went to Foxwoods casino (Mom spent $25 and reclaimed $23; I spent $40). Then I headed back to MD and spent one day at work in Edgewater before commuting Thursday and Friday to DC for another conference.

I kept up my running in RI and CT, of course, but goodness was it cold! When you look out the window in the morning to contemplate your running route, only to see the birdbath is frozen solid, you know you need some earmuffs. But I'll take the cold when it comes with New England Fall color. Never been there? Think pumpkins on doorsteps of colonial homes. Think iron fences around a 200 year old cemetery behind the brownstone church. Think patches of firey golden and red leaves in the distant hillside, the backdrop to the winding street with lampposts and the post office and the old fire house which is now a museum. My mother doesn't live in a colonial, but her house does have a little back porch room that faces out over a fenced in cemetery on top of a hill. The lack of houses or trees on the stone-dotted hillside provides the perfect vista for the evening sunset. Mom had a fire going during her Thanksgiving party, and it felt good on my back after my run, while I ate turkey with my family and fought with my sister for a spot on the footstool next to the fireplace.

So for me, Thanksgiving came early this year. And so it was as well with my "turkey trot" run. Participating in an 8am race on Thanksgiving morning is almost as much of a tradition for runners as watching football over turkey is for most everyone else in this country. The idea is to get up and moving, burn off some calories in anticipation of the 3000 calorie feast later, and get a t-shirt with a big bird cartoon on the front.

This Sunday I ran the Cold Turkey 10-K (6.2 miles) in Edgewater. It was organized by the local running club, the Annapolis Striders, in honor of Katie Fisher, an adolescent who died of leukemia 4 years ago.

I finished in just over 57 minutes. Not fast, but not too slow either. But next time I'll prepare a little better. I went to bed at about 2 am, woke at 8am, ate a handful of cereal, drove to the race site, paid the registration by a $20 bill, and barely had time for a cup of gatorade before the start. I was a little sluggish during the race, but about an hour after the finish my calves were screaming at me, cramping up like crazy.

Good thing I have a boyfriend who gives killer foot rubs.

Oh, and by the way, I am over $3000 in my fund raising!! Thank you all so very much for your generosity.

I went for a swim in the woods this morning

Sat, 27 Oct 2007 15:01:55 GMT

Very wet Fall morning
Originally uploaded by cloudnine37

After months of drought, the monsoons have finally arrived. It is Saturday, 10:45 am, and has been raining off and on since Wednesday. While I am very happy that the ground and trees and rivers have gotten a much-needed soaking, I am now soaked myself and a little chilly.

Perhaps I should shower before I compose this blog. Perhaps it would also be smart if I had something to eat, and changed out of my wet clothes. Aaah, but this is not how I operate.

See, if I don't post this NOW, it will never make it to the web. And you, faithful readers, whomever and wherever you may be, will never know just how drenched I got on my 10 mile run this morning. You were not out in the pouring rain at 8 am. You did not feel like you were swimming through the woods. And yes, maybe you were a bit more sensible than I to stay in bed.

Unless you are a runner (or rower, or cyclist, etc) then you have no idea how the pursuit of an athletic goal can take full hold of your brain and convince you that what you are doing is exactly what you need to be doing, and furthermore, that everyone else is missing out. This makes you hardcore, or at least, being hardcore is what your brain tells you to justify your misery.

You rock. Your brain tells you this to justify the fact that your feet are so wet water squirts out of your shoes on each footfall, and your toes are blistering from the soggy friction. Nevermind that at 6 am you got out of a perfectly warm and cozy bed and got into a pair of shorts and a wicking t-shirt to the sound of rushing rain on the roof - rain that would soon plaster said clothing to your skin.

This is awesome, to be soaked from head to foot, your brain says. Run faster. Do an extra mile. Your brain is on crack, and some reason you listen to it. And somehow, you are not miserable any more.

Oh, by the way...here's another running chart. You can see the two dips where I stopped. On my first stop I took off my long-sleeved shirt and ran in shorts and my sports bra (It was 70 degrees at that point) and the second stop/walk was to wash down my sports gel. I was pretty happy with my pace and time.

Fueling my runs

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 04:43:03 GMT

It's funny: while many runners are concerned with trimming a little weight, when it comes to mid-workout snacks, calories are our friends.

It takes energy to run, but not all calorie sources are equal. Our natural, immediate energy source is glycogen, which is created in the liver by breaking down your pasta dinners, apples, and other foods. The body has a good supply of glycogen immediately accessible in the blood and in the muscles, however during physical activity this can be depleted. The next energy source used is fat, but burning fat for energy is less efficient than burning glycogen, which makes you a bit slower. This is when runners need to add calories in the form of sugary drinks and foods after about 45 minutes of activity. The body needs lots of water and salts, too.

The Powerbar was one of the original sports foods, but some bellies find it hard to digest. Enter the "power gel". In the middle any race longer than about 8 miles, you'll often see runners squeezing syrupy semi-liquid material out of foil packets and into their mouths. Sports gels are highly concentrated mixes of sugars, electrolytes, vitamins, and sometimes caffeine. They are easier to digest than solid foods but still require water to wash them down. They are also quite an acquired taste, and come in an array of flavors that attempt, poorly, to mask the gooey texture.

I find that if I run longer than four miles without extra calories in the form of Gatorade, power gels, or even gummy bears, I really start to drag. So today I bought some gels from the maker of the Clif Bar. Since Amazon so generously offered that if I gave them more money (my first selection was only $14), they would give me more product for each dollar as well as free shipping. So, I added on an order of "clif blocks" for a total order price of $27, significantly under "list price", whatever that means to you. I've never had Clif Blocks before, but if they are anything like gummy bears, I will like them.

I just remembered that I ran the Cherry Blossom 10-miler this spring on Gatorade, water, and jellybeans. The water and gatorade are complimentary on any race course. The jellybeans probably cost about a twenty cents. So, perhaps I did get suckered by Amazon - but I'll still be excited to get my package in the mail.

Charting my runs

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 01:09:27 GMT

The box below contains a chart of my run today.

I ran four miles on a treadmill. Going side to side on the chart is time, starting at zero minutes, and ending at 39 minutes. If you click on the graph you will get to see more details. The dots on the line show when I reached miles 1, 2, 3 and 4. The up and down wobbles in the line show my pace, or how fast I was running.

The whole world can now see just how I ran my 4 mile run. By how I ran, I mean how fast or slow I ran, whether I held a constant pace or sped up and slowed down; whether I ran an awesome super-fast and consistent run or totally bonked halfway through. ("Bonked" is slang for pooping out or losing steam. Not everyone knows this term, including a 28-year old frine of mine who recently remarked that to her and her fiancee, to "bonk" means to get it on). So if you're getting what I'm saying, if I bonked at mile 3, instead of the line going up, it would have crashed down, like the market value of lending companies this August.

This run was just okay -an ordinary training run. No bonking. No blazing speed. Just getting the miles in.

On this run, I began at my usual easy long run pace (10 minutes per mile), sped up around 2.5 miles to 8.5 minutes per mile (the pace I would need to keep over 26 miles to qualify for the Boston Marathon!!) and slowed down again from 3.5 to 4 miles. The chart only shows points for average splits, not instantaneous speeds, I think, which is why when I sped up to 8.5 minutes a mile for a minute or two, the highest point (fastest moment) shown is only 9 minutes per mile. At any rate, this is a very cool toy.

Okay, so HOW exactly did you get this graph? Who/what recorded your speed, you ask? I'll explain about it a bit more later. Right now I need to eat a late dinner.