my youngest sister answers the phone when I call to talk to my mom. these days, we're always talking about high school, because she is a freshman, encountering many of my old teachers; for the first time in either of our lives, my past and her present very neatly overlap. the old geometry teacher doesn't remember me (which is good; I often slept in my back-row seat). my indoor track coach, of course, does, and delivers the sad but unsurprising news that my old high school record in the 800m relay, hard-won, has been broken. because of my antics in his class, my old french III teacher (one of my favorites) teases her more, which I know she secretly loves.

she asks me if I remember someone three years my junior, and the name doesn't really ring a bell. "he's my indoor track coach now," she says, "and when I asked if he knew who you were, he said, 'of course I remember her.'" I remind her that I was a senior when he was a freshman, and so more easily memorable; I was also one of the best on the team that year. secretly I am a little pleased.

now she is running all the trails I have kept close in my heart for the twelve years I've been gone, though many of them are called by new names: the old barn trail is the barnyard trail now; the barn trail doesn't have a name at all. the ridge trail, though -- forever and always my favorite -- remains the same. I promise her I will show her the quarry trail, which we used to access by climbing the back fence and then crashing through the woods to the river. the trail follows the gunpowder to the base of a hill on a road near our home, and in the latest weeks of spring track we would run there to leap from the bridge into the water.

life has been unspeakably busy, the kind of busy that's so overwhelming you can't even quite look at it. sixteen hours some days have been spent doggedly marking parts, which reached my mailbox much later than they were supposed to from various string principals. my back aches and I have hardly been outside in days, but they're done. I leave for maryland in 36 hours. I haven't slept much, and as usual I've eaten too much candy.

at home there are many people to see. I think the trip will be full of nostalgia, and maybe some sort of quiet awakening. a fissure. in maryland the winter sky is diffuse blue; the leaves crack underfoot in the woods of my backyard. the rope swing is gone, I think, from the ash tree, having finally rotted away. the beloved family dog was put to sleep this summer; her absence, long anticipated, will nevertheless be a soft ache. the chickens will be under the heat lamp. as usual, the family room thermostat will be set at a preposterous 55 degrees. I never bring enough to wear around the house, but thankfully can rely on my sister, who is officially as big as I am. I refuse to let her grow taller.

my brother's voice is suddenly deeper. they are both nearly grown. who may abide it.

my one-time stint as a professional nike runner

this morning, I arrived at portland meadows at 6:50 for the 7 AM nike video shoot call. as I mentioned the other day, I answered an ad, posted by one of the local running stores, calling for women who could pass as elite high school cross country runners. the video is a promo for the nike cross nationals; it will air on the internet only (because the nationals are also only viewable online). thirty women were picked from last week's photo shoot/audition.

this whole thing was so totally surreal. I have no aspirations to be a model or actor, but I am a sucker for anything that seems like an adventure or that will make a good story. it was a kick in the pants to tell people, "oh, I won't be in the office tomorrow, I'll be doing a nike video shoot all day." how fun to get to be the talent.



the girls all arrived, checked in, filled out tax paperwork, and got our clothes for the shoot: a high school cross country uniform (from three local high schools), a pair of socks, and a new pair of nike xc victory race spikes.




we hung out for awhile inside the clubhouse, everyone in sweats and jackets. the agency that cast us had stressed again and again the importance of bringing tons of warm clothes, so everyone was bundled up and many girls had blankets. (I brought a zebra print snuggie).




when we finally headed over to the track, it was about 7:45. it was still super cold, but thankfully sunny. THANK YOU PORTLAND, SERIOUSLY. the jog across the long expanse of infield was our first of SO MUCH RUNNING SWEET JESUS



of course, we'd all been prepped that there would be a lot of running. one of the fields on the audition form even asked what our weekly mileage was. for good reason, it turned out.

we filmed in four race "locations," each a different spot along the "course." (the real nike cross nationals are weeks away, so the course hasn't actually been set up yet). the gag in the video is this: a commentator is at a desk in the middle of the course, trying to talk about the race but continuously being interrupted by the pack of girls racing. so for about 60% of the time, our runs were focused on swerving around him at his desk (or variations on that theme). our first location was a curve on the course, maybe about 50 yards long. we began running at 8:15 or so and didn't move from that spot until about 10 AM; we probably did 25 takes just running the curve. and all the running, all day, was fast. after all -- this is nationals. five minute miles. essentially: sprinting.

since it wasn't rainy, the course wasn't nearly as muddy as it would ordinarily be, so in between takes members of the crew would go over to a corner of the infield with a shovel and some buckets, dig up a bunch of mud, wheel it over in a wheelbarrow, and ask us to slather it all over our shoes and legs. this proved surprisingly difficult, because the shoes essentially REFUSED to stay dirty, and our legs dried quickly, turning the mud to powder.

also, these were the shoes we were going to take home, so everybody was a little reluctant to get them dirty!

our second take was in the series of hills built into the infield, which I happened to encounter earlier this season in the first of the red lizard cross country races, held on the nike pre-nationals course. the hills are essentially a series of four or five moguls. quick up, quick down. funny the first time I encountered them in the course, but way harder the second time.

we spent almost three hours on them.

then: lunch.

then YOU GUYS. the shot we worked on after lunch was on a straightaway in the middle of the infield, and we were joined by andrew wheating, an olympic 800m runner who's currently a nike athlete. I did not know that "run with an olympian" was on my bucket list, but: CHECK. (I was trying to also check off "pass an Olympian in a run" but that dude is fast, y'all). here is my stealth shot of him (the very tall person in the red coat).



he was a hoot. he was an "interviewer" running along with us, and he kept accidentally inserting lines like, "oh, cool," into his script. meanwhile, our pack of girls had been cut in half, since only a few runners would even show up in the shot. those of us who were running probably did 10 takes with andrew, running up and down a stretch of about 100 meters. we kept joking about alternative things we could do (he could talk in an accent, he could throw in a catch phrase like ron burgundy, etc) and so the crew let us do an 'outtake' clip, where andrew pushed a bunch of us out of the way and chased one runner the length of the course, eventually shoving her (not hard) into the course markers. we made it about 3/4 of the way through the take before we all burst out laughing.


(the ladies in a moment of down time prior to the shoot at location #3)

our last location of the day was "the mud pit." the crew had spent the morning running a hose in one corner of the infield, so that by the time we got there, the ensuing puddle was ankle deep. it was 3:15; the sun was going down and we were all getting cold again. we smeared ourselves again with mud, which turned out to be hilariously pointless, since the moment we ran our first take through the puddle, we were all saturated. meanwhile, the crew set up propane heaters so that we didn't freeze to death. everyone's feet were killing them from 8 hours spent running in spikes; most of us were stiff and cold and tired. we did another 15 or 20 takes in the mudpit before we finally called it a day. I took a shower when I got home and I STILL have mud in my hair. (which is super classy because I'm at the opera now).


the girls, all in matching shoes

overall, it was a super fun day, but we were all SO GLAD when it ended. a few hours later, I am walking with some difficulty; mainly my feet hurt, but I'm also just generally tweaky and incredibly, unbelievably tired. like, I was standing backstage waiting for my ratchet cues for figaro and I really thought, my legs might give out. eight hours is a long time to do sprints. I cannot wait to go to bed.

rockstar

ETA: official time: 21:53! 2nd in my age group, 5th woman, 24th place overall.

here, have a laugh at my face!



21:5x (exact time TBA) in this morning's 5K. I might have shed one tiny thrilled tear just after I crossed the finish line. my goals were, in prioritized order, as follows:

1. break PR (24:03)
2. break 23 minutes
3. look sweet in my new shoes.

nowhere on there do you see "break 22 minutes," but THERE IT IS, PEOPLE. I feel like one hundred million dollars. ONE HUNDRED MILLION. perhaps even two hundred million.

I finally ran a smart race: a 7:37 first mile, then a 7:15ish average for the rest of the race. I don't have the final mile split because I forgot to hit the reset button on my watch, and my overall average time was thrown off by forgetting to hit the stop button AGAIN at the end of the race. BUT THAT'S OKAY. BECAUSE NOW I'VE GOT A 21-MINUTE 5K.

the first mile I probably checked my watch 30 times, because I started out at a 6:30 pace and had to talk myself down for the first 300 meters or so. "no, slower." "no, SERIOUSLY, slower." the opening pace felt so easy that it was really good I had my garmin or I would have killed it too early. I let myself open it up a little once I passed the one mile mark -- and it's an indication of how good I felt that I assumed the "1" was 1 KILOMETER until I checked my GPS.

in mile two I tried to stop looking at my damn wrist every four seconds and just aimed for holding steady, feeling relaxed, and pretending it was just a training run.

in the last mile we left the official race track and took a detour around the grounds, which turned out to be a good distraction. I passed a bunch of people who'd gone out too fast, and I felt a little bad about it. don't I know how that is, eh?

just after I passed a high school xc kid, his coach said, "you're a sprinter now! time to go!" and I thought, sir, that is music to my ears. I realized we were pretty close to the finish so I gunned it. we had to go around a set of bleachers to reach the track and my only regret is not having more of the track to finish on, because it's only once I can see the finish that I turn on the turbo. just as I could make out the clock (I was running too fast to look at my watch), I realized it said 21:52 and I did in fact say, out loud, "NO NO NO NO" and then turned on all the engines and motored in to finish under 22. UNDER 22!

it may be a testament to how much faster I could probably have run that I did not dry heave at the end of this race. I always dry heave. seriously. gross, but true. any time I sprint the finish like that, I have one terrible moment where I think I'm gonna boot it all over the grass, and then I'm good.

which is to say, of course now I'm thinking, I could probably break 21. since I've been running, on average, a paltry 10-15 miles a week and have incorporated absolutely zero speedwork.

anyway, let's enjoy the moment, let's not get ahead of ourselves.

I'm very proud of this:



steady!

now I'm gonna go eat a plate of bacon and chestbump a stranger BECAUSE I CAN

100.

These journeys are quiet. They mark my days with adventure
too precious for anyone else to share, little gems
of darkness, the world going by, and my breath, and the road.

-- from run before dawn, william stafford

day 99

Our ancestors were farmers
they did their talking with their shoulder muscles
they got up at dawn and baked their brains
all day in forty-acre cornfields
they liked to listen to the singing of their bodies
blood set in motion, the hum of air
the virtues they most prized were
tenacity, endurance, raw physical energy
an unlimited capacity to absorb punishment
they could smell rain twenty miles away
they had the habit of gazing heavenward
as if what they most wanted to understand
would be coming from that direction and
what came never ceased to amaze them

-- not unlike the runner, joe david bellamy







day 99: a rough headwind, a distilled sunny sky, two dead deer on the side of the road. a stomachache. this penultimate day is bittersweet.

rehearsal notes, etc.

serious issues discussed in the production meeting for hansel & gretel
the relative size and color of cuckoo feathers versus partridge feathers
bubbling sinks
the logistics of getting crew members to physically hold up a set wall mid-show

things I've discovered my cats eating, chewing, or otherwise destroying in the past week
newspapers
my bike tires
my bike pedals
thumbtacks off the wall
the carpet
the fuzzy throw on my futon

ways I was a big girl on my 30-mile bike ride yesterday, because sometimes you have to celebrate small milestones
I rode on the street
WITH CARS
I remembered how to ride no-hands
I crossed several major streets without falling off my bike or getting run over
I rode on a really big street. with cars!
I lost my way 3 times, biked off onto 3 small adventures, and then resumed my journey

oh by the way
I forgot to tell you I bought a bike back in September.



Portland is simultaneously the nicest place to bike -- because it's so bike-friendly -- and the scariest, because everybody and their grandma is a cyclist and I haven't been on a bike in 5 years. Of course there's that stupid tired old cliche about how you never forget, and while that's true in the vague sense, you sure do forget how to turn properly, steer, or angle your pelvis so your butt doesn't turn to hamburger. Fortunately I remembered how to do these things now, mostly.

excerpts from the rehearsal notes from hansel & gretel
"could the jello be taller?"

"thanks for the beads today -- they saved rehearsal. thankfully, no one tried to eat them."

"Super Maggie is the cake car driver."

"The cake car makes horrible squealing sounds when rolling around."

"Could we try 2 nasal aspirators full of glitter?"

"Please ADD a child's head in a plastic bag for the Act 3 refrigerator dressing."

"One of the kids is dropped to the ground by the Witch. This explains some of the previously existing dents."

"Please give the lard some weight."

"The hand with the removable finger has broken."

maybe the best rehearsal note ever, from our 2005 Tosca:
"The main curtain was blowing upstage, hitting the writing desk at the end of act II, the desk in act III, and causing the dead Cavaradossi to come alive to pull his arm upstage before the final curtain hit."

what stress can do for you
last Thursday (day 29) I ran a 6:46 mile. (no. 16). I wasn't even trying.

it speaks for itself

I did it! In 24:01 -- if only I'd looked down at my watch I could have broken 24 minutes!

roadkill

So, I've been having this problem recently with my running, and that problem is that I am a competitive lunatic. The scenario plays out this way: I get dressed for a run, usually at work, and to make it easier on myself I say, "Today I'm just going go relax; I'm not going to worry about pace. I'm just going to hang back and mull some things over in my brain and take it easy." It's easier for me to get out of the office and onto the trail if I promise that it won't be hard.

Then I go out and I try to make my first mile easy, which is harder than it sounds, since I usually think I'm going an average or even slightly slower pace only to look down at my Garmin and discover I'm running, like, a 7:40 mile.

Inevitably what happens next is I come upon some poor soul, or maybe even a group of poor souls, who are casually biding their time, running at their pace, maybe talking, maybe lost in a running reverie. And they're going maybe 10-15 seconds/mile slower than I am. I think to myself, "I should stay behind them, I should pace off of them and just RELAX ALREADY and quit being a fasthole." But inevitably I can't control myself; I inch closer and closer behind them until I'm drafting. Then I turn into a ninja. I try to make myself very quiet so they won't know I'm drafting, and I try for several hopeless moments to STAY SLOW, JERKSAUCE.

Then of course I'm spotted, and I feel sheepish for drafting in a FREAKING RECREATIONAL RUN and I sheepishly pass.

The next scenario that occurs on the run -- and I swear, these things happen in this order every time -- is I come across someone ahead of me who runs at exactly my pace, or maybe just a second or two per mile faster. I see them up ahead, I gauge their speed, and the rational, non-jerk part of my head says, "Don't do it!" But the universe conspires against me and that person stops to tie her shoe, or stops so his dog can pee, or maybe I have in advance (honestly) decided to make this one section of the trail my 'sprint' section.

So, I pass. Of course when I pass I make sure I have perfect form and look totally awesome.

Then I spend the entire rest of my run, which can be anywhere from half a mile to two excruciating miles, fretting that I'm going to get passed back. An old belief of mine, back from my sprinting days, is that you never ever ever look back to see where your competition is. In sprinting, you don't look back primarily because doing so throws off your speed; in every other form of running I think it just makes you look intimidated.

Also, it tips off the person you've just passed that you're an over-competitive nutjob.

The reality is, I love to race. I'm a very competitive person by nature and I love to go fast. But I haven't truly raced in years, since I'm now a middle-of-the-pack distance runner (rather than a sprinter). I'm no competition in the events I enter now because I'm inevitably going up against people who can run a 6-minute mile or better. Of course, I can race within my cluster of like-paced runners; I can race people the last 100 yards or so to the finish (I have a good kick); I can race against my own pace. But at the end of the day I still mostly end up finishing 25th or 85th or even further down the roster, depending on the size of the race.

I bring this up because yesterday, during my weekly Friday run with friends, we were chatting about pace (we were running about a 10:15 mile) and they were teasing me about how much I had to slow down to stay with the pack. "What's your 5k pace?" a friend asked, and when I answered (I train at about an 8:15 mile), another friend said, "You know, there's a 5K on Sunday that I bet you could win."

...

So, YOU GUYS. guess what I'm doing tomorrow morning??!

wings

I SO TOTALLY ROCKED the Shamrock 15K this morning. My main points of anxiety were a) I haven't run more than 8 miles at a time since TWO SUMMERS AGO (geez) and b) I haven't trained hills at all and this course had a doozy of a hill, a long 2.5 mile calf buster. But: calves intact! No muscles busted!

I flew through the course. I ended up finishing in roughly 1:22 (according to my Garmin; official results are still pending). That's an 8:41/mi average, which is astonishing to me considering the hill and the first mile, when I was running at best a 9:15. 8:41!!! That's only about 10 seconds slower than my ordinary pace on my mid-week 3.5 milers. That is awesome. I regret not hitting the lap button for each mile -- I'd love to know how fast I ran the last three miles, in order to compensate for how much I surely slowed running up the hill. Maybe faster than 8:00/mi?!

Out of curiosity this afternoon I went back and looked up my race results from the only other 15K race I've ever run, the 2004 Utica Boilermaker. I had been training that year too, albeit in a much more lackadaisical way. I had never had a distance running coach and I was still figuring out whether or not I could even convince myself to be a distance runner. I had not yet run a marathon. My time? 1:47:17 -- an 11:31/mi average. WHOA!

So basically I feel like a freaking rockstar right now. I'm actually in BETTER shape than I realized. When does that happen?? It made me begin to wonder if there could ever be a BQ in my future. The Boston qualifying time for women ages 18-34 is a 3:40, or roughly an 8:24/mi. I can sustain that over 4 miles but it would obviously take a lot more work to maintain it for a whole marathon. And of course that would mean, uh, running a qualifying marathon. I don't have a marathon planned in my future, and in fact I had decided to focus on smaller distances this year. But I'm perfectly on track right now to run a strong marathon in the fall...

We'll see.

I should say, though, that I'm not as much of a rockstar as the two people (there might have been more) who ran the entire race barefoot.

this week I've taken to running first thing in the morning, before I can talk myself out of it. in the mornings it's usually overcast even if the sky clears later in the day. my route takes me up the hill of our road, past houses in various states of upkeep or dilapidation. the neighborhood passes fleetingly from character to character; on the other side of 39th, there's a pocket where I think I could spend the rest of my life: quiet, tree-lined, the occasional basketball hoop set up on the side of the road, the houses all different from one another but lovingly tended. the kind of place you imagine you would have fond memories of if you'd grown up there as a child.

there's something delicious about exploring your neighborhood on foot, something I think we as a culture have largely lost. I have such fond childhood memories of walking hand in hand with my mother to church on sunday mornings. the sidewalks were pitted and cracked and as a young girl they presented such a fun game of hopping and tiptoeing and avoiding. trees' roots thrust through the concrete. dandelions grew in the cracks. I made a deal with myself when we moved to this place that I would take more walks, and commute more by foot. it's a hard habit to form: it's so much more time-consuming than driving, and time is the thing I am most often lacking. running helps.

this morning there were so many things to see: a woman walking in a red coat; an orange cat sitting on the railing of a porch; a blue door; several red doors; a man in black track pants walking his dog; a group of young children playing on the playground during some sort of morning recess; a hummingbird in search of food; an empty swingset.

Years later they find themselves talking
about chances, moments when their lives
might have swerved off
for the smallest reason.
What if
I hadn’t phoned, he says, that morning?
What if you’d been out,
as you were when I tried three times
the night before?
Then she tells him a secret.
She’d been there all evening, and she knew
he was the one calling, which was why
she hadn’t answered.
Because she felt—
because she was certain—her life would change
if she picked up the phone, said hello,
said, I was just thinking
of you.
I was afraid,
she tells him. And in the morning
I also knew it was you, but I just
answered the phone
the way anyone
answers a phone when it starts to ring,
not thinking you have a choice.

-- marriage, lawrence raab


another softball practice tonight; it was much colder and not as successful, personally, as the last. but as I came charging past home plate, one of our Rigoletto cast members, who came to join us for the evening -- a cast member for whom, earlier in the day, I had tracked down an Ernani score -- said, in surprise, "you run like a deer."