Tag Archives: running

A Letter to a Smoker on Seventh Avenue

24 Mar

Dear Smoking Man,*

Hello, remember me?  I actually ate dinner at your house about 5 years ago with my then-boyfriend.  And about a month and a half ago I served you a drink.  I thought about reminding you of that long-past meal we shared but decided that perhaps that would be too much.  It was only that one time, after all, and I don’t even remember your name, your wife’s name, or the undoubtedly pleasant, yet slightly bizarre, dinner conversation.

Here we are now, another chance encounter.  You walking, in a light trench coat, me running up to the park.  You smoking your cigarette, me breathing in air too cold for mid-March.  The fact that you smoke doesn’t bother me, it’s your right and besides, it can’t be any worse for me than the exhaust fumes I suck into my lungs mile after mile.  You take one final drag and, as I approach, you fling your cigarette to the right using your thumb and forefinger as a sort of butt-launcher, missing my by inches.

I imagine you are someone who does not simply discard his empty coffee cups on the side of the road rather than wait for the appearance of a trash can.  I think it likely that you bring your own reusable bags to the supermarket.  Maybe I’ve got you all wrong but, I have to ask, why is it that people who are otherwise responsible inhabitants of an overly shared space feel it is okay to drop their cigarette butts on the ground?  Why is this one form of litter still acceptable?  But even more importantly than that, can you do us all a favor and at least look before you flick a still burning object through the air?  Because, you know, I don’t care if you smoke, I don’t mind breathing the smoke in, but I don’t really care to be burned by your cigarette.

I’m glad we had this little chat, Smoking Man.  And, honestly, it was lovely seeing you again.  Maybe next time I will even say hello.

To future encounters

Rebekah

*The one smoking on Seventh Avenue in Brooklyn, not the creepy one from The X-Files.  By the way did I ever tell you guys I have limited edition Mulder and Skully Barbie and Ken dolls?  Well, I do.  But I won’t tell you where they live for fear you will try and steal them.

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To the jerk who wrote an “inspirational” letter on Facebook

13 Mar

You know what I am really good at?  Blogging as a procrastination technique.  Seriously.  I haven’t much felt like blogging recently because my life is slightly, shall we say, out of sorts.  Right now, however, when I have an article to write for a website that is not my own (and no I am not getting paid for it because, seriously, who needs money?) seems like a wonderful time to post something here.  Where, by the way, I am also not getting paid.  So, okay, let’s do this.

A few days ago, someone I went to high school with but haven’t spoken to since then (and, in fact, I am not entirely sure I ever spoke to her then either…social media is so weird) posted a link to an article called “To the fatty running on the track this afternoon.”  It was a link to some status message written by an anonymous Facebook user and then posted on a website called “Closer” which I have never read and, if this is a sample of the sorts of things this website has to offer I will never read again.  Anyway, the introduction to the post was as follows:

“The message begins in a typically condescending manner. It accuses the overweight runner of ‘footslogging in the wrong direction’, calls them out for wanting to ‘stop twice a lap’ and points out the ‘sweat’ that ‘drenches’ their body.

“But then, all of a sudden, the tone changes – and we find ourselves confronted with a seriously inspirational messages for all the would-be runners out there.”

So it leaves you thinking, how in the world could someone turn a post entitled “To the fatty running on the track this afternoon” into something even moderately supportive and encouraging?  The short answer is that they can’t.  Here is the full text of the original Facebook post:

“To the fatty running on the Westview track this afternoon:

You, whose feet barely lift off the ground as you trudge around the track.  You, who keeps to the outside lane, footslogging in the wrong direction.  You, who stops for water breaks every lap, and who would probably stop twice a lap if there were bleachers on both sides.  You, whose gaze drops to your feet every time we pass.  You, whose sweat drenches your body after your leave, completing only a single, 20-minute mile.

There’s something you should know:  You fucking rock.

Every shallow step you take, you carry the weight of more than two of me, clinging to your bones, begging to be shaken off.  Each lap you run, you’re paying off the debt of another midnight snack, another dessert, another beer.  It’s 20 degrees outside, but you haven’t let that stop your regimen. This isn’t your first day out here, and it certainly won’t be your last.  You’ve started a journey that lasts a lifetime, and you’ve started at least 12 days before your New Year’s resolution kicks in.  You run without music and I can only imagine the mantras running through your mind as you heave your ever-shrinking mass around the next lap.  Let’s go, feet.  Shut up, legs.  Fuck off, fat.  If you’d only look up from your feet the next time we pass, you’d see my gaze has no condescension in it.

I have nothing but respect for you.  You’ve got this.”

Oh god, where to start.  I am a runner.  I am a runner because it feels good, it makes me happy, it clears my head, and it is inclusive of just about anyone.*  I am a runner who is constantly impressed by the kindness and support shown by runners to runners and that is why this ridiculous “inspirational” message really made me mad.  Here’s what I want to say to the person who wrote that note:

The person to whom you wrote this does not need your approval or permission to do what they are already doing.  The person to whom you wrote this does not need you to tell them that their fat does not bother you because clearly, it does.  What you consider inspirational, drips with disapproval, judgement and, yes, condescension.  It is your attitude, and attitudes like yours, that make people ashamed of their bodies and afraid to start running, afraid to start doing many things.  Who cares if this runner stops for water breaks every lap? I do that.  And you know what?  Sometimes I also wish there were bleachers on both sides of the track.  You know why?  Because running is hard.  It is hard and it is tiring.  And yet I don’t see you writing a letter to me.  Ask yourself why.

Why is it that you feel the need to calculate how many times you would fit under this other runner’s skin?  Why do you feel the need to judge this person for how long it takes them to run a mile?  How dare you assume that this person is somehow paying off a debt for calories consumed.  How dare you assign mantras to someone else and assume to know what motivates them.  I said this before and I will say it again, it is people like you, and attitudes like yours, that make people ashamed of their bodies.  This is not inspirational.  This is called fat shaming.

Let me share with you something that is actually inspirational.  I wish I could find the direct quote but a summary will just have to do.  A few years ago I was reading the interviews of some of the elite athletes following the New York City Marathon.  A reporter sat down with one of the men who finished on the podium and said something along the lines of “you run so fast.  You are just such an inspiration.”  The runner, a man who was at the top of his field in an incredibly difficult and punishing sport said the following:

“I am not inspirational.  I am only out there on my feet for a little over 2 hours.  It is the people that are pounding away for 3, 4, 5, 6 or more hours that are the real inspiration.”

This runner did not need to point out how much more talented he is than the rest of the field, how much faster, thinner, more athletic.  This is a man who just achieved an incredible goal, and instead of making the moment about himself, he deflected it to include everyone who completed the race that day.  That is called grace. That is something that made me want to lace my running shoes up right then and there. It made me feel like what I do day after day, what so many of us do no matter how fast or slow we do it, is amazing.

Listen, I know the sentiment of this letter was not malicious but what came through was insanely unkind.  I am glad that you feel proud of yourself for being the bigger person and supporting a “fatty.”  I’m sure you’re very proud of yourself.  But you know what?  You sound like a dick.  I hope you take a step back and really think about what your letter says about you and about the way our society treats people who are deemed to be “footslogging” their “mass” around the world, a constant reminder of the “debt” accrued from years of what you seem to think of as irresponsible overindulgence.  This is a person you are writing this letter to, a person who is deserving of respect and not judgement.  This letter is a perfect example of the fucked up way we think about bodies and what we consider supportive within the realm of fitness.  I don’t know.

It is things like this that make me doubt the way I feel about the running community as a whole.  For me, it is not about being better than others, faster than them, thinner.  It is about all of us being out there, propelling ourselves forward using only our bodies.  That’s an incredible thing.  We are all out there, we are all working, and we are all deserving of support.  Just hold the judgement.

Update:  My friend Julie just shared with me a blog written by a man speaking on behalf of the person to whom the Facebook message was directed.  His name is Tony Posnanski and he is awesome.  Read his blog.  It is WAY better than mine.  Keep on loggin’ those miles and sharing your journey, man.

*I know there are issues of safety, access and serious injury that do bar some people from enjoying the sport.  But by and large, I think that just about anyone who wants to do it, can do it.

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Harassment via Loud Speaker! A Novel Experience!

19 Nov

What follows is a rant.  So, consider yourself warned.*

As I have mentioned before, I enjoy running.  I love that it allows me to move my body. I love that I get to clear my mind.  I love that, as a four-season runner, I get outdoors on days when I normally would cower inside, wrapped tightly in my house sweater.  (Yes, I am aware that the fact that I have a “house sweater” makes me sound old.)  Perhaps most of all, I love that when I go out for a run I leave all technology behind.  Well, okay, that is not entirely true.  Sometimes I bring a podcast with me but that is only on days when I run over 13 miles.  Aching hips and the monotony of repeated running routes can spell the premature end of a specific workout and can, if repeated weekly, make the race I am training for terribly uncomfortable.  Believe me, I know.  And so, on those high mileage days, I allow myself a slight distraction.  Normally, though, I find the freedom from technology and the ability to take in the sights and the sounds of my neighborhood a perk to my running habit.

Today was no different.  I am just starting the process of training for the Manhattan Half Marathon at the end of January.  Yes, January.  In Central Park.  Sadly, this will not be my first time being stupid enough to run this race.  I am actually embarrassed to say that a few years ago when I ran it the temperature at the start was something like 13 degrees with a real feel of like, 5.  For the entire first loop of the park my feet were so cold they had gone numb and I literally felt like I was running on planks of wood.  It was absolutely terrible.  And yet I registered for it again.  Like a moron.  So I headed out of my house for an 8-9 mile training run, abandoning my phone on my bed.  I made my way up and around the cemetery and then, on Fort Hamilton Avenue, I experienced what was perhaps the worst case of street harassment directed at me ever in my life.  Well, it’s tied with that time the food delivery guy grabbed my ass like three houses up from my front door.  So there I was, minding my own business, enjoying the fall colors and the weird car-repair place that looks like an old-school drive-in restaurant with those girls that deliver the food on roller skates, when I heard, from what sounded like an intercom,

“Can I eat you down there, honey?”

Wait, what?  I stopped running.  I honestly could not believe that what I thought I heard was actually what I heard.  I looked around, saw an out of service MTA bus, the driver staring at me.  And then, just as I began to run again, thinking my ears must have deceived me it happened again.

“Can I eat you down there, honey?”

I turned around.  Through the haze of my anger the only thing I thought was that it must have been coming from the bus.  I took note of the time, the bus number, the cross streets.  I thought about whether or not I could give a description of the driver.  I hyperventilated.  Running when you are insanely angry and feeling violated and kind of afraid is no easy task.  I rehashed what happened again and again in my mind for the next mile until I convinced myself to let it go and think about something else.  Without a phone I couldn’t report it right then and I couldn’t snap a photograph.  I did, however, check my memory of the bus number every 5 minutes or so to make sure that when I made the report, which I was most definitely going to do, I would have all the details correct.  So I enjoyed the rest of my run as best I could, which was actually made easier by the fact that the park is one of my safe spaces.  I am always, always happy in the park.  If there comes a day when I am unhappy in the park, I will move away and not look back.

I arrived home and immediately went online to find the number to report complaints about MTA subways and buses.  511, in case you were curious.  I called and, after going through a whole lot of different menu options, I was connected with an extremely unhelpful lady.  The conversation went as follows:

Me: Hi. So I would like to file a complaint but I first am wondering whether or not it is possible for MTA bus drivers to make announcements on some sort of outside speaker.
Lady, snottily:  Well, why would you want the inside announcements to be heard outside?
Me:  Well, I wouldn’t, which is actually part of why I am calling. I just don’t want to make a complaint against someone and have them get in trouble for something that it is not possible for them to have done.
Lady:  So tell me the complaint and I will let you know.

I relayed my story to her.  She laughed.  Asshole.

Lady:  Well, I just can’t imagine anyone would say something like that.
Me: Yea, I couldn’t either until someone said it to me. So you can imagine why I would want to report this person.
Lady: Hold on.

I was then on hold for like 5 minutes while she did some combination of the following things: continued laughing, told all her friends about what I had told her, pretended she was doing something when actually she was just sitting there playing Candy Crush on her phone, or sought out a supervisor or bus-knowledge-haver to find out whether it was possible to make outside announcements.  She came back.

Lady:  It’s not possible.  Anything else?
Me:  No.  Thanks for your compassion.

It occurred to me that maybe the lady on the phone was lying.  I don’t know why she would do it but I thought it possible.  I hung up the phone and immediately posted on Facebook the following message which some of you may have seen:

Does anyone know whether MTA drivers have the ability to make announcements that can be heard outside the bus?

I received the following message from my friend Kevin which was so funny that it almost made the whole experience  worth having:

Does anyone know whether MTA drivers have the ability to make announcements that can be heard outside their heads?

Anyway, the whole experience sucked.  And it sucked even more because I was so convinced that it was the MTA bus that I didn’t look around for vehicles like cop cars and tow trucks that would be more likely to have outdoor speakers.  But also, it’s like, fuck you.  Who does that?!  Who makes sexually explicit comments to someone running over their fucking intercom?!  It’s like, let me broadcast that I am completely devoid of a moral compass.  Let me express my manhood by publicly making this woman feel entirely disempowered.  I hope someone sticks a nail in all his tires, breaks his speakers, and kicks him in the nuts.  Not necessarily in that order.

*That was really for you, Dad, since I know how much you love the rants. 🙂

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And Then I Saw Turtles

24 Jun

I think this is going to be one of the more pointless blog posts to date.  It’s contending for the ultimate prize of Most Needless Blog Post Ever against the one about the time I sneezed really loudly and it was embarrassing.

So today I decided to go for a run.  It is, I would say, probably one of the first days this year when it really feels like summer so the smart thing for me to have done would have been to get up earlier and get out for a run before it got too, too hot.  Like, maybe get out the door by 8:30 am.  Well, I woke up at 8:30am so that was pretty much out of the question.  Also, I had a stomachache.  Waking up with a stomachache is really pretty normal for me.  I have always had a pretty bad belly (thanks, Dad!). I specifically remember it really getting bad when I was in high school and one day after track practice I decided to make myself some Kraft Macaroni & Cheese.  This, mind you, was well before the time when I decided that the Kraft company is evil and I would no longer purchase their food but if someone else happened to buy some, say, Ritz crackers I would make no bones about eating them.*  As an aside I would also like to note that ever since Kraft bought Nabisco they have had a serious corner on the cracker market.  Have I talked about this before?  It can be exceedingly difficult to find “good” crackers without Kraft konnections.  Anyway, back to the belly.  So I made myself Kraft Macaroni & Cheese and holy stomachache.  The rest of the afternoon was pretty much a blur of me running in and out of the bathroom… sorry for the over share.  That was the beginning of the end of carefree living for me.  After years of near-constant stomachaches, searing pains running all through my lower abdomen, and trips to the doctor where they did ultrasounds and concluded there was nothing wrong with me at all, I went to this magical chiropractor who did these crazy things with magnets and I discovered that I have an intolerance to basically everything.  I have sensitivities to dairy, wheat, sugar, everything fermented, over ripe fruit, and caffeine.  Not to mention I don’t eat meat.  So I tried to eliminate all of those things from my diet. As a result I felt a lot better but I was fucking hungry all of the time.  So, recently, I have basically just cut out processed things and also dairy, for the most part.  Also, I try and steer clear of fried foods because a lot of times restaurants don’t clean their grease traps and the results are not at all pretty.  So now rather than waking up with a stomachache 100% of the mornings, I wake up with a stomachache like 50% of the mornings.  So I feel pretty good about that.  This morning, unfortunately, was one of the bad 50%.  Hence I didn’t get out the door to run until like 11am when it was already something like 90 degrees.

I decided, in an effort to keep myself cooler, that I would go running in a sports bra and shorts.  It has been quite a long process for me to feel comfortable doing this because I never do any ab work (I know that as a runner this is incredibly stupid) so things move around a little.  This year I decided that I don’t give a fuck about that and if people don’t like it then they can just stop looking at me.  So off I went up to the park, feeling equal parts confident and awkward, running far too fast for the heat because I figured if I felt hardcore enough to run in just a sports bra and shorts I better go pretty fast so I at least look the part.  By the time I got up there I sort of wanted to vomit.  No matter, I went running along anyway.  When I arrived near the exit at Ocean Parkway I decided I needed to give myself a second and, lo and behold, there was a little pathway leading to the lake!  Perfect!  So I walked down the pathway and there, on the benches, was a group of old ladies.  I felt really weird being near the old ladies without my shirt on and I guess they felt weird too because about a minute after I got there they, ever so slowly, left.  I felt bad for disrupting their stay on the benches but happy to have a little outside space all to myself.  So rare!  I started gazing at the water and noticed this strange commotion.  I figured maybe it was fish.  And then I looked a little further and there, about 100 feet or so into the lake, was a floating log that was literally covered in sunbathing turtles all doing that super cute thing that turtles do when they sunbathe where they turn their cute little wrinkly faces up towards the sun and bask.  I. Love. Turtles.  Like, so much.  Anyway, soon thereafter I realized that the commotion in the water that I initially had concluded was fish was actually a bunch of turtles swimming around looking for snacks!!!!  They were everywhere!  It was so great!  I wanted to stand there forever but I was like, drowning in my own sweat and also felt a little bit like a wuss standing in the shade looking like a hardcore runner but not running at all and instead staring at turtles with a cheese-eating grin on my face so I went back out and finished my run which was totally awful.

When I was finally done with the loop of the park I sat in the shade and had the sad realization that I am officially too old to run during the hottest part of the day.  Also, now I have a really bad sports bra tan.  But turtles!  So really, everything is good.

*Note to friends, Ritz crackers are a surefire way to my heart.  And not the whole wheat ones, those are some bullshit.  I want the white flour, super buttery, extra deliciously processed kind only, thankyouverymuch.

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To Boston from a Runner

16 Apr

I am a runner.

It has taken me a really long time to say that.  I always thought that runners were the people faster than me, who ran more than me.  I thought they were people who made a living off of it or who at least won an award here and there.  But yesterday, after coming back from a run, I spent two hours in my sweaty clothes, glued to a livestream on my computer and reaching out to everyone I know who lives in Boston or has family there.  I fielded text messages from people asking if I knew, hoping I wasn’t in the race.  This is not to say that I have more of a right to be devastated about what happened at the finish line of one of the most celebrated marathons in the world.  It is just to say that for a second I thought, god, what if I was there.

My first thought when looking at the video was about the time on the finishing clock.  It read 4:09 when the first bomb went off.  Anyone who has run a marathon knows that around the 4 hour mark, plus and minus about 15-20 minutes, is when most people finish.  It is when the road is especially crowded; when runners are especially focused and fading; when spectators are especially excited, scanning the thousands of finishers for their friends and loved ones.  It was, in that way, a perfect attack.  It hit when emotions were at their peak, when the potential for casualties was highest.

So now I am reminded once again that we live in what some call a “post-9/11 world” and the marathon is the latest casualty.  Security will be tighter, I would imagine.  Will they monitor our bags more closely?  Will we have to take off our shoes when we enter the corrals lest we smuggle in an explosive?  Will spectators have to go through metal detectors?  The magic, I am afraid, will be gone.

Marathon Day in New York City is like a holiday for me.  I wake up early, I rush to my corner, I jump up and down to keep warm while I wait to be amazed by the elite runners and the tens of thousands that come after them.  I stand there for hours and I cheer until my hands hurt from clapping and my voice hurts from screaming.  It’s a day when people achieve a seemingly impossible distance.  When camaraderie is built between people who have never before met and who will likely never meet again.  It is a day when everyone gets to prove to themselves that all the work they did — those early mornings, those painful miles, those track workouts and hill repeats — was all worth it.  Now the beauty of it, the innocence of it, the simplicity of it, will forever be tainted.

We now live in a world where it seems unreasonable to not have escape roots for possible bombings at all major events.  To not have armed guards at entrances to schools and stadiums.  Maybe some of you think the way we act internationally made this inevitable.  Maybe you think our grief over Boston, over all the people maimed, scarred and killed, is hypocritical because we don’t pay that much attention to the scores of innocent people killed by the United States every year.  And you know what, you are partially right.  Our country is in the wrong a lot.  But the thing is, it is unreasonable to expect people not to be devastated and scared by this.  The point is, I think, that all lives are of equal value.  That does not mean we should feel less compassion for people killed for no reason in Boston because our government regularly and needlessly kills people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria.  It means we should feel more compassion for those killed abroad because we know what senseless violence feels like now.  Again.  We know what it is to be confused and petrified and angry.

So, I am a runner.  And I will run again tomorrow.  And I will be out there cheering the marathoners on come November here in New York and I will qualify, and run, the Boston Marathon.  Because that’s what runners do, we keep right on running.  And that’s what people do, we keep going on.

So all my love to Boston.  To the runners, the spectators, the families, friends, loved ones of all those impacted.  You are in my thoughts.  You will be on my mind through all the many miles I will run this spring.  And hopefully I will be there cheering or running sometime soon.

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Yes, Skeevy Cycler, That was Me who Called you an Asshole in the Park Today

25 Mar

So there I was blissfully* running during the late March weather event when, after topping the Prospect Park Hill (which I maintain is much harder than Cat Hill that all the Central Park runners are always griping about), I heard two men behind me, rapidly approaching.  I figured they must be on bikes.  I figured correctly.  Given that it was windy, and they were on the move, some of what they were saying was a little garbled but what I heard was something along the lines of

…blah, blah, blah…I would love that ass for Christmas…blah, blah, blah…so hot.

Obviously, I was annoyed.  Also, my ass happened to be the only ass in their line of vision and it was, at that moment, safely nestled inside a pair of CW-X compression pants.**   Anyway, it was only for a split second that I thought they might have been addressing their comments my way.  More than likely, they were just talking bullshit (albeit offensive bullshit) and my presence was completely coincidental.  Either way, I wasn’t planning on saying  anything at all and instead had resigned myself to just rolling my eyes aggressively and angrily mumbling to myself when I saw who one of the cyclers was.  It was the Skeezy Cycler.  I have intended to write about this guy forever because he has been pissing me off for years, literally.  I bet other women who make a habit of running in Prospect Park know who I am talking about.  He rides around with big groups of other cyclers, wears a red and black tri-suit, has longish brown-grey hair and looks to me like he might be Argentinian, of the Italian variety.  Skeezy Cycler checks out nearly every female runner he sees looping the park, multiple times if you are out there long enough and he happens to lap you.  He has been doing this to me for-fucking-ever and I have been holding a grudge.  Well, when I noticed that one of the dudes was none other than Skeezy Cycler (which I knew because he obviously checked me out for the millionth time), I literally could not help myself.  My mouth went off before I knew what was happening and I said, somewhat loudly,

You guys are assholes.

They then slowed down their bikes, looked over at me and exchanged a perplexed

What did she just say? Did you hear that?

and then, thankfully, rode on.  I was not really up for an altercation right then seeing as how it was snowing and I was cold, but I would have finished what I started had it been necessary.  Anyway, once it became clear they weren’t coming back I came to the realization that the man who had secretly been my nemesis for like half a decade, was now actually my real life nemesis, like, out in the open.  And he would know it was me in the future because I, like him, am hard to miss.  I am not distinguished by my leering but, instead, by the hair that goes down to my ass. Not common.  So I thought to myself why not go stealth and get a hair cut?  But then I was like, why let the Skeezy Cycler win?  Don’t cut your hair to hide from the likes of him.  But then I thought, yeah but what if he calls me a bitch next time he sees me.  Or, worse yet, what if he spits on my when he passes me by!  This might seem an outlandish fear except that it has happened to me before.  Not by him but still. Once you’ve been spit on (twice, in my case, and by the same guy) you are never really the same.  Anyway, ultimately I decided, no, maybe he would be an adult about it and ride up alongside me and say, kindly,

Was that you who called me an asshole the other day?

And then I would say the following:

Yes, it was me who called you an asshole the other day and here’s why.  I have been seeing you for years around the park and I have noticed that you skeezily check out most female runners as you ride by and you know what?  That is not flattering.  That is rude.  We are not out here to impress you.  We are out here clearing our minds, getting in shape, training for a race.  We are working hard on our bodies to feel good and to look good, mostly for ourselves but also for our partners.  Maybe you think it is harmless what you are doing, over and over again, but let me tell you it isn’t.  Some women might not notice, but for others of us, it pisses is off and insults us and makes us feel slightly less human.  We deal with it out on the streets all day, every day, so let us have the park as a zone of safety.  So yes, that was me that called you an asshole and I meant it, I just feel a little bad I caught your buddy in the crossfire.  So, next time you see me, you can wave, or say “hey Rebekah” or “nice pace” or whatever encouraging comment you come up with and I will wave back and return the favor, but for crying out loud stop making me refer to you in my non-running life as the Skeezy Cycler.  Stop making me dread seeing you.  In short, stop being such a dick.  For crying out loud, stop staring.  Staring is rude.

*Actually, it was hailing so not-so-blissfully

**That picture is provided so you can understand why I might have felt slightly uncomfortable about their comments. Furthermore, at this time I would like to point out that I bought my pair of these pants on sale and they were worth every penny.  I would even pay full price for them!  To be honest, I used look sideways at people who wore them but they are oh so awesome for cold weather running.

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There is a Cat Stuck in this Box

18 Mar

A few years ago I was on the phone with my mom when we started discussing cats.  Or, more specifically, we started trying to figure out at which point one might go from being a lady with cats to a cat lady.  After a good amount of discussion we came to the conclusion that when you go from having 3 cats to 4 you have invariably crossed the line.  In hindsight, this was a rather convenient solution seeing as how at that moment my mother was the owner of exactly three felines and she certainly didn’t want to have to think of herself as a cat lady.  To be fair, though, I had found and lured the two younger cats, both of whom were adorable stray kittens, from different potentially dangerous situations and then dumped them at my parent’s house.  One of them, Chicory, had taken up residence in our front yard and driveway which sits just off of a relatively busy road with limited visibility and the other one, Chamomile, I had wrested from the arms of a drunken co-ed who was sitting weeping on the steps of a fraternity during my Sophomore year in college, squeezing the diminutive kitten to within inches of its life.  And then there was Sassafras, by far my favorite, a bitch of a cat who we adopted from the kennel when I was in Kindergarten who only lasted two years after I brought Cammy home and those two years, to be honest, were not her best.  She was very sick with liver failure and passed away on the very same day I went to a dress fitting for the bridesmaids dress I was to wear that coming summer to my brother and sister-in-law to be’s wedding.  At the end of the conversation I said to my mom, in as stern a voice as I could muster,

Mom, cut me off at three.

I am squarely in the safe zone, being a lady with only 2 cats, one full feline below the edge.  I go through my days proudly telling people about my cats, Clark and Grete, and not worrying about the judgement I would receive if I were to then rattle off an additional three names. It was with this calm attitude that I headed out for a run last Thursday afternoon before work.  As I was running past a train yard I heard a loud, shrill, kitten-sounding call for help coming from somewhere within the gated yards.  I stopped and looked around, following the sound, until I located the kitten stuck inside of a kelly green electrical box.  I looked around for help, but it was after 5 and everyone had gone home.  I retraced my steps and ended up at the entrance to some other MTA-owned property with a security guard who seemed relatively unconcerned about the fate of the cat, although he did assure me that he would “send some fellas to check it out.”  I looked around and didn’t see anyone.  What fellas, I wondered to myself, was he talking about?  I figured he must be a dog person.

I headed back in the direction of the cat, saying to myself over and over again that I had to be at work soon, that there was nothing I could do about the cat in the box, that I simply had to trust in the existence of these invisible fellas and that everything would be okay.  As I approached the box I heard the desperate cries of the trapped kitten.  I simply could not pass it by.  So I crouched there and I started talking to the kitten in the box.  Now, mind you, I was on a busy road and cars and people were passing by and the kitten was invisible to everyone but me and, wouldn’t you know it, as long as I was cooing at it the poor little thing stayed calm.  What this meant for me was that it appeared to those passing me by that I was a crazy person in full running get-up talking to a green metal box and frantically looking at every passer-by with panic in my eyes.  Finally, after 1/2 hour of crouching alone by the box in 25 degree weather, a lady, who had just walked past and not given me a second glance, heard the meow and stopped.  I looked at her and to her stationary back said

There is a cat stuck in this box.

She quickly approached and we started trying to come up with plans.  I had noticed a few minutes earlier that the gate to the yard was open but my law-abiding self was afraid to enter and get yelled at by an approaching fella that I had neglected to notice.  She seconded my concerns (minus the fella) and added that she was pretty sure the gate had an automatic lock mechanism and if someone closed it while I was in there I could get stuck and she didn’t care how official my running clothes looked, there was no way I would be able to scale that fence AND the razor wire at the top without (1) getting arrested, (2) falling or (3) ruining my clothes that she was sure were pretty expensive.*  Just then I realized that a car that had glided to a stop was still idling about 20 feet away and I hadn’t noticed anyone get out.  When I looked up at the car, it approached, and the tinted window of the passenger’s side slowly rolled down.  A man in a baseball cap looked out at me and I said to him

There is a cat stuck in this box.

The man looked shocked and quickly came out of the car.  So there we all were, standing on the sidewalk shoulder to shoulder to shoulder, staring at a stationary electrical box and gesticulating wildly.  The man shrugged off our warnings about the possibility of an automatic lock mechanism and entered the yard, with me closely behind him and the lady standing in the entrance to the yard so just in case the doors started closing she could stop them with her body.  He started moving the lid of the box around, I kept an eye out for fellas, and then, just like that, the whole top and side disconnected from the rest of the box.  We peered in and there it was, the cutest, smallest, scaredest little beige kitty.  It wouldn’t come out of the box but, wouldn’t you know it, the man happened to have cat food in his car so he opened a little can and left it propping the box open so the kitty could eat and escape.  Each of us, we discovered, would love to take the kitty home but both the lady and the man already had 4 kittys and I, as I mentioned before, had 2.  So, we left the kitty to its own devices and went off in our different directions, all of us feeling good about having released the kitty and me, with my comparatively small number of cats at home, feeling even more secure in my status as a lady with cats.

*In actuality I bought them on sale, but I still would have been sad if I ripped them.

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Post-Race Recap

25 Feb

So I figured that since I wrote a blog about my Pre-Race Jitters, I might as well recap the run (I will spare you the boring details), following a similar format to the original post just for accuracy.  For those of you who didn’t read the initial blog, that’s okay, you can read it here, or where I already linked it above!  Or not at all.  Whatever, it’s your life.

1.  The training, yea, I didn’t really do a good job of it.  I ran the 13.1 miles in roughly the same time I ran it last year, plus a few minutes.  My 2013 time was 1:48:23 and my 2012 time was 1:45:15.  Not too shabby.  But my hips hurt because I stopped doing hip strengthening exercises about halfway through my training cycle.  And today my quads are sore because I don’t like to do squats at the gym because of this stupid trainer there who butted into my workout and gave me bad advice.  I wrote about that here, if you care to refresh.  But all in all, it was what I thought it would be.  Cardiovascularly* I was good to go, muscularly not so much.  But it was fun after I relaxed into it so that’s something.

2.  I decided, with the advice of my good friend C., to wear the old shoes that I had already run too many miles in instead of the new shoes that hurt my ankle bump.  I think this was the right choice although I felt like I ran the entire race with cement feet.  Also, for the second time this week my pinky toenail cut the inside of my fourth toe during the run.  Gross.  Also, ouch.

3.  My period started the day before the race which was exactly the wrong time for it to start but also exactly what I expected because my period is an asshole that wants to ruin my life.  I will spare you the gorey details on that one but suffice it to say that it was necessary for me to wait in the obscenely long port-o-potty line before the race, making me almost late for the race start, and then rush to the port-o-potty again right after the race.  For those of you who might never have used a port-o-potty either before or after a race, there is basically nothing grosser.  In short, runners are disgusting.  Also, there may not be any Purell left by the time you get there.  Not that I had that problem personally…right…okay…moving on.

4.  I know that my initial blog only had 3 worry things, but now that I am recaping I want to add something to this list that I never would have thought to worry about before the race but that then occurred during the race and made me feel really sad.  So, in my experience as a person who has run a lot of races of all different distances, I always find that runners are a good and supportive bunch.  I have seen people encourage others, help them up if they trip, support people over the finish line when they are completely out of energy, run a fallen comrade’s shoe over the final time mat so she could receive her medal.  Never have I encountered someone who was intentionally rude and disrespectful to their fellow runners.  That is until yesterday.  Yesterday I got stuck next to these two bros from miles 2-4, give or take.  One of them didn’t say much but the other…oh man was he a piece of shit.   So, there was this girl who got overheated and pulled over to the side of the course to take her long sleeved shirt off.  This is a normal thing.  And what did the asshole do?  He screamed,

“Oh yea! Take it off!”

I literally almost lost my shit.  I thought about saying something but then I was afraid I would be stuck next to them for the entire race and it would ruin my own experience so instead I sped up to get ahead of them and snarled in the dude’s ear as I passed,

“You’re a real fucking gem.”

He didn’t hear me because he was wearing headphones which he technically shouldn’t have been doing anyway but whatever.  I thought I was safe but then they caught up with me again and there was this guy wearing a tight pink running top and some capri running tights — not at all a weird outfit to see — and the fucking dude hit his friend in the arm, pointed at the guy and started quietly laughing at him.  I had half a mind to say,

“How dare you laugh at people who worked hard to get here. Who do you think you are?  Grow up.”

But I bit my tongue partially for the reason I mentioned before but also because I didn’t want the pink dude to overhear me scolding them and realize they were making fun of him and then feel self-conscious and therefore have a bad race.  I really wish I had written down his bib number so I could have written a letter to the race organizers.  Which I would have done and then shared with you all.  Oh well.  Hindsight.

And now for the good things!

1. I didn’t actually end up running with C. because she is fast and just cannot help herself from running fast.  She kicked butt in the race despite not being super well-trained for it.  What a talented jerk.

2.  There was music!  And some of it was really awesome and fun.  I loved the people who put huge stereos outside of their super cool Southern-looking houses.  What I didn’t love was the band stationed at the mile 3/7 mark who played the most unmotivating music ever.  Purple Rain?  Patience?  Really?  You need a runner friend to lend you their motivating playlist, band.

3.  C. and I did not become friends with either Kara or Shalane.  But I ran with my hands in my armpits anyway.  I am totally kidding.  Or am I?!

4.  I had a Bloody Mary (or two..).  Melvin shared this one with me:

IMG_04685.  In the afternoon, I went to a bar with my friend Carie and we had a vodka soda and then this ridiculous thing happened which made us mad.  There we were, minding our own business, sipping our insanely-strong vodka sodas with straws when some dude reaches between us where a candle was perched and goes

“I’m just gonna borrow a little light for our candle”

and proceeds to reach into my drink, grab one of my straws, and try to light it using our candle.  He took a straw with his filthy ass hands that he may or may not have washed right out of my drink!  Who the fuck does that?  When I objected by grabbing the straw out of his hand and telling him exactly how not okay it was that he did that he says, like a fucking dickwad would,

“Calm down, killer.”

Ugh!  Needless to say this sent Carie and I into “put a douche in his place” mode.  I will let you imagine how that went.

6.  I am still planning on watching the AT&T American Cup on Sunday (when will USA Gymnastics announce the competitor who is replacing Elizabeth Price for crying out loud?!) and I am still planning on writing a letter to NBC about their need to fire one or all of their commentators and replace them with Alicia Sacramone.

So, yea, that is pretty much that.  Oh, and to the person who came across my blog by searching the term “what melts dog poo” I hope that it answered your question which is nothing.  Nothing melts dog poo you stupid idiot.  Just pick it up.

*I would like to acknowledge the fact that while WordPress does recognize the word “ginormous” as being acceptable in the English language and therefore not in need of a red squiggly line underneath it, it does not feel the same way about the word “cardiovascularly” or its own company name.  Seems fishy to me.

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Thanks for the company, Ira Glass

8 Jan

An ex-boyfriend of mine (I say that as if they number in the dozens) used to hate the sound of Ira Glass’ voice.  I imagine he still does.  The radio in his car was always tuned to NPR and whenever Ira Glass and This American Life would come on, my ex would let out a quiet groan and quickly shut the radio off.  I always imagined it was because, on top of being a bartender, he was a voice over actor and so he was especially critical of the voices of others.  He was allowed, I suppose, having an exceedingly nice voice himself.  As a result of his quiet disdain, I never really listened to Ira Glass, I always just took this dislike of his voice as a given.  Until I didn’t.  Ironically, Ira Glass does not have a voice for radio.  His voice is odd, not really low and not really high.  His words seem to come from farther back in his mouth than most and it almost sounds as if the very back of his tongue is touching the roof of his mouth when he utters certain sounds — such as the “gla” noise present in his own last name — making it sound as if, for lack of a better description, he is swallowing them.  It makes him identifiable, if nothing else.  Over time I have grown to really like it.

This morning I set out on a long run.  Sixteen and a half miles is a long way to go and, whenever I set out for one of these long ones, I always think back to my 16-year-old self who used to dread the timed two mile run we had to do in order to get on the field hockey team.  The required 8-minute per mile pace required, a seemingly insurmountable goal at the time, is now not so scary.  The 16.5 miles, however, takes about as much mental cheer leading as you might imagine.  I mapped out my route.  A lap around Sunset Park, around Greenwood Cemetery to Fort Hamilton Parkway and then onward for 3 loops of Prospect Park, plus a little extra, ending up at the gym to force myself to stretch.  Normally I run without audio accompaniment, letting my mind wander to all sort of fun and interesting places.  But today I had this feeling that mental amusements simply weren’t going to cut it.  Cue Ira and This American Life.

I headed south on 5th Avenue, listening to the story of an NPR staff member who, despite his allergy of crab and lobster, eats one or the other about 3 times a year.  The poisoning himself, he says “isn’t so bad.”  I imagined along with the narrator what he must look like with his cheeks puffed out and his eyes mere slits due to all the swelling.  I even acted it out, much to the wonder of those I ran by.  I then listened to the story of Cardinals pitcher Steve Blass who was cursed with his namesake, Steve Blass disease, leaving him unable to pitch a successful game.  It got me thinking about myself as an athlete and how, when I start focusing on my breathing, it becomes heavier, more labored.  Best to not think about it, This American Life advised.  But of course by that time I had already started.  I made it to the park while listening to a fictional story put on by “The Truth,” with the descriptor “movies for your ears.”  What a perfect companion going into my 5th and 6th miles.

The next episode starred Mike Birbiglia with his story of a hit and run accident in which he was hit, and, although the other person ran, he got stuck with the other man’s $12,000 repair bill due to police ineptitude.  This story, although a very frustrating experience I am certain, was so incredibly funny that I had to mask my laughter with coughing fits as to not come across as a crazy person to those around me.  It made breathing slightly difficult, and people gave me the side eye anyway, but the next few miles flew by as I waited to say what hilarious injustice would befall Mike next.  I sailed through an online musical, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, by Joss Whedon starring the loveable “triple threat” Neil Patrick Harris as Dr. Horrible.  And then came a reading by Dan Savage about his relationship with Catholicism and the loss of his mother.  Unfortunately for me I decided to take my Gu at exactly the moment when Savage nearly broke down while recounting the horrible moment in Tucson, Arizona when he found out his mother would die that day of pulmonary fibrosis.  Gu coated my throat and I made a sort of wheezing sound whenever I tried to breath, which was often since I was something like 11 miles into my run at that point.  I thought I was probably going to either suffocate or get Gu in my lungs which would have been ironic given the subject matter at that particular moment.  I didn’t do either of those things.  Water seemed to clear the problem right up but that was the third time I managed to draw attention to myself while running.

Nearing the end of my run I was joined by Dave Sedaris as he recounted the many pets his family had when he was a kid and how, after he and his 5 siblings had grown and left, his parents replaced them with a Great Dane named Melinda.  He discussed other pets he had throughout his life, including his female cat, Neil, who was ill and needed to be put down.  When his vet asked him to think about euthanasia, he immediately imagined the “youth in Asia.”  In his words,

I hadn’t heard that word in a while and pictured scores of happy Japanese children spilling from the front door of their elementary school. “Are you thinking about it?” (the vet) asked.

“Yes,” I said. “As a matter of fact, I am.”

And again, I tried to muffle my laughter through heavy coughing.  At 14 miles, give or take, this was no easy feat.  I decided then and there that when the inevitable happens, and I have to put one of my beloved cats down, I too will imagine the “youth in Asia” so as to not have another complete breakdown in the vet’s office like the one I had circa 2004 when my cat Sassafras was ill.  I then moved on to thinking about the parents of funny people.  In Dan Savage and Dave Sedaris’ tales, their mothers were both incredibly funny.  Do all funny people have funny parents?  Or is it simply in the story-telling?  Or maybe a combination of the two?  This little thought adventure made me miss a little of the following story, about Steve Malarkey (real name!) and his creation, Video Catnip, a film for cats which I now want to buy.  I made it to the gym while in the midst of a fictional story about an armadillo.  I didn’t make it through the whole thing because, wouldn’t you know it, my iPod Nano ran out of juice right as I sat down to stretch.

So, thank you, Ira Glass.  That was fun.

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The day I beat an ambulance by foot

1 Nov

On Tuesday evening, the day after Hurricane Sandy hit, I went for a run.  The subways were still out and I was dying to see Lower Manhattan without lights.  I hoofed the 3 miles over to the Brooklyn waterfront, seeing downed trees and scattered debris on every side street.  I reached as close to the water as the Parks Department would allow, stood on a big block, and just looked.  What a strange sight it was. The city that never sleeps, dark.

The following day I decided to take a different route.  I was interested to see what kind of damage had been done to Prospect Park, a place I have run through countless times in all kinds of weather.  My boyfriend pointed out that running through the park, what with all the severed branches and uprooted trees, was probably not the safest thing.  What if the wind blew and a branch fell?  What if a tree, already dangerously leaning, lost its last bit of support from the soil and toppled over?  I decided to run alongside it, glancing in every now and again to see how different it looked.  So, I set out.  I ran towards Atlantic Avenue, made a turn on Flatbush and started running uphill towards the park, dodging walkers and trick-or-treaters along the way.  The traffic was insane.  I had seen photographs of highways turned parking lots all over the East Coast.  I had, myself, taken a photograph near my house with cars lined up for miles in the middle of the day.  Who knows how long the rush hour drivers on Flatbush had been trying to get where ever they were going but I’m sure it was hours.  Then I heard it:  a siren.  I looked over my shoulder and saw an ambulance for New York Methodist hospital trying to make its way through the mess.  I kept running, expecting the ambulance to overtake me any second.  I figured people would pull their cars to the side, allowing space for the ambulance to get through.  Only, people didn’t.  I stopped and looked, the ambulance wasn’t really getting anywhere.  People were just sitting, stubbornly, not willing to give up their hard-earned space on the road, ignorant to the existence not only of the ambulance, but of the person requiring immediate medical care.  There was nothing for me to do, I kept running.  I got a few blocks further and realized that, again, the ambulance had not overtaken me.  A man driving a Senior Care ambulance turned on his lights, got out of his vehicle, and directed the Methodist ambulance through a busy intersection.  The ambulance, finally, passed me.  I started running again and quickly overtook it.  This happened several more times.  Me stopping at a light, the ambulance passing me, me getting the okay to go again, running up the hill, and easily passing the ambulance by foot.  It was heart breaking.  I could only imagine the frustration of the EMTs trying to get to their destination, and the anguish being felt by the family of whoever it was that needed such urgent care.  I couldn’t believe that, after what this city has been through, people were so concerned with getting where they were going that they were able and yet completely unwilling to allow the ambulance to pass.  It was crazy. I stood on a corner next to another woman, in shock.  We looked at one another and just shook our heads, she couldn’t believe it either.  I thought about whether there was anything I could do, tried to imagine myself directing traffic.  Every scenario I thought up ended in disaster, an even bigger traffic jam and me squashed in the middle of the road being cursed by angry drivers.  I continued on.   As I finished my run up Flatbush and saw the ambulance pass, only to get stuck in the mess that is Grand Army Plaza, I quietly voiced the hope that it could get where it was going on time and that none of my loved ones need urgent care over the next few days…they might not be able to get it.

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