"Recalled to Life" (or, The Stream-of-Consciousness Account)

Saturday morning: beautiful, cool, still dark at a few minutes after six. I turned off the ignition in my parked car, silencing the double comfort of a news radio station and the heater, and peeled off my coat and jacket. My body stiffened. I opened the door and stepped out into the air, unflinching. A sign at the end of the row of cars read “17.” I noted landmarks to the right and left, knowing that at an unimaginable future time, somewhere in a newly formed, postmarathon dimension, I would need to remember where I parked.

Clutching my car keys, which I always carry in my right fist, I merged into a stream of runners flowing across the parking lot toward a dark field, and beyond that, converging into the bright, flowing throng of runners dammed up in the street before the starting line. I was cold in my shirt sleeves, but I found it warmer among the crowd. With my arms wrapped around my body and my legs dancing in place, I could tolerate the chill, the wait, the ticking moments. A couple of runners around me remarked on how cold I looked. “But you’ll warm up fast,” they assured me in a friendly tone. Or maybe it was really the Southern accent that pushed away the chill.

Time does tend to pass. That’s my mantra on long runs. The starting gun went off a couple of minutes late. I heard a reporter from the local news team explaining to viewers that a last-second fuse problem had caused the delay. I was hopping over the starting line, noting the new-style chip sensors suspended in a string above my head, when another miked voice intoned, “If a blown fuse is the only problem we have in a marathon …”

I breathed. I moved with the field of runners spreading out around me. I tried to coach myself: not too fast, not too slow. Not too much significance at any one moment. Not too much feeling. Steadiness. Calm. The night faded. The sky promised a clear morning. Happiness pricked at me. I wanted to embrace it.

Mile 1, mile 2. The sun tinged the world in gold. We ran past a fountain shooting up in a landscaped shopping complex. We turned down Ocean Boulevardwith its bank of palm trees and its pastel hotels and the new SkyWheel towering over the boardwalk to look out to sea.

Would it be marathon magic or pain? Would I be "recalled to life"* or fight despair? So many miles. I read the names of the hotels and the signs advertising vacation rentals. My body felt good. I was scared. I could see, as if I’d taken a ride on the SkyWheel: FDR was right about fear. A dark mass hovered somewhere between me and the sky, shifting and ephemeral like a haze of mosquitoes in summer. That was the real danger. I could give into it, let it swallow me. Or I could let the happiness in. It doesn’t always look like a choice. So that was the marathon magic. The dark mass remained visible a long time, but it weakened and faded. On the last stretch before the finish line, I couldn’t see it.

Moment by moment. Breath by breath. Sometimes the sun was in my eyes. Then came welcome shadow. Sometimes I pushed, then glided. Time does tend to pass. We ran by more fountains. Happiness never sprung up as freely as the sprays of water. But in the end, I did feel resurrected. I could smile into the sun and air and sea. The miles had been finite. The fear looked finite too.

And when I got back to my car in parking section 17, having made the journey to the new dimension where the sun was shining and the cars were lined up in the same order they had been in the dark predawn cold (everything changes and nothing changes, that’s how new dimensions work, I guess), my jacket, my radio, and a stash of diet Sunkist were waiting for me. Happiness can be simple.

*Awesome phrase courtesy of Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities.

MB 2012

Awesome weekend in Myrtle Beach! More to come ...

I discovered today that I'm too late to sign up for the National Marathon taking place March 17, so now I'm looking for another race in March. Sigh, maybe it's for the best--I've already done National three times, which is my limit for one race so far. Maybe I need to find a new event. I just have to consider those pesky limitations of time and resources. I'm saving up for a possible trip to South Dakota in May, and of course Sweden in June. I must find a way to manage a spring marathon blitz!

I'm so in love with Myrtle Beach that I'm entertaining the idea of returning in October for a triathlon, even though I keep reminding myself that my last (and only) triathlon was fairly disastrous. One of the Myrtle Beach race organizers appeared on a local show Sunday morning while I was packing up to leave the hotel, and oh, he tempted me. I mean, he gets it. He even talked about the medal, the "BLING"!

Didn't I start this post by pretending I was saving my longwindedness for later?

In contemplation

Marathon Musings

It’s February, and the marathon year is wide open. I decided not to list any marathons on my calendar until I had actually registered for them, so the calendar looks pretty blank right now, with only the Myrtle Beach Marathon coming up next week and the Stockholm Marathon in June. But I’ve had several others in mind, close ones that are easy to get to. As much as I enjoy the travel theme, it requires resources; I’ve toyed with the “50 marathons in 50 states” idea, but I haven’t decided to pursue it. Maybe 50 marathons in 50 countries? We’ll see! What I do know is that it’s time—past time!—to do some planning for this year’s “away games.”

In the meantime, I’ve held onto the assumption that I’ll run in a couple of nearby events this spring. Last year I ran eight marathons. I get preoccupied with precedents. I feel compelled to keep the number of marathons high, even if the number of new courses has to stay a little lower. In March 2011 I planned NOT to participate in the local marathon, and then one evening I was driving home from work when I noticed an electronic sign along the freeway alerting drivers to road closures over the weekend. Road closures associated with the National Marathon. I drew in my breath. My heart raced. And I realized I couldn’t stay away from a marathon going on in my city: I had to run it! I signed up at the last minute. Whew, that was close! I would have been so disappointed if the event had been sold out.

Speaking of which … anyway, I’ve got Myrtle Beach coming up, and I’ve been thinking of adding a new page to the blog that’s focused more specifically on reviewing the events and some of the travel resources I end up using. This whole blogging project is still new to me. I may as well explore the possibilities! I generally read a lot of reviews when I’m choosing a new marathon or planning a trip. Sometimes reviews help steer me toward or away from an event or a hotel. Sometimes they make me crazy and I have to force myself to stop reading them or I’d never dare leave the comforts of my own apartment. The first time I went to Myrtle Beach, I read dozens of hotel reviews on Expedia. I ended up in a panic thinking that any hotel I booked would have fleas, bed bugs, and some mysterious goo seeping from the walls or coating the lamp shades. Sometimes you have to shut your eyes and jump. I finally booked a hotel in North Myrtle Beach, and now I always stay there. I guess for all my traveling, I have a limited taste for adventure.

The Ocean Drive Beach and Golf Resort is satisfactory, but the Myrtle Beach Marathon is awesome, a great kickoff to a fresh marathon season. The course is flat—woohoo! I have no qualms in confessing my appreciation for flat running surfaces. Especially when you are just getting back into marathoning and your brain hasn’t tackled the 4-hour challenge for a while, a lack of rise in the pavement provides a psychological boost. Also, you get to run by all the hotels you didn't choose on Expedia. You could probably even stop and take a tour if you wanted to get a jump on planning next year's trip.

I like this place enough to keep going back.

Myrtle Beach also gives out some of the best goodies around (although I’m afraid of jinxing things for this year by writing that). I have a red beach towel from 2009, a lime green beach towel from 2011, two tote bags, one of which I use almost daily at the gym, and two luh-ve-ly medals: my 2011 MB Marathon medal hangs around the passenger seat of my car. The medallion is shaped like flip flops. Ah, makes me smile.

There, I’ve put out my musings. Look for a new tab on the blog site with access to reviews. Coming soon. As soon as I write some.



Beautiful!



Turns out the marathon sponsor Bi-Lo is a grocery store (I wondered)--there's one down the street from the hotel

Across from the grocery store is the Barefoot Community Church with lighted marquis

I Couldn't Tell Who Was Speaking!

Last night I booked my hotel room in Myrtle Beach for the marathon coming up Feb. 18. The inter-marathon stretch has all but swallowed me up. With three weeks to go until the next race, I could barely convince myself it was time to finalize travel plans.

This will be my fourth pilgrimage to Myrtle Beach. Recently, I enjoyed watching coverage of the Republican primary race from “my” marathon city: hey, don’t I recognize that palm tree behind Joe Johns? Or if not the tree, at the least the building. Perhaps the lettering spelling out “Convention” helped me identify the convention center where the race expo takes place.

Last February, I drove into Myrtle Beach at the end of a bad week, the kind I usually label “less than stellar.” And the marathon weekend worked its miracle. Saturday morning, I felt alive. I breathed in air like it was a new gift. I smiled. I glanced at the clothing in shop windows I passed along the race route. I figured it was a good sign if I could be interested in shopping 20 miles in. I felt so good, like I’d emerged from a dark tunnel.

Maybe it’s a January thing, a winter thing, these doldrums, this darkness. Once again, I’m calling my performances “less than stellar.” I’m running, but I’m not taking flight. I’m mired down with heavy legs. I’d rather be curled up on the couch with my pink fleece blanket. I have a theory that I’m solar powered. Why should I go out before the sun in the morning? Being awake is easy; feeling energized, not so much. A long run looks very, very long in the bleakness of a predawn Monday morning.

So I’ve been off my regular running schedule. I guess the most important thing is that I’ve been running at all, but I’ve done a lot of runs at odd times, late in the evening when I’d usually be at home eating dinner and getting ready for bed. I’ve gone to the fitness center at my apartment complex on a Friday night when only the TV connected to the treadmill was there to keep me company. And I’ve discovered, well, a few nuggets of interest I might have missed otherwise.

I’m one of those now-grown products of a TV babysitter—I’d even say a TV nanny. So I find some comfort in two-dimensional company. But when I run, I can’t watch a sitcom or a movie. I usually go for news, which isn’t all over the airwaves at 8:30 pm on a Friday night. Who’s available to keep vigil with me? Ah, Anderson Cooper.

It isn’t really fair of me, but I’ve never liked him. It dates back to watching him on Channel One news in high school. I don’t know why, but nothing connected with Channel One news could be cool. Yeah, I’m not proud of it, but I fell in with the herd mentality, and the herd didn’t like Anderson Cooper.

Still, he’s on the air weekday nights, talking politics and international disasters. I watched and found him not entirely unwatchable. At least, that is, until Bill Maher came on and made a joke about Mormons and polygamy: so 19th century! (Running is probably one of the safer activities to be engaged in when you’re riled up.)

After “AC360,” it’s Piers Morgan, whom I’ve disliked ever since his sex talk with Christine O’Donnell. And yet, I was glad that my treadmill workout kept me tuned in to his entire interview with Rick Santorum and family, which I never would have sat through at home. It didn’t change any of my political opinions, but it offered an insightful human portrait.

The only problem with watching TV during a workout is that the closed captioning on the treadmill TV screen sometimes fails to capture important aspects of a conversation, such as who is speaking when there’s a rapid exchange of dialogue, and what the voice tones sound like. I’m still intrigued by the conversation between Piers Morgan and Rick Santorum about America’s role in policing the world. Who said what? I read a few lines where I couldn’t tell.

I guess I can survive the suspense, as long as my running (early morning, late night, or somewhere in between) carries me all the way to my next appointment with a spiritual defibrillator.

Sometimes Running Sucks

As much as I want this blog to be positive and upbeat, I can’t post anything this week unless I allow myself the honesty of saying, Sometimes running sucks. It just does. Anything you love and give your time to has its moments, right? Even people—there are people in your life you always love, but once in a while they annoy the heck out of you. And pizza. It was my favorite food as a kid, but I remember sitting in a booth at Pizza Hut feeling so stuffed I almost believed I never wanted to see a pizza again.

Sometimes I feel that way about running. Your body can get tired, but your mind can get tired, too, exhausted from waiting out the long miles every day, always chasing a distant goal only to reset the next day and chase it again. I’m so stuffed with running that I had to postpone plans to drive to the Under Armor outlet for some post-Christmas shopping. I need a new pair of running pants stat, but I couldn’t envision walking into a store full of sports gear without my stomach turning over.

I’m not a machine. I can’t simply program it all in and run on autopilot. I guess the lows are a fair price for the highs … because when the running’s good, it’s like nothing else in the world.

It’s just that today, running sucks!

Where in the World (Will the Pink Shoes Go in 2012)?

When I was growing up, my mom had a classroom-worthy globe of the world. I would hold it with my nose positioned a few inches above the eastern hemisphere and spin it slowly, tasting the names of cities and rivers, mountain ranges and islands: Vladivostok, Abu Dhabi, Addis Ababa, Christmas Island … What was it like to live in those places, I wondered. What did people there do during an average day? What did they see out their windows? I would stare into the darkness beyond my own window and imagine that a light in the distance was the beacon in a lighthouse on a foreign shore.

In middle school I became obsessed with visiting Scandinavia, the birthplace of the great-grandparents who were the last of my ancestors to come to America. I decorated my room with pictures of Europe. I saved money in a piggy bank manufactured to look like a giant yellow crayon. I stood it on one end, covered it in brown paper with “battlements” cut into the top, and called it the Tower.

In high school I visited London and Paris with a school group headed by my French teacher. I remember the beautiful fields of rural England, with splashes of purple heather and red poppies. I remember the soft colored lights of the tour boats gliding along the Seine. I also remember feeling lost in every airport, always doing the wrong thing and going the wrong way, annoying my travel companions and, worse, the airport and customs officials. I can still smell the flooded basement of our hotel in London, where we ate breakfast in the hotel restaurant while the carpet made squishing sounds under the waiters’ shoes. I can’t picture the setting of the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, since everyone in the swarming museum crowds wants their moment in front of her, just as I did, and some are more willing to fight for it. In France I couldn’t understand anyone, in spite of my year of classroom French. Honestly, I couldn’t understand a lot of people in England, either. By the end of the trip I was exhausted. On my last day in Paris, I managed to buy a child-size T-shirt from a street vendor without using any English. It was a gift for my younger cousin, and it used up the last of my money. It was the highlight of my trip. Still, I went home feeling like I may not make it as a world traveler after all.

In college I went back to France on a study abroad program with a group from the university. I understood the language a little better. I felt confident enough navigating around Paris to go out on my own. I have more good memories from that experience, more beautiful images stored away. But still, the trip had a checklist aspect. Guides showed us beautiful sights. We visited old churches, Roman ruins, museums stuffed with famous art. I stood on a café balcony overlooking the Mediterranean and thought, “Yeah, this is where those characters from that book would eat lunch.” I might have been an intruder in the scene. I was following someone else’s itinerary to take in the views that others had deemed noteworthy. And there’s nothing wrong with that; I don’t know a better way to get started. It’s just that standing on that balcony in Eze on the French Riviera was sort of an out-of-body experience, like I was watching a movie of a place instead of being there personally.

I reflected on all this one morning while I was running, and I relived the moment, too, when I found myself in a beautiful place without having read about it first, when I discovered myself in a breathtaking tableau quite by accident, and it was personal, it was my moment. It happened somewhere between Salem and Marblehead in Massachusetts, along the course of the Wicked Half-Marathon. I had already marveled at the coastline and the intense blue of the ocean, which kept meeting me unexpectedly when I’d turn down a new street. But it was about halfway through the race course that I got my most spectacular view of the sea, as buildings gave way to a vista of open water sparkling in the sunlight. I could barely breathe, and it wasn’t exhaustion that clutched my chest. It was one of the most purely joyful experiences of my life.

I began to feel that every trip changed me in some way. Every time I came home from somewhere, Dallas or Portsmouth or Dublin, I was different. I was richer. My soul had been expanded. Every experience became part of my identity.

I write this at the beginning of January; it is cold outside, and although the clock indicates it is still afternoon, I can tell that the light has begun to fade. Someone asked me today what I wanted for 2012. It’s the time of year when everyone talks like that. Well, this year I am going to get my car its 30,000-mile maintenance. I am going to buy a new pair of running pants. I am going to Myrtle Beach. I am going to Stockholm, Sweden.

I don’t know yet where else.

I don’t know. It is that time of year when it helps to start filling in the running calendar. If I want to travel somewhere within the United States between February and June, or even after June, it would help to start planning. Sometimes it is easier to get stuck in reminiscing. Oh, such great trips I’ve had. Maybe the best is behind me. Maybe it will never be that good again. Because for all the planning that goes into travel (I’m not a spontaneous traveler), there are some things you can’t plan or put on a checklist. Those magical moments happen when conditions are right, but there are no guarantees. That’s part of the magic.

When I was a kid spinning that globe, part of the intrigue was in not knowing. The names that sounded so exotic represented mysteries I couldn’t solve. Sometimes now I see those names in other contexts. CNN has a reporter there chronicling violence or starvation or some other tragedy. What is it like to live there? What is it like to live in Norway, the first Scandinavian country I managed to visit? Well, I still don’t know. The answers aren’t there on the surface, spelled out on the signs of the train station.

It’s an adventure. I can plan, I can choose based on timing and cost and other factors where to go this year. But I don’t know what will happen. I can't skip to the end of the book and read the last page. The future is there just out of reach, unwritten, uncertain, ready to unfold. It's scary and exciting and scary and ... 

And so begins the journey.

Note the awesome T-shirt contributed by Santa

White Holiday Mixup

One morning this week an anchor on CNN’s “American Morning” had a special request for the meteorologist: he wanted a map showing the areas of the United States and Canada that could expect a white Christmas. The final days before the holiday brought some crazy storms in parts of the country, but on the east coast the precipitation has come as rain, which didn’t seem to be what this anchor was dreaming of. He was headed for Toronto for part of the holiday, but farther south the weather suggests spring. How to take Christmas seriously when it’s 60 degrees outside?

I have some dreams of a white Christmas, too; it’s the kind of holiday I grew up with. I couldn’t get in the mood to buy a Christmas tree or poinsettias when it felt like the dying days of summer. The warmth this year is unusual, but I couldn’t really expect snow for the holiday. I’m far from my childhood home now, and it rarely snows at Christmas here.



Nice but not Christmas

We often get snow, though, before the winter is over. The biggest snowmakers come our way late in the season, after the festive holiday lights are taken down and put away, after the darkness of winter has worn on a bit long and only dreams of spring alleviate the bleakness of the nights. A couple of years ago, two storms walloped the region in quick succession, leading to massive snowball fights, a run on shovels, and extended vacation from work for many.



It looks peaceful enough ...



“Snowmageddon” was sure to be historic, and the storms brought a charge of excitement as the power of nature bore down. The metro region looked beautiful and quiet under the new snow. And then came the digging out. For days, the roads stayed treacherous. A trip to the grocery store a few blocks away felt like a trek through the wilderness. By the end of the week, the whole experience had lost some its poetry. I turned my attention southward with a sense of relief and escape.



Might there be a car under there?



It happened to be February, and I had my first marathon of the season coming up in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. This time, it wasn’t just the kickoff of my racing calendar. It was my first marathon after almost a year, as a series of injuries had kept me out of consistent training for months. I was nervous and excited and glad to be driving south, away from the snow. During the first few hours of my car trip, I watched white-laced forests and fields give way to soft browns and greens unmuted by snow. Both my car and I began to breathe more freely, and my little green Neon picked up speed.

When we reached the outskirts of Myrtle Beach, I scanned through radio stations in search of some new music, but a spoken word caught my attention: “snow.” I stopped scanning and listened incredulously to a weather forecast. I was driving in South Carolina, a few miles now from the coast, and the meteorologist on the radio was predicting snow. But just a little snow, like frosting on a cake.

I drove on to the marathon expo to pick up my number. Signs posted at the entrance informed runners of a change to the schedule: a half-hour delay in the race start time. Good, I thought. The race started too early for February anyway, in my opinion. It’s still dark at 6:30. A 7:00 a.m. start would keep us out of the precipitation and in the daylight.

On the way to my hotel, I stopped at a bookstore and bought a book, something a friend had recommended. I felt so antsy. I was afraid I couldn’t take the waiting. It was almost like being back at the start of my very first marathon, unsure whether I was truly up to the challenge. The certainty of finishing was not there.

I tried to read but couldn’t get interested. I put the TV on and listened to the updates on the weather that came throughout the evening. Yes, it was unusual, yes, it was practically unheard of, and yes, it was going to snow. The city didn’t have snow plows. Why would they? But they were getting prepared with pickups rigged to do the job. The storm would come in late and be out early, before dawn.

As alone as I felt in my hotel room, I wasn’t the only runner watching the updates come in. The Myrtle Beach Marathon is popular, enough to rate coverage on the news. A reporter stationed on location somewhere talked about the decision facing race officials. Would the marathon be disrupted? No, no, no, I thought. Even in the worst case scenario, it’s a thin coating of snow! We can run through that. Look, the pickups with their plows mounted up front are all ready to go!

But sometime after 10 p.m., the official word came in: the marathon was off.

The waiting was over. Except that it wasn’t. I’d waited nearly a year to be in marathon shape again and to prove to myself that I could still go the distance. I’d come all the way to the brink. I’d made the car trip. I’d suffered through the dragging hours of the Day Before. I’d navigated the expo without spending any money or getting lost among the vendors in the cavernous convention center. And now it was over.

I slept fitfully. I was booked at the hotel for two nights. In the morning, I got up and repacked my things. I took my camera outside for historical documentation. I went to the front desk of the hotel and checked out.

Beach vacation

I guess it was obvious why I was leaving a day early, but it bothered me that the hotel staff member didn’t ask, didn’t wonder if my stay had been OK, didn’t commiserate or offer any words of consolation.

I drove as fast as I could go back home. I could drive pretty fast since the roads were clear. I came back to Snowmageddon. I realized somewhere along the way that I’d left my new book behind. And you know, I stayed at that hotel again the next year, and they didn’t give it back to me!

Am I taking a chance writing this? My marathon calendar in 2012 begins in Myrtle Beach. Here I am dreaming of a white Christmas, but for Valentine’s Day … well, you know what I mean.