Second 5K of the summer

Just finish before the pregnant lady. And the nine-year-old.

When I wrote down my goals for today’s 5k, I thought of three things: Finish it. Finish it in under 40 minutes. If you’re having a good day, finish it in under 36:10. 

Then, I got to the start of the 5K, which was in what you would call a “tony” part of town. And when I saw the pregnant woman pushing the stroller with a number attached to her shirt and the kids – lots and lots of kids – I told myself the first statement of this post, and texted it to a runner friend of mine in Canada.

The starting line wasn’t really clear, just a line of blue tape across a side street. And then the race started – with an actual starting gun, and before I knew it, people started jogging. At a really fast pace. And I was jolted to run. But as I went through that first half mile, I watched all the happy runners in front of me and thought, by the first mile and a half, a lot of these people will be walking. 

Sure enough. By the time I trotted to the first mile, I passed several people who’d already begun to walk. I felt a little better about myself. I remember a lot of the run. There were lots of dads pushing strollers. Three cyclists cut across the course at one point, as a course marshal’s back was turned (smooth move, buddy). Some kid had a super soaker and I waved at him. He aimed in my direction. Man, did that cool blast feel good.

After the 2-mile mark, I came upon the second and final hill. 

OK, here’s the last hill. OK, I’ve done hills before … once before.

I remembered what a coworker told me about running up hills: shorten your stride and pantomime pulling yourself up the hill with a rope.

Then, as I rounded the corner towards the high school, something kicked in. I motored in that last quarter of a mile, and I didn’t see pregnant women or nine-year-olds. I saw the scoreboard above the football field as I crossed the finish line.

34:52.  

My runner friend wrote back to me after the 5k: “HA HA! Good luck! You got this!” 

I hate running. Absolutely hate it. But I’ve been jogging since June – I think I just woke up one day and said, “hey, I think I’ll start jogging” – and when a college classmate of mine suggested I join her for a women’s 5K, I thought about it for a day.

And then I registered.

At 7:30 Saturday morning, I got in my car and drove to the site of the 5K. I was more anxious about the time leading up to the race then I was about the race. I wasn’t used to all the waiting. Usually, I just walk a block and start jogging, on my terms.

Finally, I started jogging.

OK, this feels fine, this feels OK. Have I run a mile yet?

At one point, people handed me cups of water. I sipped. Dropped the cup on the ground. Kept jogging. Wondered if I had run a mile yet – because I have no faith in the measurement function on the Nike iPod fitness app. Then I saw a yellow sign. And my husband, waving to me.

That’s a mile? Are you sure? 

I kept jogging, wondering when that two-mile mark was. And I was a little dismayed by the lack of roads that were blocked off. At one point there was this massive tanker/18-wheeler pulling out of a parking lot and I screamed at it, “Come on, there’s a 5K going on here!”

I’m sure the driver was real concerned about all these women jogging by.

But I started to get tired around the 2-mile mark, yet I didn’t stop and walk. I slowed down. And when I came around a corner with less than a mile left, I thought, well, damn, if I’ve come this far, I might as well just jog to the end.

And I did it. My goal at the start was just to finish. Then I thought, if I can finish this in under 45 minutes, I’ll be OK.

I finished in 36 minutes, 10 seconds. I think I’ll run another one soon.

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A good teammate

I was terrified of Karen. My fear of her went back to the fourth grade, when she would pick on me in the minutes before elementary school began, as we waited for the doors to open. When those doors finally opened each morning, it was a relief. I could finally escape Karen’s fifth-grade taunting.
Six years later, I tried out for the field hockey team at Broadneck. Karen had become one of the area’s more accomplished field hockey and lacrosse players, and had already been elected a captain of the varsity team.
Oh, no, I thought, strapping on my goalie pads, Karen’s going to make my life hell again.
The complete opposite happened. While Karen ran with the “in crowd” at school – she dated the quarterback and drove a hot sports car, always seemed to be going to the best weekend parties and had the best seat at the prime table in the cafeteria – she somehow was able to transcend that part of her high school life when we went to the hockey field.
We had gotten older and were contributing to a common cause as part of a team. Karen saw some sort of importance in each of her teammates, and some sort of value in them.
Karen treated her teammates with respect. Karen worked her ass off. Karen talked to everyone and told us something encouraging.
Karen became a junior college All-American and earned a scholarship to play lacrosse at Towson University. Then she became a coach. And a wife. And a mother. And waited tables. And did wedding planning. Then decided to try something new.
Karen recently stepped down as the head lacrosse coach at the high school from which we graduated. She won three state championships and has helped countless girls go to college and play college lacrosse, and probably has helped young women think about more than just lacrosse.
The notes people left on her Facebook page were touching. Former classmates of ours congratulated her on her successes and supported her choice to step down in order to take care of her family.
Former players of hers thanked them for her wisdom and guidance. I thanked her for being a fantastic teammate.
I like to joke sometimes that “You can take the girl out of Broadneck … oh, no, wait, you can’t take the girl out of Broadneck.”
When I find out my former classmates are making a positive impact and positive contributions to the community that helped shape us, I’m proud to say they were the people who made an impression upon me years ago as classmates and teammates.
Twenty years ago, there weren’t a lot of those people. Karen, however, was definitely one of them.

Why I love Meghan McCain

Politics aren’t my strong suit. There are some things that A) just aren’t worth arguing about and B) can never be agreed upon even after argument.

But I love personalities. And I love Wendy Williams. And I love the array of guests she has on – including Meghan McCain.

You’re going to relate Meghan McCain to “Republican,” right? But she’s not what has been propagated as the “stereotypical Republican.”

Flip the equation – what’s the stereotype of a Democrat?

McCain’s appeal is that she wants to do something about her party – which is sorely maligned. McCain holds firm to her principles but sees the societal benefit in the importance of her party evolving. She’s receptive to different perspectives, she considers issues that impacts us as individuals … and she even owns up to smoking marijuana!

Over the winter I read “America, You Sexy Bitch: A Love Letter to Freedom,” which she co-authored with comedian Michael Ian Black. I will admit, I had high expectations for it.

Meghan, if you ever read this: I loved this book. It should be required reading for every political, pop culture, geography or anthropology junkie. It reinforced my appreciation for the differences between people and the efforts we make to bridge those differences – or at least to understand the differences without resorting to conflict.

When I finished it, I set the book down and said, “you know what? I’d have a beer with Meghan McCain.”

Music, anyone?

I am an unabashed music fan. And even in a hectic summer, sometimes there’s nothing better than simply driving around and listening to satellite radio’s offerings. One thing I’ve noticed about the popular summer music so far is that there’s definitely a throwback feel to it. Hearing these songs take me back to the early 1980s … though I still have a Huey Lewis CD somewhere in my car.

Fitz and the Tantrums, “Out of My League” – because it reminds me of the B-52s’ “Legal Tender.”

Capital Cities, “Safe and Sound” –

Daft Punk and Pharrell, “Get Lucky” – Actually, Daft Punk’s entire album, “Random Access Memories,” has a late-disco, early New-Wave feel to it.

(Sidebar: Pharrell Williams is uber-talented.)

Robin Thicke/Pharrell/T.I., “Blurred Lines” – I’m posting a link to the Amazon MP3 sample because the video is absolutely atrocious, just a bunch of models with blank stares in flesh-colored underwear dancing around the three guys. So unoriginal.

I could go off on another completely different tangent here, so I will. This is one of the catchiest and funniest songs I’ve listened to this summer. Each time I listen to it, I think, “OK, this is about some douchebag guys getting drunk at a club and using poor come-on lines.” That would have been a much better visual.

Robin Thicke had this to say about the song, in a recent interview on Power 106 in Los Angeles: “We made the whole record in an hour and were walking around the studio like two old men hollering at young girls from the porch. So it’d be like, ‘Hey, girl. Come here.'”

But someone took exception to the lyrics, and labeled them as “kind of rapey.”

For the record, I don’t condone sexual violence of any kind. But calling a song about trying to hook up with women “kind of rapey”? Have you ever listened to Stone Temple Pilots’ “Sex Type Thing”?

See me run. No. See me lumber.

I don’t like to run. I don’t like jogging. At all. But I do it because I need something to offset all of the biking and weight training I do – cross training, if you will.

I am in awe of people who willingly run 26.2 miles in a single morning. Not because they have finished it but more along the lines of, “Are you crazy to do that to your body?”

Then again, people look at me like I’m crazy when I take my bike out for 26.2 miles three times a week. So it’s all relative.

But Sunday morning I had a minor breakthrough. Maybe the weather was right (cool, overcast). Maybe I got enough sleep. Maybe I had a good breakfast (two cups of coffee, and a bowl of Greek yogurt and strawberries). Or maybe I just felt like, OK, I’m gonna go run, oh yay.

But I started pacing … and only stopped twice. Once because I felt pain in my ankle and once when I hit the two-mile mark. This is a big accomplishment. I never, ever thought I had the body type or the willpower for jogging. When I started jogging less than three weeks ago, completing two miles was a struggle. Then I read about an acquaintance who was proud of herself for running one mile. I felt better about myself. And then I thought something:

You know what? I’ll lumber through my three miles twice a week and keep feeling good about myself afterwards.

You built a time machine? Out of a DeLorean?

I changed the title of the blog in homage to one of my favorite movies ever – Back To The Future.

When I was eight years old, I begged my grandma to take me to see this movie. When I got back from two weeks in Pittsburgh, I lied to my parents and told them I hadn’t seen it yet. They knew otherwise, and took me to see it again. And I rented it on VHS again. And again. And again.

28 years later, I will drop everything to watch this movie. And the sequel. But not the third one. Though I watched the last few minutes of the movie just to find out why Marty McFly hates being called “chicken.”

There are a lot of universal themes in the movie – friendship, trusting yourself, instilling faith in others, time travel. Time travel!

And the final line of the movie suggests this: Infinite possibilities are ahead of you.

***

I just bought the soundtrack, too. While I’m not a die-hard Eric Clapton fan, as a music fan I can appreciate his genius on the guitar. But Clapton has a great song on the soundtrack that is completely un-Clapton and more along the lines of Bob Marley – “Heaven Is One Step Away.” It has a bit part in the movie, when Marty McFly returns to 1985 and attempts to save Doc Brown.

(By the way, I don’t condone drunk driving. Or crazy drunk drivers. At all.)

“What are you gonna do?”

Last week I read a New York Times piece from 1988 about transiency and apartment living in New York City, and no-lease, four-roommate apartment turnover. The Times spoke with an aspiring actor who lived in at least seven different New York neighborhoods.

”Moving, to me, is no big deal,” said Mr. Gandolfini, whose calling is the theater but whose living comes mostly from bartending and construction. ”I have a system down. I throw everything in plastic garbage bags and can be situated in my new place in minutes. Without my name on a lease, I’m in and out. I have no responsibilities.”

I kind of got a chuckle out of the quote from James Gandolfini. But I thought of it again Friday night as I stacked boxes and bags in my living room and wiped sweat off my face.

Once upon a time I had to help a friend of mine clear out the apartment that she shared with her then-boyfriend. We had to do it at a certain time of day, during a certain day of the week and we had to take as much as we could in a certain number of hours – because we knew that it would be before her emotionally abusive boyfriend would return and do who knows what to her. And each time I packed a box or a bag into her car or into mine, I thought, who does this? Why does it have to come to this?

Thursday afternoon, the two people I helped Friday evening faced the same window and the same set of circumstances. They basically had to clear out everything of theirs in the matter of five hours, whether it was moved into storage or packed in boxes, suitcases or garbage bags, and leave the premises of a place that was no longer safe or healthy.

Then, as I took what seemed like the umpteenth set of bags through the rain and into the house, I realized something: this was transience. These people had been in an abusive relationship, at the hands of their own blood.

Frankly, I didn’t have a choice but to take in people whom I care about and people who have provided me with opportunities, and, when I needed a home, a place to stay. I didn’t like having to take those bags into my house, because of what they stood for. I didn’t like having to hear what brought them to that point and to my house, because of all the pain and manipulation that preceded it.

But at its basic level, the situation came to this: People I love needed help.

But, like Tony Soprano said, “what are you gonna do?”

The answer is easy.

My house for two is starting to look like Grand Central Station.

In the course of 24 hours it has accommodated two adults, three senior citizens and two dogs, and I’m trying to thwart whatever builds in me when I have to give away the time I use in the morning to get ready for work – one of the few hours of time I have to myself.

Part of the reason the house better represents a bustling train station is because of mental health. Not mine. Not anyone in the house. But it’s a factor that has affected my extended family for years.

I’ve only divulged to two people the root of the hustle and bustle in my house but it brings up a bigger issue: Mental health.

It’s something that we’ve been reluctant to discuss in our society, up until recently. A microcosm: In the final months of my time covering pro and college hockey in New England, three NHL players committed suicide, in part due to mental health issues. While the NHL Players Association offers “a substance abuse and behaviorial health” program, it wasn’t until the deaths of Derek Boogaard, Rick Rypien and Wade Belak that a community (and hockey is a community) was forced not only to acknowledge the issue but to consider it frankly and introspectively. Three men died in the course of a summer. At the time, I posted something on my belated work blog that said something along the lines of, “maybe this will force us to evaluate both the topic of mental health and our own attitudes toward a topic that comes with a stigma.”

I even reconsidered my own stance on mental health – bipolar disorder runs in my family (hey, you wonder why I’m so upbeat all the time – kidding, kidding). You grow up understanding that something is not right, why a parent and a grandparent rarely speak – a byproduct of a violent attack years and years ago that was brought on by a manic-depressive rage – or why a sibling is taking medication and forever going to doctors and isn’t taking the same honors and advanced placement classes that you overachieved in “because he doesn’t have the same direction that you have.”

But you don’t talk about it with others, in a public sense. Still, after finding out from a former supervisor of mine about his family’s struggles with mental health issues, and discussing it with the parent of a friend of mine in a stretch of weeks, I realized something: A) this isn’t an isolated problem and B) there are people out there who need to talk about this with someone. Sometimes, you are the best support group because you listened.

Right now, I have a whole household whom I can listen to – because I know they are in a safe place.

***

If you’re looking for more information on mental health awareness or resources, there’s a program in Canada called Mindcheck.ca that’s geared towards teenagers and young adults with mental health issues, and the Virginia-based National Alliance on Mental Illness provides a broader view on advocacy, treatment and research.

Also, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255).

Now what’s that Tour de France thing?

I love riding my bike. Really, I do.

So as I pushed my pedals through an unusually humid day, something occured to me – the Tour de France is coming up.

There was a time when each summer, I would wake up in the morning and turn on the Outdoor Life Network to watch the coverage of the race that wound through the French countryside and mountains. My ideal trip to Europe included a stop in Paris for the final state of the race, to cheer on the winner along the Champs-Elysees.

But this year, the TdF doesn’t bring the same excitement as it did in the past. It’s more of a sadness.  Because the scepter of dishonesty hangs over competitive cycling.

Cycling has become this decade’s answer to boxing – a sport that was once heralded because of its grueling days, the international attention it received and, of course, the challenges that a man (simply referred to as “Lance”) overcame to win the Tour year after year – surviving cancer, his tumultuous personal life, the constant hounding of and constant battles with the media … and doping allegations which later were true. That became a watershed moment for the downfall of the sport. To an American cycling fan, nothing became more maddening than watching Lance confess and attempt to save face (for a price and a cost) to Oprah Winfrey.

Now, the word “cycling” can’t be mentioned without “corruption.”

I’m not going to watch the Tour de France. Instead, I’ll go out for a 20-mile spin around town. At least I know I won’t cheat at it.