Ellipses…

August has been shaded with ambivalence about this blog. Part of me misses posting regularly, but another part of me cannot muster the energy to sit down to compose anything decent. This Ellipses post is my lazy way of putting my toe in the water, while watching the men’s World Championship marathon on UniversalSports.com. Yes, I paid $3.99 for the privilege, and as it turns out it’s 8:12 and they are having technical difficulties and the video stream hasn’t started yet!…The Irish-American Athletic Club is an organization and structure once located in Sunnyside, south of Queens Boulevard. This club produced scores of athletic champions, men who set world records and competed in the Olympics. Recently, our city councilman agreed to rename 43rd Street in my neighborhood “Winged Fist Way” in recognition of this history. I have a little dream of starting an annual 5k race in Sunnyside that would coincide with the St. Patrick’s Day for All Parade… The Underwear Run was staged as usual this year before the New York City Triathlon. Mark my words: One day I WILL be skinny enough to participate without scaring the tourists…. While I haven’t started dating, I am definitely hanging onto this link for when the fun begins. Also: it’s official, Vibram Five Fingers are now mainstream… Maintaining the trend in my life of men being free of me and then going on to accomplish great things, my ex finally succeeded in getting the community board and parks department to approve and fund plans for a dog run in our local park… While I’ve given up any hope of PRing at my half-marathon this September, I am still looking forward to the flat, seaside course of the Gulf Beach Half-Marathon… on Tuesday I start the Game On! Diet, adopting a healthier lifestyle with friends  for four weeks and competing against another team. Hopefully this will be a way for me to lose my divorce weight, hydrate more effectively, and get proper amounts of sleep… at 8:48 and the video stream is still down at UniversalSports.com…

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Ellipses… for Sammy

Sammy Wanjiru, while he was a braggart, treated his wife poorly, and perhaps assaulted those in his service, he still was an amazing runner and inspired many of us regular folks in our own training… Sammy’s performance in the marathon at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 was an amazing, splashy arrival of a formidable talent. I am sad that I won’t be ale to see how much he could have achieved on the roads…. The New York Timese quoted Haile Gebrselassie’s tweetsabout Sammy’s fatal fall. Even though Sammy publicly stated he was going after the world record, Haile was respectful and sorrowful to hear of Sammy’s death…. I was just wrapping up the most recent episode of the New York Running Show when news about Sammy’s death broke. Now the show seems silly, but at the time we had a great conversation about the Forest Park 4 Mile Classic… Still thinking about elite runners, I thought I’d let it drop that I am attending the adidas Grand Prix IAAF Diamond League Track Meet as an accredited member of the press corps! Thank you NYCRUNS for helping me to get credentials… last weekend while I was in Colorado I bought myself a ticket package to attend the U.S. Olympic Trials for Track and Field at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon. Now you all know where I’ll be the last two weeks of June, 2012… My ex-husband still occasionally sends me links to interesting bits of running news. Most recently he shared this inspiring story, and these song lyrics (which I would like to dedicated to Sammy)… <off-topic> One recent evening I came home and my roommate was playing “Lake Street Dive” by Lake Street Dive, and I instantly fell head over heels in love with the singer’s jazzy, jaded voice and the band’s fantastic melodies glued together with sweet, swirly notes on a Leslie organ. You all should check them out…. Running by swank hotels always gets my thoughts, er, racing, and this one, with its rooftop bar and glowing, supine decor tempts me to put on my fancy heels and show up for a cocktail… </off-topic>

R.I.P. SAMMY WANJIRU
You can do a lot in a lifetime
If you don’t burn out too fast
You can make the most of the distance
First you need endurance
First you’ve got to last…
–“Marathon” by Rush

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Ellipses…for Insomnia

Hiya, 4 AM and I’m blogging to settle my troubled mind… On Sunday, May 1st I’m once again one of the hosts of the Team Fox Young Professionals Sunday Funday Brunch, a fundraiser for the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinsons Disease. Brunch is at Aspen Social Club in midtown Manhattan, and it starts at noon. The ticket includes an open bar and buffet, and we’re also having a live auction. If you aren’t running the New Jersey Marathon that day, please come and hang out with me for this worthy cause–buy a ticket! (or just make a donation)…  Caution, Pretension Ahead! A new novel by my favorite contemporary Italian writer has just been released in English. I am looking forward to the day when I actually have time to read it… Lately, Italy has been whispering “Remember me, your first love?” in my ear over and over. Small temptations keep darting my way, from the country I used to visit twice a year. Here’s another… Canadian businessman Mike Shanks interviewed Malcom Gladwell in New York a while back about his running. I like how he manages to ask Malcolm some questions that take him by surprise. And then afterwards they went for a run!… This article in Psychology Today asserts that ultrarunners aren’t really crazy, but when I read about how they train and adapt to the demands of running for 100 miles–it sure sounds like crazy to me. Some runners I know who run ultras even call themselves crazy! For me, 26.2 is quite far enough, but I am always interested to hear what inspires others to move on to ultras…

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Ellipses…for my glutes

Day 4 of 7 in the Blogging My Birthday Week Series

I have mentioned before, but not very often, that I am one of the semi-regular personalities on a local running podcast called the NY Running Show. Each week a bunch of opinionated runners of all ages and speeds get together to discuss what’s gone on in pro and amateur racing in our preferred city. Last Sunday, we discussed the New York City Half-Marathon, and I gave the verbal report of what you’ve already read here. I hope you subscribe to our long-winded but charming podcast!…. Chris McDougall commented on my blog when his book Born to Run first came out, and now he’s responded to a comment JG of Run Westchester posted in response to McDougall’s NYTimes.com online feature about how trail runners who don’t have a training schedule are more virtuous than road runners who like to log their miles. Or something like that…. If you are in NYC on Sunday May 1, please support my efforts along with the other members of the Team Fox Young Professionals to help fund the research for a cure to Parkinson’s Disease. We are holding a Sunday Funday brunch at Aspen in Midtown. Tickets for open bar & brunch buffet are only $42 if you order now, and we’ll have fun raffles & live music, too…. On March 31, I’ll be going to see this documentary about some crazy person’s quest to run 75 marathons in 75 days. It’s called My Run, and I’ll be at the AMC 25 theater in Times Square, 7 PM showing. Who’s in?… My next race is April 17 in Boston. No, not the marathon (not yet, anyway). This is the 5k, the day before…. Two pieces of bad news about my beloved Queens. 1) the libraries have stopped buying new books due to budget cuts, and 2) the vote went through today to name my bridge after Ed Koch. Oh, the indignity…. On the up side, it still is a delight to run down off the 59th Street Bridge into Queens through this clean and pretty plaza. They just finished the construction on the Manhattan pedestrian approach, too… By now you must be dying to know, Why oh why are these ellipses for my glutes? because last night’s Pilates class literally kicked my butt, and my posterior has been pained all day long. I’m hoping that if I dedicate this blog post to them, my glutes will stop their whining… And lastly, I tried this eating plan for a month–basically cut out all sugar from my diet–and I didn’t lose a single pound. This means I am still too plump to fit into the dress I wanted to wear for my party tonight. Here’s a picture of me in the dress back in July, when I was about 10 pounds lighter, but also still married.

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Limbo Ellipses…

Now that I’m a grown-up, the week between Christmas and New Years is more like limbo than vacation. There are no festivities, no vacationing, and nor do I work very hard. I’m just preparing… I’m living another kind of limbo, a residential one. The closing on my current apartment should be set for later in January–but I don’t have any place to stay after that. It’s looking more and more like I’ll be subletting a room in some stranger’s apartment for a few months as I look for my own apartment to buy…. My running isn’t at the full force I’d like it to be, either. My car accident wiped me out more than I’d expected, so I dropped down to 3-4 days of running a week, instead of my favorite five. I’ll stick with this moderated training until the new year, too, when I hope to be back to 100%… Limbo is starting to feel like a test of character… Last year I shared with you the One-World Resolution Challenge, posted by another writer. The word I resolved was CELEBRATE, which now seems like a cruel joke, on both me and many others. I selected that word in an attitude of hope, thinking I would focus on the successes both large and small I suppose I did do some of that, but CELEBRATE certainly didn’t set the tone for the year. So for 2011, I am not selecting a fucking word… And my one un-limbo link of the week– Scroll down to read about Laurel Snyder, my friend who bought all remaining copies of her picture books and donated them to charities and libraries in stead of allowing them to be sold off as remainders (or pulped)…

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Ellipses… to brighten your day

My friend JG told me about Lisbet Sunshine, a San Francisco runner who currently has the second-fastest qualifying time for the Olympic Trials to date. I love this profile of her, because every time I read the word “Sunshine,” I smiled… On a relaxing train ride on my way home from Westchester County this lunchtime, my friend passed me page two of the Metropolitan section of the New York Times, which details the way Mary Wittenberg spends her Sundays. As I read about her routine, my heart beat a little bit faster as my imagination leapt forward to what my Sundays will look like in a few months, when they are 100% my own again… In another wildly ambitious, optimistic leap of the imagination, I took a minute to look up the half-marathon qualifying time for guaranteed entry to the New York City Marathon might be. For a woman of my age: 1:37, or a 7:23 pace. Gulp… Many thanks to everyone who contributed song suggestions to my Sunshine Playlist. Here it is in its entirety:

“Good Day Sunshine” by The Beatles
“Ain’t No Sunshine” by Bill Withers
“Sunshine of Your Love” by Cream
“Sunshine Sunshine” by Goodtimes Goodtimes
“Sunshine Song” by Jason Mraz
“Ain’t No Sunshine” by Joan Osborne
“Sunshine on my Shoulders” by John Denver
“Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina and the Waves
“Steal My Sunshine” by Len
“Mr. Sunshine” by Lori McKenna
“Sunshine” by Matt Costa
“The Sound of Sunshine” by Michael Franti and the Spearheads
“Sunshine” by Steve Azar
“You Are the Sunshine of My Life” by Stevie Wonder

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Ellipses

A year ago today, I wrote the post entitled Darkest Before the Dawn. I have always liked that entry on PF, and without planning it, I ran the same route and experienced a smiliar sunrise today as I did then… Exiting stuff yesterday on the blog, as the attention for An Open Letter to a Fall Marathoner gave my single biggest day of traffic. It was partly driven by JG posting a thread about it on letsrun.com, but I think of most it came from all of you loving it, tweeting it, and linking to it on your blogs and Facebook pages. Fun!…

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Ellipses in the Sun

Some of you may know that the elite with the artful soul Anthony Famiglietti keeps a blog. No matter what he’s writing about (his training, a new product, a race) he always bring a thoughtful, unique perspective to the topic. Even when he’s writing a book review of Jamie Freveletti’s two novels (the ones that feature an ultrarunning woman as the hero)… On Monday I had lunch with two Green Mountain Relay alums. RJR has  recalibrated his training goals, and RF is still globetrotting and writing her column. She has now twice previously demonstrated an appreciation for my bridge. Gotta love a woman like that… Tomorrow (Sunday October 3rd) I am racing the Get Outside on Governors Island 10k. I am hopeful that I’ll be able to PR, though it surely will be less glorious and more painful than the other PRs I set this summer. I’m betting I can run a 10k in 54 minutes. What’s your over/under?… Went to the Mets vs Nationals game at Citifield with my dad today. We couldn’t have asked for a better day. Three homers earned the Mets 7 runs, and me 2 beers and a Shake Shack burger (which is completly overrated). What is not overrated was the sheer calming joy of sitting in the sun, watching the boys do their thing in the diamond while my dad and I talked silly and serious… Speaking of sun, I am compiling another one of my word playlists. This time the word is SUNSHINE. If you know of any songs that have the word sunshine in the title, please add them here in the comments…

Sunshine playlist
“Sunshine of Your Love” by Cream
“Sunshine” by Steve Azar
“You Are the Sunshine of My Life” by Stevie Wonder
“You Are My Sunshine”
“Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina and the Waves
“Ain’t No Sunshine” by Bill Withers

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Slillpses…

Slipped up in my training again, didn’t get out on my evening run with LW as I had planned. Work is overwhelming me right now, even though I got there at 7 AM this morning… A lot of things I want to do are on hold right now. Big things, like launching into the training plan my teammate Mike gave me. And little things, like buying a Road ID… Husband sent me this story about tennis player Justin Gimelstob with the question “Is this guy the next Lance?” Not by a long shot, but Gimelstob seems equally as clueless as Lance did about his first marathon… My personal life has swooped up to co-opt my fun time again, but even though I can’t make it to this Team Fox race, I hope at least one of you will go and support Jennie and her family as they race to end Parkinsons Disease. Watch the video… I am going to buy some of this music, hoping it will live up to its claim of being a “digital tonic” and keep me on task, no matter the task (working, sleeping, running, etc.). Here’s another video…

Thank you MP for running with me last Tuesday morning. That was pivotal. Hope your team killed at Reach the Beach…

Thank you EN for dancing with me at the CAKE concert Thursday evening in Central Park. I admire your frank, open demeanor. Unrelated, I owe you a dinner in October…

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Ellipses…

I have prepared a toast for you all, which I will elocute at the appropriate moment. For now, I’ll need you all to stock up on the bubbly and pick out a fancy outfit in anticipation… Call me a sucker, but I coughed up the $1.29 for Cee Lo Green’s hot new single “Fuck You!”  My thing is, I get a big kick out of happy songs about terrible things (I have a themed playlist), and Green’s song fits precisely in that category. Also, being a big fan of the F-bomb, I am delighted every time the word trips of Cee’s tongue. This article is a more intellectual discussion of the song’s appeal, and how it so quickly exploded in popularity. Other songs I love which make liberal use of my favorite swear word include “Fuck You” by Lily Allen and “Blankest Year” by Nada Surf. What are yours? I’m thinking about pulling together a New Effing Playlist… It’s true that over a dozen years in the book biz have hardened my heart to some of the romance surrounding the printed word, and the joy of reading. Nevertheless, this photo blog unlocked the chains around my Grinchy heart and made me misty, even as the jumpy cynic deep in my brain protested, They’re posed! Photoshopped! Highly implausible! What can I say, I am a deeply suspicious person. That doesn’t change the fact that the photos are beautiful, moving and yes–romantic… Thank you to my friend LW, who pointed me towards this story of a woman who now has multiple sclerosis but can still remember the joy and the pain of a hard race around the track. I should probably read this every day as an exercise in gratitude, but I’m not sure I can put myself through wrenching grief that often. Despite this endorsement, I hope you all click thru, because there is inspiration there to draw upon…

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