The kids are alright

Posted on February 28, 2009 by threlkeld

A friend and his wife are the happy parents of two brand spanking new twin boys, born premature (but otherwise healthy, it seems) this week. Their quest for parenthood was taken up despite some very long odds, and it brought with it a great deal of effort, expense, risk and loss along the way.

These are not what I would call very close friends, but I am friendly enough to be engaged in their lives and care about what happens to them. I’ve had several friends who’ve had kids against very tough odds. This time was different, though. I found myself experiencing a rush of relief and happiness upon hearing the news that the boys had made it safely into the world. I honestly hadn’t expected this well of emotion on their behalf, having not felt it for other people to whom I’m a lot closer. I can only think that as I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned how to be a better friend, meaning being happy for my friends on their terms, not my own.

I don’t have kids, and have never wanted them. That’s an odd stance to take (if the absence of an action can even be considered a “stance”) for a woman in any western culture, but America’s baby-crazed culture in particular. Nor am I married, or eager to be, which is another socio-cultural kettle of fish. Since 44 is mere weeks away, this “decision” (or lack thereof) to not reproduce is irrevocable. More irrevocable than the numerous other decisions I’ve failed to make, such as becoming a lawyer, learning Spanish, or taking up carpentry.

While it’s not quite accurate to say that I’ve struggled with this (I really haven’t), the disconnect between how I want to live my life and how my friends (and the majority of women in this country) want to live theirs has always been present, like quiet, if slightly irritating, background music. Sometimes my status pops up in conversations with friends or family, although I’m grateful to have family — both my own and my partner’s — who’ve never expected or assumed that we would eventually become parents.

These conversations used to be awkward, marked by a combination of helpful eagerness on their parts and smiling defensiveness on mine. I never felt proselytized, just misunderstood. Sentiments like these…

“But you’d make such a great parent!”

“I was worried about what it would be like too, but now I love being a mom.”

“You really can’t know what love is until you’ve had the experience of loving your own child.”

…reflect a failure to grasp the fundamental position of someone who doesn’t want children. I should also add that I don’t dislike children, although I don’t particularly like them either. They are, after all, people and my misanthropy does not age discriminate.

These days, the conversations (when they come up, which is now rare) aren’t awkward anymore. Having turned the corner on 40, my eggs are close to expiring, and any attempts at procreation would likely require scientific intervention. If I haven’t bothered to pursue parenthood the old fashioned way, when it was easy and fun, how likely am I to go the difficult, dreary route? So no one asks anymore. And if they did, I wouldn’t feel weird about it as I used to, having to answer for some implied failure of femininity or maturational development or any other assortment of biases and baggage. In the past few years, I’ve become remarkably unconcerned about what people think — something a few other women I know in this age range have also reported.

It’s hard to capture the experience of being contentedly childfree among the masses of the childed. I like this essay, especially the enumeration of “bingo” questions the childfree are forced to endure from parents. And this one is also particularly good. The author uses arguments for or against horse ownership as a way of framing the subject. Were I to write such an essay, the natural comparitive for me would be marathon racing. There is a particular kind of gratification achieved in training for and racing the marathon well that can’t be fathomed by someone who hasn’t experienced it for themselves. Yet, engaging in this pursuit requires a lot of time, effort, sacrifice and pain while at the same time offering the potential for numerous forms of pleasure, discovery and — yes, pride — along the way. Sort of like having kids. But I wouldn’t try to convince anyone to run a marathon if it wasn’t their cup of tea.

Anyway, I’m just musing as warm thoughts go out to the two new kids on the block, where they are clearing their last hurdles in an infant ICU. How fortunate they are to be so loved and so wanted by two good people.

Filed under: everyday life | 5 Comments »

It’s a fat, fat, fat, fat world

Posted on February 26, 2009 by threlkeld

Jonathan ordered some new clothes from an outfit called Back Country. Nothing elaborate: a couple of tee shirts, some corduroy trousers and a fleece top. He ordered everything in size Small.

Now, while this isn’t Holland, where the people are large (and I don’t mean fat — just large), this is still America, where our milk fed population tends to run pretty big. On the male end, I think the average height is around 5’10” (although I’m too lazy to look it up; besides, I’m a blogger, so this doesn’t have to be accurate). Jonathan is 5’6″ and around 120 lbs. So when clothes are labelled Small, he expects (and hopes) that they really are.

But let’s set aside fuzzier terms like “small” for a moment and discuss hard numbers. What’s always driven me crazy about women’s clothes (aside from the fact that they are poorly made and rarely have enough pockets) is that sizes have never meant anything. One brand’s 12 is another brand’s 10. I’ve envied men because they can buy a 30 x 30 pair of pants, and they know they will get pants with a 30 inch waist and 30 inch inseam. As we’ll see, even that only goes so far these days.

His clothes arrived yesterday and we eagerly unpacked the box. The tee shirts were a little big, but basically fit okay. The shoulders were in the right place and they fit close enough to his chest and midsection that they looked normal. The fleece, however, was another story. I can only imagine that this this thing was designed for Burt Young. The sleeves were the right length, but everything else was blown out to size Fat. He had enough room in there for triplets and the sleeves were diaphanous enough for shoplifting canned goods.

But the best part were the pants. Who were these pants made for? Yes, the waist and legs were indeed 30 inches, but the rest of the proportions were Incredible Bulk. The crotch and ass area bulged outward, perhaps meant for a particularly well-endowed customer (or one with a glandular disorder) with a huge ass. The legs had enough material for a family-sized tent.

What gives?

For the past 10 or so years, I’ve noted the artificial inflation of women’s clothes. When I was at my pre-running trimmest at age 22, I wore a 10. Now, at roughly the same dimensions over 20 years on, I wear a 6 and I’m verging on a 4. This is just wrong, but it’s taken hold everywhere, so now an overweight woman can go shopping, happily deluded into thinking she hasn’t actually gained 40 pounds in the last 10-15 years after all. Because, lookie right here at the tag, she’s still a size 10!

I guess makers of clothing for men have it tougher. You can’t sell pants with a 36 waist as size 30 (although I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before they start trying). So maybe fat men buy these pants and just lift their stomachs over the waistband (driving the crotch even further down toward their knees). Either that, or they have them “taken out” at the tailor, or get an elastic waistband inserted.

Either way, Jonathan still needs trousers for his lithe runner’s frame, and we’re stumped as to where to find any.

Filed under: clothes and gear, everyday life | 6 Comments »

A run down memory lane

Posted on February 12, 2009 by threlkeld

My dad’s in town for the next week or so and last night we went in and met up for dinner. Over a meal and a nice bottle of wine, after discussing the stimulous package, the Madoff ponzi scheme and our upcoming trip to Oregon, the conversation turned to running (as so often happens). More specifically, my father’s previous life as a marathon runner.

Like me, my dad was a latecomer to running and ever later to the marathon party. In fact, our timelines are strikingly similar, with a few years of fitness jogging, followed by an experimental half marathon, then a full blown plunge into training for and racing marathons. We even ran our first full marathon at nearly the same age — he a few weeks before his 41st birthday, and I a few days before my 42nd.

When asked why he started running in the first place, my dad told us that he started right after he and my mother had separated (circa 1973). He’d moved across the bay into an apartment in San Francisco (an extremely spartan arrangement on Van Ness Avenue, right over the Silver Platter deli, and on the corner of a Muni bus line which was perpetually — and noisily — breaking down). Describing this two year period as the worst of his life, he recalled how he was working too hard and, in his words, “needed to do something.” With little disposable income, and this being years before there were such things as “gyms,” he turned to the relatively cheap (and infinitely portable) sport of distance running.

San Francisco is a great running city, and ran it he did. After a couple of years, he moved to Rome for awhile and ran there. Then he moved to New York, where he continued to run. By this time, a few years had gone by and running had become some combination of habit, addiction and outlet. These were still relatively early days (a time vividly chronicled in the documentary about Fred Lebow, Run For Your Life) and despite the presence of Rodgers, Shorter and other Olympic luminaries, everyday runners were still viewed as oddballs. In fact, he told us that when he first moved to New York (around 1976), he’d run around Central Park’s reservoir and would typically not see another soul.

Like so many of us who gravitate toward the marathon distance, he loved running long. We talked about the calming effect that such runs produce and how after awhile they become as essential as any other daily act, like eating and sleeping. As he talked, I remembered a few of the “running stories” he’d shared over the years, such as the one about a crazed hawk in Golden Gate Park that would dive bomb him every day. He must have run too close to its nest, and was as a result on its permanent shit list. The bird was so determined to scalp him that he took to running with a crowbar for awhile, and he’d bat at the bird whenever it attacked.

The other great story I recalled was his experience of running around the Circus Maximus in Rome. Ever the boy from the midwest, he was amazed at how many incredibly friendly young men would appear, seemingly out of nowhere, every morning. My dad’s a good looking guy (and had great runner’s legs). It took him a little while to figure out that he was being cruised.

His first half was the Hispanic Half Marathon (yes, it was really called that) in Central Park. He says he ran it and thought, “Well, huh, this is okay…” and immediately set his sights on running the New York Marathon. His first was 1978 — also Grete Waitz’s famous debut — although he finished about 45 minutes behind the pigtailed Norwegian.

He recalled how the network he was working for actually did a news story about him — the wacky newsman who runs! ha ha! — and he said he interviewed Fred Lebow several times over the years. He was right on the cusp of “jogging”s explosion in popularity and in fact proposed a book to his agent with the theme of “running around the world” — a collection of essays about his experiences of running in weird places (why am I thinking of Haruki Murakami right now?) — a sneakered travelogue of sorts. He was told no one would ever buy it as there was no market for it. If he’d only waited about four or five years…

Like me, my dad loved the training and the slow-build of excitement while doing all that preparation for one event on one day just once or twice a year. But, as a traveling journalist, he eventually found wearing the sometimes impossible reconciliation of rigorous marathon training with the long, unpredictable hours and constant travel required by his job. Somehow, once he was reduced to getting up at 4AM to run 55 laps around a Holiday Inn somewhere in Kansas, what had made it pleasurable (or even sustainable) had started to seriously ebb.

He would run a total of five marathons, with a personal best time of 3:14. While training for his sixth, the Marine Corps Marathon, he stepped in a pothole and tore his meniscus, necessitating total removal of the torn cartilage (knee surgery hadn’t quite evolved yet). With no shock absorber remaining, he never ran again.

I think of my dad when I run sometimes, how similar our paths have been, as are the particular aspects of running that motivate and gratify us. His interest in my running is genuine, never just polite. I thank him for that, as well as for the marathon-friendly genetics he seems to have passed along to me.

Filed under: central park, everyday life, injury, inspiration, racing, travel | 14 Comments »

Taking in the sights in White Plains

Posted on February 1, 2009 by threlkeld

I’ll post my usual training week recap eventually, but I had to post about my run through a section of White Plains, NY this morning. WP is hard to describe — it’s a center of commerce in Westchester County and has undergone tremendous commercial development over the past 10-15 years. It consists of a fairly concentrated collection of towering office buildings and shopping malls, wrapped up in a series of wide-lane roadways. The sidewalks aren’t quite as empty as Stamford, CT (which always reminds of the post-apocalyptic Charlton Heston movie from the early 70s, Omega Man), but they aren’t exactly bustling with human activity.

What’s interesting about WP is the residential areas that surround the commercial core. WP abuts Scarsdale, one of the richest communities in the country, yet you know instantly when you’ve crossed the line from Scarsdale into WP. Within a block or two, you go from stately mansions to rundown  multifamily dwellings. I took one of the roads I run on, Fisher Avenue, a bit farther north today to extend my run. Once past the train and bus stations, the neighborhood deteriorated quite quickly.

Just half a mile to the north of moneyed Scarsdale were streets filled with stray cats (a family of 12, all brown tabbies), transplanted Central and South Americans on their way to work on Sunday morning and — my favorite — people dressed to the nines and headed into the “French Speaking Baptist Church” (Haitians, maybe?) for Sunday services. Jonathan ran the same way this morning and spotted a restaurant I managed to miss, a (Peruvian-run?) pizza parlor called Machu Pizzu.

I never saw this sort of thing on my runs in Iowa.

Filed under: eating, everyday life, training, westchester | 2 Comments »

Achtung! NYC Area Running Bloggers Happy Hour is canceled

Posted on January 30, 2009 by threlkeld

Pigtails Flying is obviously more responsible than I am. But I’ll echo her announcement — the meetup is off due to the popularity of attending the Millrose Games, crap weather and (this was good timing, actually) my less-than-stellar health today, among a plethora of other reasons.

We’ll reschedule, probably for sometime in March — or whenever this horrible winter ends.

Filed under: drinking, everyday life | Leave a comment »

I will not catch this cold. I will not catch this cold. I will not…

Posted on January 29, 2009 by threlkeld

Jonathan has come down with a wickedly awful cold. We think he must have touched the wrong door handle at NYRR’s offices when he dashed in to get our bibs and chips on Saturday.

I’ve done more vigorous washing and disinfecting than Meryl Streep in “Silkwood,” but I nevertheless have that vaguely crappy “uh oh” feeling. Fortunately, I have several bottles of the mysterious Gan Mao Ling tablets my sister turned me on to.

Did I mention our entire neighborhood is now covered in a thick sheet of ice? I bought these, which get me down the steps to our ice mobile car without breaking my neck. But I don’t dare attempt to run outside.

This has been the Worst Winter Ever.

Filed under: clothes and gear, everyday life, shoes, westchester | 4 Comments »

Potpourri post 2

Posted on January 5, 2009 by threlkeld

Random stuff:

I received my age group award from Steamtown. I’d forgotten all about it, actually. So it was a surprise to receive a large plaque in the mail today. It now graces our “bar table” along with a few other large, ugly race awards. I like to mix the evidence of Calvinist discipline with the accoutrements of Bacchanalian excess.

I got a hit from the best web search string ever today: “hot central park runner girls”

I’m sure the Googler was sorely disappointed with the result.

It’s looking like I have a chance of doing my 14 miler tomorrow outside! The ice on our walk and driveway melted today, so I’m hopeful the running path is similarly ice free. That is, until the next snow/freeze event, which is scheduled for tomorrow night.

I still have a contract job! (Good). But my hours were cut by a little under 20% for 2009 (Not so good). I’m trying to look on the bright side: This makes running 90+ miles a week a bit more manageable. And I can always spend the extra time looking for additional freelance writing/editing work. It sucks, but it’s not as bad as being unemployed.

That is all.

Filed under: everyday life, racing | 7 Comments »

1

Posted on January 1, 2009 by threlkeld

Degrees (windchill). Not Celsius. Fahrenheit.

Fortunately, I’ve spent the last couple of years acquiring running clothing appropriate for Siberian conditions. I’m actually looking forward to bundling up for my nine mile, pre-lunch recovery run, on a rare New Year’s Day on which I am not hung over.

The shopping’s done. The bills are paid. I have four days ahead of me with no responsibilities other than running, and feeding and bathing myself. Maybe I’ll do some housecleaning. Maybe not.

The work mill starts up again on Monday. But I’m doing my best not to think about it right now.

I spent a generous $50 Amazon gift certificate from my Mom on a bunch of used books. They are dribbling in from all over the country. Most of them are running-related, of the historical or biographical bent. I’ve realized that my running library is now significant enough to warrant its own section. I’ve also got some fairly valuable out-of-print volumes, it turns out. At some point, I’ll summarize and review some of the better ones here.

Filed under: basebuilding, everyday life, reading, training, westchester | 3 Comments »

Post #300

Posted on December 28, 2008 by threlkeld

That’s right, I’ve found enough gibberish to fill 300 posts over the past few years. I have a grand total of five Bloglines subscribers, attesting to the wild popularity of this blog among runners (and my family members) the world over. Won’t you join me in celebrating my bloviations, which are anonymously spewed into the echo chamber that is the blogosphere?

The reaching of milestones often leads to philosophical ponderings and the seeking of perspective. Or it should. So, rather than “waste” this post on a workaday subject (my weekly training log, an interview with someone much faster than me, or a funny story about what I saw a squirrel do today), I’ll make some observations.

When I started writing this blog in 2006…

… I had a 32-33 inch waist. Now it’s around 28 inches in girth.

… A 10 miler was the week’s big workout; a “long” run that would knock me out for the entire day. Now it’s what I run on my recovery days.

… My resting heart rate was around 60 bpm. Now it’s at 42 on a good day, 48 when I’m tired.

… My 5 mile race pace was 8:00. My marathon race pace today is around 30 seconds per mile faster than that and dropping.

… I had shin splints. All of the time.

… I had just run my first half marathon. I was still too intimidated by the full marathon distance to conceive of running it myself.

… I was happy if I placed in the top 40% of all female finishers. My goals have gotten significantly more ambitious since then.

… It was a year in which I would run just over 1,100 miles. For 2008, I will have run over three times that distance.

… I designed my own marathon training plan and, even though I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, still managed to break four hours on a challenging course for my 2007 debut at the distance.

… I couldn’t drink water from cups during races. I still can’t without inhaling it through my nose and/or spilling it down my front.

… I thought coaches were only for the pros.

I could go on, but I won’t. It’s 5:40 PM on the Sunday after Christmas, and I think that’s as good a time as any to raise a glass in honor of Post 300.

Filed under: drinking, everyday life, training | 6 Comments »

How the XBox 360 changed my run on Tuesday

Posted on December 12, 2008 by threlkeld

Or, rather, how it changed the way my brain works when I’m out running.

My relationship with my significant other was forged over many games of SuperMario Bros. on the Nintendo. This was circa 1990, when people still used cassettes and the Internet was still developing its eyelids. Since then, we’ve upgraded to a new gaming system every five years or so. This year marked the move from our beloved Playstation 2 to the XBox 360.

Although the purchase coincided with Christmas, what’s the point of waiting until some arbitrary date (December 25) to start enjoying it? We could well be dead by then. No time like the present to start frittering away time and working up to a good case of carpal tunnel syndrome.

We ordered a number of games (sword and sorcery for him, post-apocalyptic mayhem and alien destruction for me). But they look pretty complicated. So for the test drive we inserted the Indiana Jones Lego game that came with the system (suitable for 10 year olds and brain damage victims). Let me tell you, this game is like video crack. We’ve killed entire evenings this week in front of this brain-bender.

Brain bending is the point of this post, which I’ll get to. The game forces you to look at your environment in a new way and engage in creative problem solving. This translated into the real world for me on a rainy day run. Our running path follows the Bronx River and, in one section, it’s forced to go underneath the parkway of the same name. Unfortunately, the environmental engineer didn’t consider the effect of heavy rain on the river. As a consequence, when it rains heavily, the path under the roadway is flooded.

In the past, upon arriving at this spot and seeing six inches of water where a path should be, I opt to risk my life crossing a busy parkway, around a blind corner. On Tuesday, however, I had a completely different reaction. For the first time, I noticed a steel handrail with three horizontal rails running alongside the entire flooded area. “Hey,” I thought, “I can put my feet on the first rail, brace my knees against the second, and grip the third with my hands. Then I just need to scoot along the rail past the flooded part.”

And so I did, feeling very clever at having found an alternative to sprinting across two lanes of 50mph traffic.

Now I’m wondering how many other people have figured that out. And what percentage of them are 10-year-old video gamers.

Filed under: everyday life, westchester | 5 Comments »

« Previous Page — Next Page »