Home Sweet Home

If I had to list features of what I considered important in creating my ideal town, it would look something like this:

• Hot (or at least warm - 80+ F) most of the year
• Enough cool coffee shops/bakeries around that the staff don't say: "Wow - I've never seen anyone fill up their frequent user card in 3 days before!"
• Townies who will say hello when you look them in the eyes
• Bike lanes ...and riders of all shapes & sizes who actually use them
• Drivers who allow pedestrians to cross at crosswalks and elsewhere
• Band fliers stapled to light posts (honestly, that's a real standard for me)
• Festivals, Festivals, Festivals
• Creeks or rivers without a single alligator
• Police aren't summoned when there is a guy on the main drag in drag.
• Restaurants and other businesses in old houses (I'm a sucker for it).
• Really creative graffiti. 
• And of course, lots of runners.

You can see why I have settled down nicely in Austin, Texas and why my husband will need back up from the National Guard to pry me away from this incredible town when his two year grad program at UT is over.

Of course, I have been humbled.  My pace on these mountains* has gone from "slow" to "She's mighty sweaty for a walker."   I met up with a group last night for their "Slow run," for which their website description is as follows: 

You know you're a slow runner if:
* Your shih tzu is waiting for you at the next water station.
* The dust from your grandma's walker has already settled.
* Your 8GB iPod starts repeating the same songs.
* You started at 5 o'clock and the bats have already flown.

Unfortunately, their prose is more entertaining than accurate, for I ended up huffing and puffing a mile behind them, trying to signal "I'm okay! I'll catch up!" in between hills.   But that's fine.  It's good for me to try harder and check out the scenery.  Besides, without the distraction of a group, I was able to people watch and read from the flier whose playing at Stubb's tonight.

  

*Okay, I know locals call them "hills", but this former Miami runner begs to differ.

31 Days until Army Ten Miler

31 Days until the Army Ten Miler.  A long while back, I recall we had a discussion about it.

Anyone running?

Cross Training to Recover

4 weeks post-partum: my brain is ready to run again, my stroller is ready to roll, but my body is not.

My first inclination was to throw caution to the wind and jog anyway. I've done this recovery thing 2 times before and I ran up until just couple weeks before delivery so I was feeling a little cocky until I got the rebuke. My wonderfully level-headed midwife had a very compelling argument about internal organs and connective tissues. So, since there is no strength training I know about for internal organs of the abdominal region, that seemed like advice I should heed.

Plan B: Low-impact cardio and strength training to prevent injury when I can eventually resume running. While it is obvious that my abdominal muscles are weaker post-pregnancy, my hips have been also stretched and my quads have been rested, so everything needs to get a little stronger. This is especially important since when I do start running, as I will be just a little heavier than at my athletic peak ;)

It is still probably unwise for one to begin a brand new sport at this point, but I resumed Step aerobics to target leg strength and low impact cardio. I also resumed moderate weights for upper body and core conditioning. All core exercises are approached with caution at this point since the goal is basically just to get the two side of my abs back together and to support my back.

Finally, I've been walking, of course. I'm happy to report that I'm faster than I was three weeks ago when the man with the cane passed right by me. This is also good practice for the baby to work up to running in the jogging stroller.

So, perhaps this is old-hat to me, but there is some consolation in remembering that it is new for little Francesca, so for her sake, we'll take it slow.

Run Safe

Most of us are nervous, if not fearful, to run alone. Thoughts of accidents or abductions might come to mind. So we run or bike in groups to be safe. But sometimes, the group mentality can distract you from your focus or hoodwink you into thinking that your company will keep you safe.

Wait. I don't really know how to get my point across for this post. I'm incapacitated because my running community lost another and I'm no longer living close enough to my friends to cry with them. Carlos was hit by a car...while with a group of 20+, who were actually just one subgroup of over 600 runners in the marathon training program. He was crossing the street in the wee early morning, the last in his group, when a car plowed through. My friend heard the driver say that there were all these people in the road and he didn't know where to go so he had to hit someone. It was the shock talking - perhaps the car rolling three times - but my god, he realized he had to hit someone?

That group OWNS the street on Saturday mornings. Each weekend at 6 am, they are out there, 600 hundred of them, running and talking and socializing. Like a sea of salmon swimming against the flow of traffic, thinking about races and gu and politics and family or about nothing but the steps they are taking. The power of numbers deludes you into believing you are invincible.

But the problem is drivers think they are invincible, too. They are able to text or talk on their phones, they can yell at the talk radio, they can turn right from the left lane, they can roll through stop signs or like witnesses to the crash believe about the driver, they can drive themselves home from the bar.

So be safe out there. Keep your head up and one earbud out. Don't assume they see you or think they can stop in time. Change your mantra to: Run Safe.

Forehead Slap

My boys are major scooter addicts. Usually, I grab a book or magazine and sit on the front porch while they zoom up and down the street at lightening pace. Well, today, they wanted to venture out a bit further so I threw on my running shoes and off we went. We flew up to the local tot lot then right on past to the middle school where they are doing some work on the fields that once were there. There is an old concrete track and in the middle, there are huge mountains of dirt. The boys went around the track twice on the scooters while I ran then they played happily on the dirt mountains while I continued to run around the track. When they announced they were done, they scooted home while I ran. In all, I think I got in about 3.5 miles...not bad for a day when squeezing a run in seemed impossible! All I kept thinking was, "Summer is just about over and I'm just coming up with this plan now?!" Just goes to show, a little creativity can go a long way!

Joggers

Do they do anything for your arms?

the bright spot: Sun Herald City 2 Surf

You'd think that a trip to Sydney, Australia, would be lovely. Usually it is. My mother was Australian. I am half Australian (a dual citizen, even). I love, love, love Sydney. Almost as much as my hometown, New York City.

I have probably mentioned before that my mother died on July 11, 2007, from ovarian cancer. She had moved back to Sydney when I was 19 and in college. I went out often. She came back often. She was fabulous (not to idealize -- she also could annoy me more than anyone else).

This trip was the first I could make to sort and clear out her apartment in Redfern, a suburb in the city. "Suburb" means a neighborhood -- it is a proper part of Sydney, not outside of it.) I am her only child, so I was pretty much on my own, though I cannot slight the help of my uncle and my step brother (whose father died 10 months before my mother did -- this is turning in to a bummer of a post, anyway...).

I was there for a mere two weeks, with my younger son, Az, who is now 14 months old. I left husband and 4-year old Iz at home. (Iz needs action, structure, not sorting and packing.) No way I was going to get everything done. I was non-stop (well, except for stopping every 30-60 minutes to feed, entertain, comfort Az or get him to sleep -- as non-stop as a mom can be). I sorted boxes in the two-car garage underneath the building. I sorted the office of a writer (my mother was an excellent one -- look her up, Glenda Adams) -- including the notes, the novel in progress, the copies of books, the reference books. It was incredible. And I could not throw out her writing. No way.

What does all of this have to do with running? Well. Since I started running, my mother encouraged me to run the Sun Herald City to Surf in Sydney. And I did twice while she was alive. And she would be at the Lamrock Cafe when I finished, waiting for me with a flat white coffee.

The race covers 14 kilometers, or 8.7 miles, from the center of the city to famous Bondi Beach. I have now run it three times, in 2000, 2003 and 2008 (just a week and a half ago). My best time, go figure, was the most recent. Five years older, two kids later, sleep deprived because Az was waking up at least three times a night. I finished 6,000 and something out of 70,000 registered runners. (Yes, 70,000 -- it is a crazy-huge race. This may explain the few moments of rude behavior I experienced -- deliberate elbowing, running into, etc.)

The race is gorgeous. Especially once it gets to the water. The course is very, very hilly along the southern shore of Sydney Harbour. Heartbreak hill is a kilometer long, curving, winding up a headland. That may not sound long, but that is only the longest hill, not the lone hill. Volunteers handed out heart-shaped sponges soaked in cold water. Ahhhh.

Did I mention it is winter there? And winter is mild. Maybe 60 degrees at the height of the day. So the hill could have been worse, especially in August in the Washington, DC, region.

The race finishes at Bondi. We hit the northern end of the beach at the 13 kilometer mark -- still a kilometer to go. Sounds like nothing -- but six-tenths of a mile is not insignificant when you feel ready to sprint to the finish. Still, I felt great. But that beach is darn long.

My step brother's girlfriend was at the Lamrock Cafe waiting for me. (My uncle had Az, but we met up with them nearby.)

The race was the one bright spot in a very hard trip. Though breakfasts at Cafe Zoe were also excellent. Oh, and the oatmeal cookies at the Bourke Street Bakery. And runs in Centennial Park. (I rented a jogging stroller.) My mother would have been pleased at the little moments I grabbed.