This Weekend

It's just about time to head to Stockholm, Sweden, for the next marathon.

Marathon Multitasking

Brookings, South Dakota, the site of my Birthday Bash and Boston-qualifying marathon back on May 12, was such a beautiful city: when the marathon route kept winding past apartment buildings, I began checking them out as I went by. I had fun fantasizing about a new life in a new place. The weather was perfect, cool and breezy; I'm sure that's always the case. Back at my car in the park near the finish line, I encountered a few bugs. But with the bug population as my sole caution, I was prepared to stay!


Only, I had to return my rental car to Omaha.

Here are some images from my trip.



Welcome--and have some cheap gas!







My fierce-looking Ford Fiesta didn't take much gas, anyway.



Around Brookings

Packet pickup at the the Children's Museum

"Welcome, runners!"



FINISH LINE!





From the Air, It Looks Like Art

A few weeks ago a friend and I discussed parenthood and opinions. Mostly the opinions of people who have not yet experienced parenthood. We represented both sides: she has two kids, I have none. But I could sympathize. Sure, it’s easy to set up high ideals when you aren’t in the situation yourself.

I do that, too. After settling into my seat for my recent flight to Omaha, I was less than excited to hear a small child from the row behind me. Fortunately, he wasn’t crying, and he spent only about half the time whining. I sat waiting for the plane to take off and hearing the conversation between the child and his mother, with the father occasionally contributing from the across the aisle. Oh, I lamented, the mother’s letting the child be the boss. Where is the discipline? What will this next generation of child tyrants come to? And then I remembered the conversation with my friend. I smiled to myself and resolved to put an end to my critical thoughts. At least, for the most part.

I focused my attention on looking out the window. I felt disgruntled at getting stuck in a window seat, but the flight was full and I had no options. My leg muscles shivered and crawled in anticipation of the coming ordeal. I fully expected to spend the entire flight thinking I needed to use the restroom, since that usually happens to me whenever I feel I can’t get there easily.

How different, I realized, from my first flight. Sitting by the window had been more than a treat—it had offered a portal into superhero powers, because my soul seemed to pour out through the glass and expand across the horizon, with only the lightest tether to the aircraft, almost as if I were flying on my own with my superhero cape flowing out around me. Every view had seemed so amazing and wonderful. I had watched the early morning sun grow stronger, I had seen the shadow of the plane pass across a puff of clouds that looked like white cotton candy. I had gazed out across vast fields of farmland, and then the blue uniformity of the ocean reminded me of the vinyl tablecloth at my grandma’s Thanksgiving dinner.

I saw farmland on this recent trip, too. It seemed a familiar view at first, because I’ve flown over it many times now, I’ve studied the geometric shapes of fields and there’s nothing left to discover. Or so I thought. Suddenly, gazing down again at it again, it struck me anew as amazing and wonderful. So much land that my eyes would pass over without seeing, that my mind would dismiss as “empty”—all this land is actually cared for, planned, laid out with hard work and attention. The lines, shapes, patterns crisscrossing beneath me all testified of human labor. And the creation was beautiful, like art. I could make out lines I thought were irrigation ditches, running in spokes and swirls. Although they were not there for my joy and amusement, they called to mind an artist with a paintbrush, a hand gliding deftly across a vision on canvas to add complexity and a hint of whimsy. The whole beautiful scene might have been meant for me and me alone, the way it penetrated beyond my vague annoyance to touch me in a place that was real and deep.

And there was that child again, asking questions, saying something about a dog. The plane had a dog, he insisted. I thought he meant the whirring of the engines sounded like a dog growling. He wanted to know about everything. Why this, why that? His parents managed to answer sometimes, but often he was on to the next question before they could really formulate a reply.

He had made up his own mind about the dog, anyway.

Later, after we had all survived the flight and made it off the plane, I was walking through the airport when I noticed the aircraft through a window. I realized that the Frontier Airlines planes display a picture of some kind of animal. I had been able to see the picture from my seat when we were parked at the departure gate and after we landed, and I bet that little boy had seen it, too. One thing I could say for sure, the animal in the picture wasn’t a dog. But what it was … that I couldn’t answer so confidently. Some kind of mammal from the Frontier. Uh, huh, yeah. I remembered hearing the mother in the seat behind me mention a bunny. I imagined myself with my own child. “What is that?” The child would want to know. “Well, dear, that’s some kind of mammal from the frontier.”

To my friend’s point during our discussion a few weeks ago … I am really in no position to criticize a parent.

Oh, by the Way ...

I'm not through posting about my most awesomely fabulous trip to South Dakota, but I'm leaving for Sweden in a few days: Stockholm Marathon coming up this Saturday!

Happy Birthday from the TSA

Is it the uniforms or the stern expressions? I don’t know—maybe it’s nothing so tangible. Some people are afraid of clowns. Not me. But I travel in fear of the TSA!

It didn’t help when a security official yelled at me a few years ago in a screening line in Jamaica for putting something in a bin that didn’t “need” to go in a bin (I forget what). Looking back, I think he must have been having a worse day than I was. Well, of course—I was actually quite pleased to be going home.

It doesn’t matter where I’m going, though: approaching the security screening always makes me squirm. No, I don’t have anything to hide, but I know, I just know I’ll do something wrong.

Back in April I started worrying about my trip to South Dakota, because my driver’s license was due for renewal on my birthday this year. Oh, the anxiety that I would forget! And forgetting could mean more than an expired license going unnoticed in my wallet for a few days. Since I planned to travel the weekend of my birthday, I imagined myself getting stranded, able to fly to Omaha with a still-valid ID but unable to come home two days later.

Finally, I read one of the email reminders the DMV kept sending me, and I discovered I could renew my license online, which I promptly did. (If the DMV doesn’t care that my photo will be 13 years old the next time I renew my license, then I’m not taking my chances on a new picture. And yes, I will take the free pass out of waiting in line!)

With the worry over renewal subsiding, I began to wonder: could I have slipped through anyway? Does anyone really look at your ID when they check it? Could I have glided past those threatening TSA watchdogs, picked up the keys for my rental car, and flown home without a hitch?

What if, what if … but I’ll tell you the answer is no. I couldn’t have gotten away with it, at least this time. The first TSA official I encountered before boarding my flight to Omaha took my license and really looked. I saw her eyes scan it as she checked the various items of information. I watched her focus on the picture and then gaze up at me. (She seemed skeptical, I thought—no doubt the girl in the picture looked too young.) She didn’t simply go through the motions, either, because as she returned the license to me, she wished me a good day and then added, “Enjoy your birthday.” It was Friday morning, May 11, the eve of the best day in the whole month. And she noticed.

“Thank you,” I replied. And I proceeded through the security screening with a smile.

The Plan for Boston

In 2009, I planned to run the Boston Marathon--that overhyped, historic, elusive, snooty, status-granting race that's become a standard against which to measure every marathon performance. Have you qualified for Boston? Did you qualify for Boston? Are you hoping to qualify for Boston?

Registering for the race and receiving the official acceptance letter from the Boston Athletic Association seemed to carry the pomp of admission to an Ivy League college. My qualifying time had been dutifully verified by the BAA; thus, I was deemed worthy to come and throw myself at Heartbreak Hill.

But the plan for Boston was cancelled. Instead, on that April day of 2009, I walked around (walked, I say!) in an ankle brace. Stress fracture. OK, not even that: the MRI revealed a stress "reaction," just the beginnings of a fracture. Enough, though, to make hobbling from the Metro parking lot to the train platform feel like a run up that blasted Heartbreak Hill. Or so I imagine, never having had the opportunity to encounter the hill in real life.

Eventually I stopped hobbling, and after a few more injuries to add to my saga (which in my experience is the way it works with injuries), I began running again. Slowly. That is, I ran too slowly for Boston.

This weekend, I traveled to Brookings (by way of Omaha) for my first-ever South Dakota marathon, the first marathon I've ever run on my birthday, and I got an unexpected present: a reflective headband as a prize for finishing third among women in my age group. OK, OK, that isn't the only gift! On Saturday, May 12, 2012, I ran that distance faster than I have since 2008--and that means the plan for Boston is back on. I qualified solidly, with minutes to spare. It took me 3 years to move beyond that stress fracture and all its implications. But I'm back.

And I am getting a super big head over it. You know how I can tell? That reflective headband does not fit!

Brookings by Way of Omaha

Ever heard of Brookings, South Dakota? Well, I hadn’t—not until I saw the Brookings Marathon listing on MarathonGuide.com. I first noticed it during a past marathon season when I was hunting for a new race to add to my spring-summer itinerary. I couldn’t manage a flight to South Dakota that year, so I filed the listing away in my mental compartment “Potential Future Marathons.” There it waited for me until this year, when I pulled it out and started searching for flights on Expedia.

I’ve never been to South Dakota before, but I’ve crisscrossed the country south of it. On my several car trips between the East Coast and the West, I've followed I-80 the width of Nebraska. I remember sitting in a Nebraska motel dining room one morning grazing on the free Continental breakfast and looking at tourist brochures. This is what I think of when I think of South Dakota: photos of green prairies, wildflowers, and a buffalo. It looked enchanting, I thought. Romantic. Of course, that was back when I still preferred the empty vistas of Wyoming to the comforting steadiness of service signs on the eastern interstates.

I don’t expect to view South Dakota scenery the way I would have back then, but I like that my journey takes me back to Nebraska and that I get to head north to Brookings by car—almost as if I am making the detour I imagined when I saw the pictures on the brochure. The closest airport to Brookings is in Sioux Falls, but the cheaper flight options led to Omaha. When I arrive in Nebraska and pick up my rental car, it won’t likely be an experienced brown Chrysler that informs me its name is George. But I bet that old traveling companion will come to mind. George brought me to Omaha the first time, when I was keenly aware that every mile carried me deeper into the unknown. My situation feels less tenuous now; still, I like a little adventure. So finally, I get to leave I-80 and go north … chasing buffalo? Hmm, perhaps not in the marathon. Although I like the image of buffalo in anklets and running shoes.

Photo of an open prairie in South Dakota courtesy of TripAdvisor

Photo of members of the South Dakota welcome bureau courtesy of TripAdvisor