Running Commentary (Part 2)

After my initial discovery that I could, in fact, make myself a better runner, I was excited to keep running. I was running after work at the gym, and even ran a few times around my neighborhood soccer field on the weekends. It was on one of those runs that I injured my foot.

I didn't do anything too strenuous during that workout, and to this day, I still don't know what went wrong. All I knew, I was running along fine, and then one misstep caused a sharp pain in my foot. At first, I thought it was just a temporary ache, and tried running through it. After another minute, I decided it was a little too painful.

I still don't know what happened to my foot exactly - likely a sprain or strain of the ligaments - but it derailed my progress for at least a month. I rested my foot, iced it and waited, albeit rather impatiently. Finally, I decided to run, seeing as it was feeling better and I couldn't wait any longer to get back on my running plan. That first run was exhilarating.

I gradually worked myself back into some sort of schedule, although by this time, I'd fallen off the Couch to 5k plan. I was doing intervals of running and walking, a strategy which I believe caused the marked progress I kept seeing. I pushed myself a bit more each week, finally getting to around 1 and half miles near the end of April.

April is the month when my gym puts on their 'Spring Games,' which is simply a series of different events - tennis, volleyball, running, swimming - where members can create teams and have some friendly competition. The last week of April, I walked in to see that the event for the day was a 5k, with the course marked along the nearby road. The temperature wasn't too bad, and I thought, "Why not try it?" I told myself I could walk after the first mile if I really needed to.

I started off strong - a good solid first mile. I don't know the time, because I forgot my watch that day. In the second mile, I started having to walk for intervals, and I barely finished the third mile. The key word in that sentence is 'finished' - because I did actually complete a full 5k! My time was nothing to brag about - 38:00 - but I considered finishing to be winning for me.

My plan was derailed after that success by a month and half-long business trip, where the treadmill was broken. I tried not to eat too much, and walked as many stairs as I could, but I knew I was losing ground. I returned and slowly got back on track, though.

The last two weeks, I've run a minimum of 2 miles every day - which makes 10 miles a week! - with a personal best mile time of 10:19! My goal now is both to increase my stamina to run three miles, while also increasing my speed to get to a 10-minute mile pace. Considering how far I've come already, I know I can do it. It's just a matter of time now.

Running Commentary (Part 1)

I am a runner now. In January, I never thought I would say that. It's been a slow journey to get here, but I'm glad to have made the effort. Let me briefly tell you my running story.

It started in January of this year, when I returned from a business trip and stepped on the scale to see the largest number I had ever seen. Moderately motivated into action by this, I resolved to start working out. O the naivete of the New Years' resolutions!

I decided to take on something I had never been able to do before - run. I had been ashamed for years that I couldn't even run a mile, and just chalked it up to not being "a runner." "I can do other things," I told people, but it was an excuse, because I didn't really even try to run.

So why pick running, if I hated it so much? I chose running mainly because I wanted to have a solid goal to progress towards - a specific achievement to attain - because the ambiguous idea of "losing weight" had never been enough motivation for me to stick with any exercise much past the first week.

When I began that year, I tried to run, just to see where I was. I signed up at the gym where I work, which has a quarter mile track behind it. I put on my old tennis shoes and headed out with trepidation to see where I stood - namely, just how bad I was at this.

I barely made it around the track once before giving up. It was that bad. Granted, I have never been a great runner in the past, but I used to be able to do better than that! I was quite dejected at the end of that workout. I needed a plan.

A few days later, I stumbled upon something: the Couch to 5k running plan, over at Cool Running. I read the name and thought, 'Couch, huh? I'm pretty much on the couch. This sounds just about right!' The program lays out a true beginner's running schedule - rather than some so-called beginner's schedules, which have you at a mile by week two! The first week starts with intervals of running (or easy jogging, if you like) that are only 60 seconds, followed by 90 seconds - a whole minute and a half - of walking to catch your breath.

Even I can run for one minute, I thought. No problem. So I bought myself a cheap digital watch for time, and started puffing my way around the track. It wasn't all that fun to start with, but I managed to actually DO what the schedule said the first two weeks, which was encouraging. So I kept slogging along, trying to at least run a bit more each day, even if I couldn't quite keep up with the suggested schedule after a week or two.

And something amazing started happening: I noticed myself getting better. It didn't happen within the first week, or even the second. It was closer to the end of the third, or the fourth week that I thought, 'It wasn't hard to run for 1 minute. Actually, that's kind of easy now. I wasn't even breathing hard!' I felt a tiny bit of pride that I had stuck with it, and was actually noticing a difference. And so it began.

That was seven months ago, and although I haven't progressed in a linear fashion, there has been gradual upward progress. Despite setbacks of knee pain and shin splints, even through the business trip for a month where I didn't have much opportunity to run, my steady progress has kept me on track and positive that I can do this.

Even though at this point, I've fallen completely off track with the suggested program, what I learned is that I DO have the determination to stick with this, make progress, and actually enjoy myself along the way. Those were the first lessons I needed to learn along my journey to become a runner.

Fresh bread!

I decided to venture into the realm of bread, which is slightly foreboding to me, what with all the worry about water being the right temperature and dough rising. So with trepidation, I typed into Google "simple bread recipe," hoping for something relatively fool-proof. The seventh (or so) result caught my eye: "Simple Crusty Bread" from the New York Times. I tried this recipe, and although I managed to flub the proportions the first time, I still had a wonderfully satisfying, hearty bread with a crusty outside. Here is the NY Times recipe, with proportions modified to yield only 2 loaves, rather than four. However, since the dough can be refrigerated for up to two weeks, it pays to invest the three hours or so on a Sunday afternoon to make the dough, so fresh bread can be baked easily any time during the week. The 'loaves' that I baked turned out medium sized, around half the size of a loaf from the store.

Ingredients:
3/4 tablespoons yeast
3/4 tablespoons kosher salt
3 1/4 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour, extra for dusting dough
cornmeal

1. In a large bowl or plastic container, mix yeast and salt into 1 1/2 cups lukewarm water (about 100 degrees). Stir in flour, mixing until there are no dry patches. Dough will be quite loose. Cover, but not with an airtight lid. Let dough rise at room temperature 2 hours (or up to 5 hours).

2. Bake at this point (or refrigerate, covered, for as long as two weeks). When ready to bake, sprinkle a little flour on dough and cut off a grapefruit-size piece with serrated knife. Turn dough in hands to lightly stretch surface, creating a rounded top and a lumpy bottom. Put dough on sheet pan sprinkled with cornmeal; let rest 40 minutes. Repeat with remaining dough (or refrigerate it).

3. Place broiler pan on bottom of oven. Place baking stone on middle rack and turn oven to 450 degrees; heat stone at that temperature for 20 minutes.

4. Dust dough with flour, slash top with serrated or very sharp knife three times. Slide onto stone. Pour one cup hot water into broiler pan and shut oven quickly to trap steam. Bake until well browned, about 20 minutes. Cool completely.

Yield: 2 loaves.

Enjoy your fresh bread!

Home Projects

I'm back from my last trip, and getting caught up on all the little jobs that a homeowner has to do. I love owning my house, but don't let anyone fool you that it's all relaxation and enjoyment! Aside from all the regular maintenance - dishes, lawn, cleaning, weeding, etc. - I have plenty of small projects and grand plans for this house. Since I moved in a year ago, here are some of the improvements I have made:

• Replaced all lightswitch covers to silver ones that match
  
• Installed door stops for all doors
• Removed hideous shower door from master bathroom
  
• Painted all rooms (including the dark purple bedroom!)
  
• Sheetrocked, plastered, painted, and installed shelves in kitchen nook (unfinished previously)
  
• Replaced all windows in the house to energy efficient ones with screens (from Window World)
  
• Installed curtain rods (and curtains!) in bedrooms
• Planted two trees (satsuma and fig)
  
• Replaced shelving in one bedroom closet

But despite this impressive-looking list, there are still many, larger more expensive projects that I want. Here are a few:

• Create carport area from concrete parking spot next to garage
• Install wood floor in living room
• Extend deck to full length of house (which requires moving the outdoor AC unit as well)
  
• Create gravel walkway and flower beds along the side of the house
• Remodel master bathroom to create tiled, walk-in shower
• Replace all closet shelving
  
• Enclose part of garage area create a pantry and a laundry area
• Build a fence to go along one side of my yard (the neighbors just built a fence on the other side)
• Replace all outlet covers and door knobs
• Install crown molding in bedrooms and living room
• Install tile backsplash in kitchen
  

Some of them are relatively easy, and are only incomplete due to lack of time. But others will require outside help, significant amounts of money, and some inconvience to me. Part of the hurdle to some of these projects is locating a good contractor/fencebuilder/AC repairman/handyman. It's difficult down here to locate good workers, because of all the construction still going on post-Katrina.

But when I look out at my backyard right now - freshly mowed, trees mulched, everything in order - I happily think that it's all worth it. To struggle through learning the skills to take care of this house makes me appreciate and proudly show off my little piece of land, humble though it may be.

Hope; An Owner's Manual

Look, you might as well know, this thing
is going to take endless repair: rubber bands,
crazy glue, tapioca, the square of the hypotenuse.
Nineteenth century novels. Heartstrings, sunrise:
all of these are useful. Also, feathers.

To keep it humming, sometimes you have to stand
on an incline, where everything looks possible;
on the line you drew yourself. Or in
the grocery line, making faces at a toddler
secretly, over his mother’s shoulder.

You might have to pop the clutch and run
past all the evidence. Past everyone who is
laughing or praying for you. Definitely you don’t
want to go directly to jail, but still, here you go,
passing time, passing strange. Don’t pass this up.

In the worst of times, you will have to pass it off.
Park it and fly by the seat of your pants. With nothing
in the bank, you’ll still want to take the express.
Tiptoe past the dogs of the apocalypse that are sleeping
in the shade of your future. Pay at the window.
Pass your hope like a bad check.
You might still have just enough time. To make a deposit.

The Miracle of the Avocado

Since I love avocados, I've recently attempted to grow the huge, rock-solid seeds that are embedded in every fruit. From what I gleaned from briefly Google-ing the subject, the correct way is to stick toothpicks in the sides and suspend in water until roots start to sprout. For two months, I've been trying to coax even a small root out of the seeds, but all for naught. Three seeds immersed, and the only yield was three moldy, wet lumps with cracks spreading up the sides.

After the third failure, I threw aside the recommendations of the experts and went back to tried and true: plant the seed in soil. I figured I couldn't do any worse than I had already. At least the seeds were free byproducts of something I was already purchasing. Half-buried in some potting soil, looking forgotten next to my sink, this fourth seed sat there for several weeks. Now and then, some hope would seize me and I'd dash some water onto the seed. But mostly, I just ignored it.

A few days ago, I laughingly explained my seed saga to a visiting friend. To prove my black thumb, I pulled the supposedly rotting seed out from the dirt - and found tiny white shoots valiantly pushing out of the crack at the bottom! Eagerly, I replanted it carefully in the soil again, speaking kind words to this cooperative seed in hopes of encouraging it to grow. I'd read years ago that plants can respond to human touch, voice and affection, and I wasn't about to brush aside something that sounded so silly if there was a chance it would help.

Before I left for work yesterday, I glanced at my seed, still looking lifeless in the little pot next to the sink. But now I knew what appeared lifeless was really life-in-waiting, waiting for it's ordained moment in the sun. But still somehow, I was not prepared for what I found when I arrived back home that evening. This dead seed had grown a 2-inch shoot, with tiny, folded and wrapped green leaves. I stared in shock for a moment, then in a childish excitement, laughed and cupped the tiny green shoot with my hands. In my mind, I had seen a miracle.

Yet this miracle happens every day, everywhere we look - in the sidewalk cracks, on the side of rock cliffs, or on too-old food left out. We gripe about mowing the grass, or weeding the flowers, never considering how unbelievable it is that these hard, dead seeds bring forth the life of a whole generation, despite all the odds against them.

Our world is so often disconnected and uninterested in the natural world around us. We know more and more about how this world works, but it means less and less to us on an individual level. You can look up the precise hour and minute for the sunrise and sunset, and the phase of the moon, or the moment of the high tide, but do we know what these mean? Do they mean anything anymore to people who update their life constantly on Facebook, cannot be found without their cell phone, or constantly have the television as background sound?

I've excitedly proclaimed the Miracle of the Avocado to several friends and coworkers, to which I get a small smile and a "isn't that neat? I can't grow anything, I kill it all." Plants don't operate at ethernet speed, and the moon doesn't update it's phase on Facebook for us. Maybe if it did, we'd pay a little more attention. Perhaps not. When did we become so numbed to the world around us? What should have been a Miracle, or at the least a small Joy, was reduced to just an interesting fact to note and set aside.

I look at my avocado shoot, and I see God there. Perhaps I'm too naive, but how else can something alive come from a dead seed? Yes, I know the science of how it happens, but does that really explain the mystery of how, and especially why, this life pushes out of the dry brown shell it was wrapped in. I'd like to think God too delights in seeing this little fragile shoot come from seemingly nowhere. He smiles over it, and over me, delighting in it.

For perhaps, this is why He created life - and particularly avocados: not only does He too love guacamole, but He loves to see the Miracle of the Avocado time and time again, just as I do. For with Him, life's triumph over death is The Theme that all the world struggles and slouches towards. The tiny life of the newly born plant triumphing over the brown, crusted stone of a seed. All of the world sitting next to my sink in a little plastic pot.

Quiet

 

Lost dreams of travel

 

Self-portrait 19 Feb 2009

 

What's Important

Driving home from work today, I passed a camper in the bed of a pick-up truck hurtling down the interstate, leaving Mississippi and heading west through Louisiana. It reminded me of a recently read book about the author John Steinbeck’s journey across America more than forty years earlier in a similar camper, lovingly named Rocinante, which you might vaguely remember as the name of Don Quixote’s horse. This camper looked as though it might have been a close relative of the original Rocinante, which for its time was luxurious, but would likely be as tattered as this camper was now, had it survived to the present day.

As I passed the truck, I glanced across at the driver. An older man with a leathered face grimly stared straight ahead, plowing through the miles to his destination. Where was he going, I wondered. I briefly imagined his drawn face creasing into a smile at the sight of grandchildren, or being welcomed with a friendly handshake by a young couple – grown children, perhaps? Or maybe no one at all would greet him, either to a dark house or a shabby motel room somewhere along the road.

I speculated on what he was carrying in his metal horse – perhaps some books, although he would probably be too worn out by the end of the day to read more than a page or two. These days, some might expect to find a laptop in there, but I imagined that he was the sort of person who would write a real letter rather than resorting to the formatted and informal modern email. Maybe a pipe with a sweet-tobacco smell tucked into his shirt pocket, or the local newspaper bought from a chain gas station, carefully refolded and tucked between the seats next to the worn paper maps.

I passed his truck, pondering at how we all travel through life, sometimes alone, other times with company, whether pleasant or tiresome, dragging with us the things we think are essential – usually far more than we need. When you have done some serious traveling, the kind where you change time zones, perhaps more than one, and you begin to notice a difference in the road signs or even the language, the realization begins to sink into you that nothing we own is truly essential. The books, the movies, the heirloom jewelry, the photo albums – they only have meaning and value because of the people who make the memories, pass down the jewelry, write the books, star in the movies, and take the photos. Without the relationships with people who have passed through your life, all the things of life become simply accessories. You become a Don Quixote, chasing after foolish things which aren’t real, riding an iron Rocinante across the country.

I would trade all the things I own for a chance to meet my mother’s dad, a man who held a simple, calm love for the people in his life. He once drove an hour to help his panicky wife who called explained that her car wouldn’t drive forward, only backward. He drove an hour, got in her car, took off the emergency brake, and said, you just wanted me to take you out to lunch, didn’t you? He was a man who knew the value of the people in his life, knew that they were the only things of value.

I glance back at the driver of the modern Rocinante and wish there was some way for me to show him that kind of love, to share with him what he had just taught me during this brief brush of our lives on this interstate.