A HUGE thank you to everyone who has donated so far!!! Your generosity and support have been overwhelming. I'm proud to say we've raised over $2,600 as of today! Y'all are kind of awesome.
In other good news, my knees are much, much better. I ran 8 miles today with only a little stiffness near the end of the run. Last weekend's 16 mile run was more painful, but it wasn't so much my knees as everything else - I was a mess of blisters and soreness. The physical therapy exercises have helped immensely - I highly recommend Sport and Spine to anyone in the DC area.
And the third piece of good news is that I'm no longer coming home from runs with dead flies on my forehead. My friend Meredith unhelpfully suggested that I stop slathering my forehead with honey, but I think they were actually drowning in a toxic mix of sweat and sunblock. I know, it sounds gross because it IS gross. Luckily, insect season is ending with the cooler weather.
Unluckily, the fly plague has moved indoors. A day after my roommate Erika left for a trip to Nicaragua, we were hit by an invasion of fruit flies. I've hidden all the fruit, poured boiling water down the disposal, and set out traps with soap and vinegar, but they're annoyingly persistent. I want Erika to hurry up and come home so we can devise our battle plan. My friend Jon suggested buying a bat, and I've also always wanted a carnivorous plant. And our secret weapon: If it starts to look like we're losing the war, I'll jog back and forth in the kitchen, killing flies with my forehead.
Yesterday’s 10-mile run around the National Mall was fun, despite the crazy blisters it gave me. We ran two loops, starting at the Senate parking lot, passing by the Capitol, up the gravel paths of the National Mall and past all the Smithsonian museums, around the Washington Monument, past the World War II Monument, alongside the reflecting pool (nice and shady!), around the Lincoln Monument, and back. This picture was taken a few years ago while the World War II Monument and the American Indian Museum were still under construction, but if you look closely you can see where they’ll be.
I didn’t write after the August 9th run because I was disappointed with how it went. I had trouble with my right knee and ended up walking most of the distance. Last Thursday, I visited Sport and Spine, a physical therapy clinic that sponsors Team in Training, and got confirmation that there’s nothing wrong with my knee. The main problem is that our training program ratchets up the mileage pretty quickly, so the muscles around my knees and hips aren’t yet built up enough to provide full support. Plus, I have mild knock knees. I already knew that, but the name just cracks me up. I’m learning some physical therapy exercises so that I’ll be in good shape to run the marathon come October.
Because of my knee trouble, I found myself thinking more last week about how running affects our joints. Conveniently, Stanford researchers released a new study last week that followed middle-aged runners and non-runners for twenty years. Of course they found the usual benefits – the runners were less likely to die not only from cardiovascular problems but also from cancer, neurological disease, and infections. But the music to my ear was their finding that the runners’ knees and other joints were just as healthy as non-runners’. I was thinking about that yesterday when I saw an older man jogging around the Reflecting Pool. I asked the man, who looked about 80 years old, whether he had any joint problems. He smiled and told me that after 30 years of running, his joints are as healthy as ever.
This week my friend Meredith came up with a great idea for a fundraising event - a cakewalk outside a downtown Metro station. My hometown church used to have a carnival with a cakewalk. People pay $5 to walk around in a circle while you play silly music, and when the music stops someone wins a delicious cake. What's not to like? I was making plans to acquire top-hats and other circusy props when I realized there might be rules about this sort of thing. I might have to keep the music to a low volume so as not to disturb our hard-working lobbyists, or worse, I might even need a permit.
Since there's nothing that kills a carnival atmosphere faster than angry police officers, I decided to check up on the rules. First I called Metro, our transit authority. They said as long as I was 15 feet away from the station entrance, I was on public property (aka the city's problem). Next, I called the city government, which really lived up to its incompetent reputation. I kept getting transferred around, and everyone told me different things. At least one person blatantly lied to me - guess it's the end of the day on a Friday and she didn't feel like doing her job.
Soooo... given that no one in the DC government seems to know what the rules are, I'll just have to rely on my winning smile if anyone challenges me. Wish me luck!
P.S. I know I should apologize for the awful pun in today's title, but I don't actually feel bad about it at all.
I never imagined thinking eight miles was a short run. The last time I ran regularly was in 5th grade on the Northside Elementary cross country team. I kind of cheated at practice, though. We used a half-mile track with a convenient giant dirt pile that hid everything behind it. Naturally we'd take turns - some people would be running while others hid behind the giant dirt pile where Mrs. Stroud couldn't see. I don't know if we had her fooled, but I paid for my laziness on race day.
This time around I've learned my lesson, and I'm putting in the miles in preparation for race day. Today was an 8-mile recovery run before we attempt an unthinkable 14 (?!!) miles next Saturday. And crazily enough, even though I'm slow and 8 miles takes a looooong time, it actually seemed short today! It didn't hurt that a gentle rain kept it cooler than it's been for days. Or that we ran in a quiet part of Rock Creek Park, a beautiful park that runs straight up the middle of DC (that's the creek in the picture). All in all, a nice morning run.
Don't forget to donate to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society!
On October 19, I will run the Nike Women's Marathon in memory of Cooper Mack. All money raised will go to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, an organization dedicated to funding blood cancer research, education and patient services. Please join me by donating online.
