Month: December 2024

ANYWAY, as I was saying

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I got distracted while I started talking about running, and forgot entirely what I was supposed to be writing about/what the title of my post yesterday was. So I started running, and I did a marathon, and my times were all in the 12 minute area — more 12:45 than 12:01, but still, 12s. Then, after I kind of stopped biking a lot (last year — wait for it — I completed a VERY SLOW century ‘with’ my son (he was 2.5 hours in front of me) WHILE training for a marathon), my times are definitely in the 13s — more like 13:30 when I do long runs. Yesterday’s 5k was in the 14s!

I’m not in it to win it (my dad’s marathon when he was 40 was LESS THAN FOUR HOURS, which I consider INSANE and have ZERO goal of) — but it was nice to know my time, and to know it was staying fairly steady. Now, even though I ran a lot of short runs in 2024, like more than 250 of them, I am just slowing and slowing. Make it stop!

I finished up at work and didn’t get to go to the museum with my family so now I’m going to hurry home and harass them into playing Scrabble with me, so I can get thoroughly trounced …

Crawling while Running

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When I turned 49, I knew I would have to do something big before my 50th birthday. I decided it would be a marathon — my dad did a marathon when he was 40, and I admired that. Of course, my dad was a runner and had run for years, but — whatever. I walk! I can run. A friend, Pam, had also, separately, started running, and she recommended an app, the Nike Run Club (also: free!). So, reluctantly (I always said I hated to run); I started to train.

I trained for a few months, then my shin started hurting so I stopped. I went to a physical therapist who said, in summary, ‘you’re fine, keep training.’ So in August I started training again. I met a board member at my job who recommended a marathon on Dec. 2, in Rehoboth, because it wasn’t too crowded (I was hoping to just run by myself, but bathrooms and water would have been a problem) and it was VERY flat. I .. signed up. It was actually the very weekend that my training finished — which I hadn’t know when I started training! Anyway, I did it — just 6:00 hours, and I walked the last three miles.

One guy on the run part, before I started walking around mile 23, said, “is this your first marathon? You are like a metronome, just exactly keeping the same time!” It was the BEST compliment and I pull it out regularly.

I actually did kind of like running — the places you see, getting their on your own two feet, the strength you gain, etc. But! I was sad I walked the last 3 miles. So! I signed up for ANOTHER marathon, this one in Jim Thorpe, Pa., and asked some friends to run it too (at their own paces, but just good to know they are there). One of the Nike Run Club runs was an ultramarathoner who said even as your body says ‘you can’t keep going’ you have to trick your body and say ‘yes I can.” Even if you BELIEVE you can’t — you have to say you can and do it.

I loved that run and I love that advice. So, two and a half weeks ago I started training again. And now I’m up to 10k on Saturday (last) and 7 miles on Saturday (next). And I do feel like walking, or stopping, and just like that lady said, I say, “nope, I’m able to and I can.” And so far at least (these are very short distances, comparatively!) she’s right — I can.

That’s what I’m trying to teach myself, too — that I can do things that I have always thought I couldn’t do.

Futility

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My rigidity, can lead to futility. I understand and recognize this, and yet rigidly go on my way. Yesterday and today, for example, I came into the office. My office is closed. It is closed because my old office was not closed, and I wanted the week between Christmas and New Years off. So I asked the board to approve it, and close it, and they did. And .. here I am. I told myself I was coming in because the mail comes, and donations come, and they are important to count and accrue in 2024 so we can accurately reflect what happened in 2024. Guess what? Everyone gives online, 1., and 2. the mailperson didn’t even come — yesterday or today. Today I even wrote a note on the door — “Dear USPS: we are here!” and … nothing. My family is home relaxing, my colleagues are relaxing, my plan is to relax, and thus I am … at work. Reading, and snacking, and waiting for mail that is … not going to come.

A friend just wrote me about a March bike ride that sounds interesting, and some donors have written with questions, and it is super easy to answer them while sitting at my desk, but … is that necessary? Someone asked this year which parts of my personality are mutable, or changeable, and which are just unchanging. And — I have a hard time clarifying between the two.

I think the tidiness gene is deep, deep within me, and thus unchangeable — but I think the rigidity gene is as well, and yet I see myself changing. I am obsessed with being timely, but perhaps I carry that obsession too far. I want to go, and go, and go and get everything accomplished — and my beloved children say that is exhausting and perhaps draining — “why do you ALWAYS have to finish something JUST when you start it?” my son lamented.

Such is where my mind wanders, on a quiet day, trapped at the office by my own foolhardiness, trying to decided what I will do differently in 2025. I have lunch plans, so maybe afterwards .. I’ll go home.

Passage of Time

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There is no way to announce that time has passed; my beloved mother-in-law always says that even as she turned 84, she still feels like herself, and doesn’t ‘feel’ old. I went home to Texas for the holidays, dragging my teenagers and husband with me. My dad and Nancy picked us up at the airport, and we headed out to Poteet. The specialize in allowing me to feel like a child; I get to choose where we eat, what we do, they pay for everything, and all is fun. This felt like — a passage in itself, this trip. It was quick — three nights, two full days — because of our children’s schedules. It was poignant, because my dad is becoming forgetful and really really struggles with his vision — can’t drive at night, and chooses to drive during the day but prefers not to with us in the car. I just had a last time feeling that I hope was wrong the whole weekend as we did a puzzle, went to the best BBQ places, made a Christmas flan, and reminisced about all the fun we’ve had on the farm — the place my dad came home from the hospital to!

Anyway; on the last morning, Oliver and I were sneaking out to get a haircut (him) and go for a run (me) (training for my SECOND marathon!). Nancy came out quietly and I’m ashamed to say I snapped at her — we are trying to sneak out! We’ll be back soon! She quietly, kindly replied — I know, your dad just fell out of bed in the middle of the night, and we think he broke his hip.

So, we stopped. Dad wanted to get to the car by himself, but could not move. He had somehow (HOW?) pulled himself up from the CONCRETE floor, and got back into bed. But moving from the bed to the car proved impossible, and then who knows how we would have gotten him from the car to the hospital. The one in Jourdanton, not very far from our Poteet home (8 miles?) was convenience, but even with Oliver/Jason willing to lift him, it just hurt too much. So the ambulance came (quickly!) and got him onto the stretcher. The rural (thankful it is still around!) hospital was excellent, but couldn’t do surgery until Thursday (today!). So they confirmed he had broken his hip, and he got an ambulance to Houston. It was an agonizing ride for him — Nancy stayed and rode with him.

The five of us got in their two cars and drove to their house in Houston, visited with my sister, Anna, and tried to sneak in some Houston stops (the NY Bagel Shop, always). We saw dad on our way to the airport the next day (us stopping in, pictured). You really (really) never do feel old. But you wake up one morning, and you are.