Hot Chocolate Run: Festive and (sort of) fun

Ready to run

First things first, or last things first, the hot chocolate (with marshmallows) was delicious last Sunday at the end of the annual 5K, the Hot Chocolate Run for Safe Passage, in Northampton. The run is festive and fun, but, not surprisingly, when being made for so many people, the hot chocolate is not always the best. This year, many of us remarked on how good it was. I would have lingered if the people I came with didn't want to leave. 

The event was fun, but the run, not so much. The delayed start time (about 15 minutes) made me stiffen up. I hadn't been training, unless you could call running around a tennis court training. I've been running about once a week, maybe three miles or a little less. Some weeks I didn't run though I jumped around a lot in exercise classes at the Y. Does that count? In the couple of weeks before the run, I made sure to add some hills. I thought it was enough to do it and feel OK. The hills through and around Smith College are tough. Normally I run up but this year I walked. 

 I was part of a team of tennis friends this year – The Ace Capades – and the fast walkers in the group ended up walking more quickly than my very slow run.  I don't have asthma, but I actually started wheezing. The Fun Run, as opposed to the Road Race, is not exactly competitive. Runners pushed strollers. A guy in front of me juggled as he ran. He dropped a ball, stooped to pick it up, and started running again. People wore fun outfits. An instructor from the Y cheered for me as I ran the home stretch. When I saw her in class a couple of days later, I thanked her and told her I hadn't been feeling so great. She said I looked good. That made me feel better, in hindsight. 

Who cares, right? Here's why I cared. My PTSD regarding getting diagnosed with leukemia after a slow race (the Saint Patrick's 10K in Holyoke) clouded my vision. Was I relapsing? My pride at having been a "real" runner was a wee bit damaged. At least if I "only" did a 5K, I didn't have to wheeze. The difficulty breathing lasted a while. One of my teammates who was walking back to the car with me stopped with me. I tried to get some better breaths in. In through the nose, out through the mouth. I perked up a bit. 

6th annual photo with Amy Willard

Did I say I am doing some personal training at the Y? My trainer had done the race with Y members who were doing a "couch to 5k." I texted with her afterwards, when I got home. I think I scared her because I said I didn't feel so great. She wanted to know if I was light headed. I said no, I was just doing a reality check about the late start giving me problems. She said she thought that was normal.

I can do cognitive behavioral therapy on myself. What were the facts? I hadn't trained. I was 13 years "out." (Meaning 13 years after my fourth stem cell transplant, in the highly unlikely to relapse territory.) Speaking of which, I was probably the only one with multiple stem cell transplants doing this. The next day at tennis, when my group was coming on the court, I chatted with a friend who was coming off. I said something about not feeling great in the Hot Chocolate Run, and she said, "At least you were out there. I was at home drinking hot chocolate. "

All that aside, we raised money for a good cause. If you donated, thank you very much!

And there is also the matter of a nice new mug.

Thoughts on the New Year

I almost forgot how to start a new post. At the Canoe Club on a beautiful day back in the summer, Donna said don’t stop the blog. I have to do what she says, as in “yours” in tennis, but I am only kidding about that and am giving it a try. 

Funny how things work out. 

I started this way back when Delta got worse, school for Nell was going to start, and Ben understandably didn’t want to take a chance with Cape trip #2. Joe also couldn’t come. So although we missed them, Diane, David, Katie and I had a lovely weekend. We went on the boat, which we might not have done if the whole crew was there. 

 My nose continues to be a pain. I had a skin cancer removed from the top of my head, and while I was lying there, at the Mohs Surgery Center in Jamaica Plain, the doctor said it (my nose) could use some dermabrasion and went after it with a sand papery thing. Now I am dealing with THAT healing. To finish it off, I apparently need laser. At 7 a.m. in Boston. At least I can get a little something out of these things. I wrote about how hard it is to bandage your nose, like so: Nose bandaging not my speciality.

It's funny, not ha ha funny, just strange, that as a blood cancer survivor I deal mostly with skin cancer, which I write about here.

It was also hard to bandage a wound on my head, as you can imagine. Boyfriend rigged something up with gauze, tape, and three hair clips. Donna and I made it to the US Open. That seems like so long ago. There was no bus, so I drove. Highlight of the drive might have been the pit stop on a sloping bank alongside the river just before we hit the Whitestone Bridge. Only kidding, I think. We navigated the grounds like pros, unlike in our first year, and saw women’s doubles up close, as well as men’s singles and a short trip to our nosebleed seats in Ashe, all the while juggling our Honey Deuce cocktail in the souvenir glass with the winners on it.

I did the Hot Chocolate Run for Safe Passage with my friend Amy Willard. We chatted most of the way and didn't do it for time. It was great to be with a group of runners again. Since it was outside, I wasn't worried about the virus. We kept our masks on except for the photo. It is so fun and festive and for a great cause.

I waited so long to finish this that now we are dealing with Omicron. I won't go backwards on some things, such as playing tennis indoors, which I wouldn't do last year when unvaccinated. Though I have to say that after having no problems playing all summer on the clay, my feet and to some little extent my right knee, are speaking to me with all of this playing on hard courts in Enfield and (still outside the other day in the cold) on the hard courts at the Canoe Club. 

On New Year's Day it is hard to know what to make of things. Someone I know asked on Twitter how it was possible to be optimistic about the coming year, what with climate change, the virus, and the anti-vaxxers giving the plague new ways of spreading. I agree that it is hard and infuriating. It is hard not to get my blood pressure up, when they parade around with signs along the lines of "don't tell me what to do with my body" yet will turn around and tell a woman what to do with her body. Big sigh.

But as for the positive: This time last year, we didn't have the vaccine. I couldn't let anyone in my house, and even when walking outside with Katie, I had to be careful not to wander into her pathway, as I am wont to do. This time last year, the grandkids couldn't have visited as they did the other day. We wouldn't have been able to play with the toys that I held onto from when my kids were young. We couldn't have had lunch. We might still have been able to take the "nature walk" that we took over at the college, but then we wouldn't have been able to come in and have hot chocolate and cookies.

In the old days back at the paper (s), I might not have interviewed my friends, but my sister/friend Margaret fit so will into the theme of pandemic pivots, which I wrote about for PBS's Next Avenue, that I had to feature her. I was honored that she used the photo on her Christmas card. 

Maddie is almost 15.  I remember when our dog Sam was this old and would be sleeping in the pool of light beneath the living room window, on the blue carpet, and we would check to see if he was breathing. Now I check her that way. She has mostly stopped playing with her toys but she really likes this snowman that Jane gave her for Christmas. As always, she seems annoyed when I take her photo. 

Car accident leads to week-long headache

I was in the back seat of the first car

I haven't complained lately about the drivers to Dana-Farber, because actually they've been fine. I have to complain about my ride, however, last week, when another driver on the rainy and windy day, swerving to avoid a car that had hydroplaned, hit the car I was in instead. I was amused by the idea of getting my blood sucked out on Halloween but it wasn't to be.

We were on the ramp at Exit 14 – almost there – so at least we were not going fast. (Most everyone goes further to avoid Route 9 but this driver, Michael, says they are the same.) In any case I was sitting in the back, on the passenger's side (that was another stroke of good luck) and minding my own business eating an apple when I felt an impact from the left side of the car, and my head banged against the window. The car got pushed off onto the side of the road. I got out, as did the girls in both cars. I called 911. Michael called his dispatcher, angrily talking up a blue streak in Russian. (I hope the hit on the head hasn't made me spew out cliches because I realized I just used two of them.) I wish I knew what he was saying. The one behind us said she had just called her mother. I thought maybe she should have called 911 but I did it. She said it was her first accident. I told her nobody died and just breathe. I remember being in an accident and it being my fault and being screamed at and it not being helpful, years ago. You don't cause an accident on purpose so I wasn't really angry but I'm pretty sure I was in shock. 

A paramedic arrived and asked me if I knew my name and then asked if I needed an ambulance. He said he had to get out of there as quickly as possible because it wasn't his jurisdiction. (Sorry for the inconvenience!) The police officer who came said the paramedic could leave. He got everyone's information and said everyone should get off the road. 

Nice setting for rainy day run

I called the Kraft Family Blood Donor Center, where I was scheduled to receive ECP, the light therapy on my blood, and Ellen, the PA, said they couldn't possibly do it because they use a blood  thinner, heparin. Michael said he would take me to the Brigham and Women's emergency room. He got all discombobulated and said he didn't know where it was. I said I could get it on my phone. Then he said he knew where it was, but instead he took me to the Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital ER. Then he turned around and headed towards the Brigham when I said that wasn't it. I could see it on the left but we were stuck in traffic so I said I would just get out and walk the block. (Probably not a good idea.) At check-in, the guard had me stand on line. (Still a New Yorker.) I said I thought I was in a little bit of shock and had been in a car accident and maybe someone could take my information. The next person saw me and got me into triage. My blood pressure was 200 over 83 or 84. I started crying. The nurse took me to a bed in a line of beds in a corridor.

A couple of doctors checked me out and didn't see the need for CAT scans or anything invasive. A doctor gave me some Ativan and two Tylenols and an ibuprofen and said to check in with my primary. The docs said I would need to wait a week to go back for the procedure. I was out of there on time for the frazzled Michael to pick me up. His car was damaged on the drivers' side but it was drivable. I'm lucky that I wasn't sitting behind him because then the impact would have been worse.

Healthy car lunch

I've had a headache on and off all week. My efforts to write have not been fruitful; I get a headache when looking at the screen. I did have to do interviews for the story I'm writing for Chicago Health Magazine, on Parkinson's Disease. There is no real evidence to support a causality between head injuries and Parkinson's, although there is some speculation, but that didn't stop me from going partway over the cliff. Back at the newspaper, we un-woke-ily said we had the disease of the week when we wrote about various horrible things that happened to people. So...here comes another cliche, it is par for the course for me to think I'm going to get Parkinson's. I have had worse head injuries though and so far so good.

I called my internist's office on Monday. I used to see Dr. Berger, now retired, who showed up on the tennis court at the Enfield Tennis Club's Friday mixer last week. He is the doctor who diagnosed me with leukemia. It was definitely interesting to see him the tennis court. I didn't end up playing with him or against him but I might some time. In any case I talked to the secretary for the doctor who replaced him and told her I was considering going to my chiropractor. She said she didn't know about the ER visit and said it was a good idea to go to the chiropractor. Then I got a call from another woman, at the same office, (first Lisa, then Meg) who said she knew of the ER visit and wanted to know if they could help me. Insert eye roll. 

On Monday, Keith McCormick, my chiropractor, did some tests and adjusted my neck. My blood pressure was still high but not crazy like it was. He said the high BP made sense since I've been in pain. He said I probably had a slight concussion and a case of whiplash. I have called the internist's office and left a message for Meg, to see if they want to see me. As it stands, I was scheduled for acupuncture today so I went ahead and did it. I'm going back to see Keith on Friday and going to ECP tomorrow.

I got two calls from Pilgrim Insurance Company, representing the driver of the car I was in. First Greg, then Joanne. I talked to Joanne. She wanted to know what happened. I asked what she knew. She said she didn't know I had gone to the ER and she wanted to know how I got there. PEOPLE. Wasn't there a report? Just talking to her increased my headache, which I thought acupuncture had ameliorated this morning. I told her that my chiropractor said I had a concussion. She said, "JUST a chiropractor? They have different training." I sensed she was getting at something, like, maybe the exam didn't count. I said I have also checked in with my primary. She asked about loss of work. I said I'm a freelance writer who needs to look at a screen and it has been hard to work. She gave me the claim number and said to send the company all my bills.

Today I have a dental checkup. I love Dr. Debian, of Holyoke Dental Associates, and I'll be interested in hearing what he has to say. 

The car accident day had started out well. I figured I should do a little running in preparation for The Hot Chocolate Run. I went 3.5 miles in the drizzle and got a taste of the good feeling of running in the rain. The leaves made a carpet. I was pleased that I had done it and that I hadn't tripped. I made a healthy lunch and sent a photo of it to my friends. I said I had forgotten to put in a fork but was making do. Then I texted that on a more serious note I had been in an accident.

Silver lining: At least the pain in my head has distracted me from my neuropathy.

Running – or sloshing – in the rain for a good cause

With Amy Willard before the run

According to a post on the the Hot Chocolate Run's Facebook page, it was apparently the first rainy Hot Chocolate Run in the event's 15th year history.

In the morning, a friend pointed out that I didn't have to go. I had already raised the money, after all.

I said, in effect, that if everyone thought that way, nobody would be there. (And think of all that hot chocolate going to waste.)

When I ran the Hartford Half Marathon in the fall of 2002 it was on another rainy day. I felt a little under the weather. I remember my mother telling me not to go. I went anyway. At the time, leukemia might have been brewing. But I felt pretty good, except for feeling silly when my friend Mike and I got there and got soaked while waiting, while the more knowledgeable runners had made makeshift ponchos out of garbage bags that they discarded when the race began.

I didn't feel so good this year. And it was only a 5-K.

Contrary to last year, when I trained for the Hot Chocolate Run so that I would feel OK on the hills, and then wrote about it for Women's Running, I didn't train this year. 

I wasn't even planning on going, but when I told Marianne Winters,  the executive director of Safe Passage, that I wasn't in shape, she said that it didn't matter because the Fun Run, was, well, fun. In the old days I would have signed up for the race with the "real runners," but that was then, and this is now. 

I know Marianne through tennis, and it was over snacks at a tennis match that we had talked about my participating. It was as a way of supporting her great work that I did my first Hot Chocolate Run with other tennis teammates three years ago.

And then there was one.

Amy, from that original group, was running this year. We agreed to meet before. It was fun to go together. She has a great smile that ... cliché alert...brightened the day.

Due to the cold and rain, it was difficult to figure out to wear. I put in contacts that I'm trying out. The idea was to keep from having rain pour onto my glasses. I put on a Gore-tex jacket to keep my top dry, and as for my legs, I figured they would get soaked anyway so I just wore the leggings that I wear to tennis. Then for headgear, the choice was between keeping my head warm with the red hat that you get for raising at least $150, or wearing a baseball hat and keeping the rain out of my eyes. 

Choosing the warm hat may not have been the best idea. The rain was coming down so hard that I was afraid the contacts would wash out of my eyes. Then my vision would be even worse than it was in rain-soaked contacts.

At least as an upgrade from the garbage bags of yore, volunteers had handed out ponchos for us to wear while we waited. 

We also went into a warm tent where trainers from Cooley Dickinson Hospital were rolling out runners' legs with a stick that is a torture device for tight muscles. I got mine done because just on time for the run, my plantar fasciitis decided to act up. This irked me no end. I have a couple of the sticks at home. I guess I should have been torturing my calves for maintenance, but, alas, it's hard to get motivated when there are so many other things to think about. In any case, it helped a little.

As I was going up the hills, I remembered why I had decided to run on some hills before last year's run. I've been doing intermittent three-mile runs but they are mostly flat.

I leaned into the first hill. Then my back cramped, and after a while, I had trouble standing up straight. I thought maybe I should switch to a walk for a while. Other people were doing it. When I tried to switch gears, I wobbled a little. It was easier to run, albeit slowly, that to walk, because it gave me better forward momentum. A woman asked if I needed assistance. I thanked her and said I didn't. We trotted alongside each other for a bit. That took my mind off being uncomfortable...for a few minutes.

By the time the hills at Smith College came, near the end, I was feeling a little bit screwed. I was bent over. I tried to coax myself into standing up straight. I told myself, "Pretend you're walking the dog!" Down the home stretch, I was going slowly enough to have a conversation with two police officers near the Academy of Music. I said I couldn't stand up straight. They asked if I needed help. I said I just wanted sympathy. They laughed.

Obviously I made it. Hot chocolate with marshmallows never tasted so good. I was soaked and cold But so was everyone else. 

I got a new mug. 

If you contributed to my fundraising page, thank you!

I love how the website is set up so you can see where the money goes, for example, a $30 donation can help provide resources, support and hope for a survivor calling the 24-hour hotline; $60 can help support a survivor's first counseling session, and so on.

The event broke records and raised $628,527.

I don't seem to be any worse for the wear except for not being happy about my heel.

Whining, dining, and giving thanks

In the summer, my Labrador retriever, Maddie, came up to my room to sleep in the air conditioning, but now she likes to sleep on the couch. In the morning she comes upstairs to wake me up and lies down on her hand-me-down LL Bean bed. She does the perfect downward dog. I gave her one of the quilts that co-workers had signed for me. It was after my relapse and was a smaller version of the large one that I took with me everywhere for a long time. She likes to rest her head on it.

I usually get down on the floor for a stretch and a hug and some mutually beneficial endorphins. She had a long puppyhood. I used to complain about her, but now I can't imagine life without her. She is almost twelve, and I can get all verklempt about her age, but I try to change the channel. On Thanksgiving, I told her I was thankful for her.

Having Joe and Katie home filled the house with warmth. It seems like only yesterday that they were fighting over the school bus. Specifically, over whether Katie could get downstairs fast enough for him to give her a ride, with Joe saying he was going to leave without her and me chiming in that she better hurry. (Actually, yelling up the stairs.) This probably did not help to de-escalate. If she missed the ride and the bus, I would have to drive her and wouldn't have enough time to run before work.

Now when I talk about running, I refer to my "so-called" run, because I'm so slow. Due to my neuropathy, I feel like I have lead boots on my feet. So when I went out for a Thanksgiving day jog of a little under three miles, I was glad that it was so cold – 15 degrees – that I couldn't feel my feet.

I tried some CBD oil but it hasn't worked well. A woman at the Brattleboro Farmers Market sold it to me. I ran into a "CBD Oil Users" group on Facebook, and when I put some photos up, they said it didn't have much CBD in it. Who knew?

 People have offered some good suggestions, such as how to buy samples from various manufacturers so you can see if it works before you buy more. There is another group, "Our Neuropathy Friends," consisting of people who are REALLY suffering and searching for relief.

That said, I'm not in shape, but I'm going to do the Hot Chocolate Run . It's for a good cause and crazy colorful and a lot of fun. 

After my little run on Thursday, I had just enough time to enjoy a breakfast that Joe made and then get ready to go to New Canaan for Thanksgiving. I got a kick out of telling people that I was going to Granny's. She's my daughter-in-law's grandmother, who graciously agreed to host us. 

Nell went around the table asking everyone what they were grateful for.

As soon as a person said they were grateful for her, she was on to the next person.

Maybe it was after my turn, but I think I got in that I was grateful for my family, and for being with extended family. The sun came out and I said I was thankful for that.  I would have said that I'm thankful for my bone marrow donor but it seemed out of place.

I wrote her a Thanksgiving thank you when I got home. 

Without her, I wouldn't be able to kvetch that my feet are killing me and lament that I only ran about three miles. 

As I wrote in my last post, it's good to have some perspective and remember when I couldn't even get out of bed. 

Not running, but playing a role in road race

The crowd in downtown Holyoke waiting for the race to begin

I could probably have built off my reasonable showing at the Hot Chocolate Run to train for this weekend's Saint Patrick's Road Race, but after last year's dramatic finish (euphemism alert), I decided to give it a break.

Someone said maybe it's time to call it quits, but I don't necessarily think so.

In any case I enjoyed taking Ben and a friend to the race, cheering them on, and, after much searching in the crowd, finding Ben and giving him a lift to where a bunch of them were going for beers, finding a nearby coffee place, then going back to get him and bringing him home.

If I closed my eyes, I could have been in the way old days of driving him around when he was a kid.

Since it's the 15th anniversary of the day when my poor time in the same race led to my leukemia diagnosis, I wanted to be involved even if not running. Being the support staff brings its own type of reward. And as I wrote in my last post, Ben cheered me on when I ran, and it felt good to do it the other way around.

It was interesting, for a change, to see the runners from start to finish, even though it was cold and windy. I got a good look at each of the starting groups and then walked over to the finish line after the last runner took off. It didn't take long before the winner came through. Those top runners all had such beautiful strides. The colorful garb that had helped see me through when I was struggling was still in evidence, such as a girl dressed as a unicorn, complete with a horn, and green as far as the eye could see.

My plan was to run when I got back home, but all in all I had walked about three miles – in addition to jumping up and down to stay warm – and that was enough for the day.

Fun time at the Hot Chocolate Run

The Hot Chocolate Run for Safe Passage in Northampton is such a fun and festive event that I'm not sure why it wasn't on my radar all those years that I was running Saint Patrick's and the Talking Turkey.

I did it last year for the first time, when tennis friends organized a team to support our team member, Marianne Winters, the executive director of the Northampton non-profit supporting women and children affected by domestic violence.

Thinking it was "only" a 5K, I thought it was no big deal. The hills in and around Smith College, however, made it harder than expected...an unpleasant surprise.

Back in the day when I was regularly doing five- to six-milers up and down hills in South Hadley, and longer on weekends, getting up to a half marathon, it would have been no biggie. But I've been doing shorter distances – a place holder in case I decide to really get back into it. I miss those endorphins from the longer, more regular runs.

With Carol Constant at Hot Chocolate Run

Last year when I was struggling to get up a hill, I asked a bystander, "Am I running or walking?"

I was glad to hear her say I was running. But I was so bent over that she asked if I needed medical attention. I didn't, but I did have to lean against a tree to straighten out.

My goals this year were to (1) finish feeling good and standing up straight and (2) to not finish last. I had been there done that in this year's Saint Patrick's Road Race, a distinction that I wrote about in Women's Running. (Everything is material.)

For the past few months, I've done small intervals, speeding up to the best of my ability between trees and other markers, a couple of times a week at best. Mostly I did three miles, though I did a few four-milers. I also added hills, changing courses from just going the lakes at Mount Holyoke to going around the neighborhood. Just the tiniest whiff of those endorphins makes me want to keep at it, though at this point I'm more in the groove of tennis. It suits my capabilities more now.

By last week I felt OK on the hills and felt better about getting a little faster.

All the energy on the day of the event – Sunday – helped me get an extra bounce in my step. The costumes and music added to the excitement. I felt better all around, though I have to say it is a challenge to not totally be able to feel your feet. This is due to the neuropathy that never went away after my chemotherapy eight years ago. I told myself to try to feel the ground instead of thinking about my feet.

A father told his son not to compare himself to anyone else – "You're only racing against yourself" – and I picked up on that bit of wisdom and took it for myself. Of course I wasn't running for a time as in the past...just running to have fun and be respectable. With that definition of success, it was a win.

Some 6,000 people ran, and the event raised $615,000.

Back home, Maddie and I walked around both lakes with my neighbor. Like all the excitement had at done at the race, the conversation carried me. Plus, after I had gotten exercise, I felt like it was only fair for the dog to get it too.

What with coming and going and walking and running, by the end of the day I had done more than 9 miles. I was more wired than tired that night. But the next day, yesterday, was a different story.

Adding hills and miles heading toward's St. Patrick's Road Race again

It recently occurred to me that if I can run three miles, I can run another 3.2, in (as I write this), 19 days, 5 hours, 20 minutes and 3 seconds.

That would be Holyoke's St. Patrick's Road Race, the hilly 10K which I used to run all the time but have not run in a couple of years. Last week when I saw my internist, he asked if I was going to run. When I told him that I had gotten back up to three, he said he didn't see a reason why I couldn't do the whole thing even if I walked a little. Doctor's orders? My stamina is good, possibly because I run so slowly that when I did the Hot Chocolate Run, I asked a person on the sidelines if I was walking or jogging. She kindly said I was indeed jogging.

My only problem is my right foot. The big toe and, gasp, yesterday after a five-miler, a twinge in my heel. Working on both of those things.

The other day when I decided to add some hills and get off the route of running around the lakes at Mount Holyoke, I headed out Ferry Street and went to Brunelle's Marina and back, about four miles. It was good to be on the open road, looking at the river and hearing the sounds of birds and wind chimes. I never ran with music because I like to listen to what's around me.

I'm thankful to Carol Constant for giving me the idea that I could run in a race again when she suggested we do The Hot Chocolate Run to support Safe Passage and its executive director, our summer tennis teammate Marianne Winters.

Yesterday Carol and I did five hilly miles. I felt a little bad that my so-called run was equivalent to her fast walk, but she didn't seem to mind, and we spent the time telling some stories. After a bit of this I told her to go on ahead so she could get a real run.

I said something along the lines of "I don't know how I got so slow. I walk much slower too."

This might be comparable to being hit on the head with a hammer and wondering why your head hurts.

Carol set me straight, saying anything I do at this point is great.

I had been having trouble with my blood pressure and briefly went on medicine. I was convinced it was situational (surgery, lack of exercise, Donald Trump) and when two of those things but alas not the third settled down, I got permission from Ellen, the PA at the light therapy at Dana-Farber, to stop taking the medicine and check with my internist. I saw it go down after I started the day with a brief recorded meditation while sitting next to Maddie on the couch.

As all dog lovers know, this is powerful medicine in itself.

Good show, good run, good visit to my hometown

Scene from "Falsettos" on Broadway, with Andrew Rannells in hospital bed

Tradition, tradition...

Facebook was kind enough to send me a memory from the New York visit that Katie and I had two years ago when we saw the wonderful and bubbly "On the Town." It started almost the same way as our trip earlier this week:

"Drove in on Saturday and got a spot good for the two days we needed. Happy feeling." Just replace Saturday with Monday and you get the same thing.

This year's winter pick, "Falsettos," was a different kind of show. A comedy and a drama at once, it is a revival of a 1992 play by William Finn and James Lapine, the creators of Spelling Bee, which originated in Great Barrington.

The play about two gay Jewish men and their extended family starts out at a fast, funny clip, then takes a turn in the second act as one gets the mysterious illness afflicting gay men at the time of the second act, 1981. Writing in the New York Times, Charles Isherwood called it "exhilarating and devastating." You could hear a lot of laughter at the beginning and a lot of sniffling at the end.

I would recommend seeing it but the limited run ends in a week. Check out this feature in Playbill.com to hear a medley. It was interesting to see Andrew Rannells, who we saw as the Elder Price in The Book of Mormon, in the more nuanced role of Whizzer to Christian Borle's Marvin.

Nice place for a run

It was our second year staying at an Airbnb in the Lower East Side. With its scattering of overgrown community gardens, it is a different world. Katie drove in all the way, and, as an honorary New Yorker, successfully turned on her parking radar and found a spot in walking distance of our place on 9th street off Avenue C.

Due to street cleaning from 11 a.m. to 12:30 on Tuesday, someone would have to sit in the car and move out for the street cleaner, a New York routine in which I delight. Then the spot would be "good for tomorrow," meaning that we wouldn't have to sit in it or move it on Wednesday before our checkout.

Monday night after unpacking, we wandered around in some of my old stomping grounds in the West Village, ate dinner at a tapas restaurant and found dessert at a nearby patisserie. Being an old(er) person, the next day I woke up early and went for a run. Our place was conveniently located across the street from 9th Street Espresso, so I got up and got a coffee before heading the couple of blocks over to East River Park.

After doing the hilly Hot Chocolate 5K last month, I had an easy time jogging under the Williamsburg Bridge about three miles on the flat pathway with the beautiful views of the river. I feel so much better about everything when I can run without pain.

I made it to the car on time and got so engrossed in talking to a friend on the phone that I didn't notice that the street cleaner had pulled up behind me. The driver started honking. The idea is to pull out, wait for the street cleaner to pass, and then back in. But a car had pulled even with me and I couldn't get back in. Parking panic ensued. I zoomed around the block and got back in the space. But you still have to wait the whole time, so Katie came and took my place while I took a shower.

We had what my father called "free time" before meeting for dinner and going to the show. We were a little disappointed afterwards that Rannells didn't come to the stage door with some of the other performers, but we got over it with cheesecake afterwards.

With changing situations, adapting goals

With tennis friends at Hot Chocolate Run

I've decided that since 60 is the new 40, the 5K is my new 10K. At least for now.

It was great to be in a crowd of runners again — 6,500 of them — at Sunday's Hot Chocolate Run in Northampton. It was great to go with tennis friends and to support Safe Passage and to be in such a spirited scene at a time when the national news is so depressing.

As for the run itself, well...

Due to the problem with my toes, I hadn't run very much. And when I did run a little, it was on mostly flat ground around the Mount Holyoke lakes. But when it appeared that my new chiropractor had fixed my toes by working on (OK, killing) my calves, I decided I try it. But I didn't realize that the run through Smith College and Northampton had HILLS. They wouldn't have been hills to someone who has been running, but they were hills to me.

I leaned into them and did my best. I was so slow that I wasn't even sure if I was walking or running. At one point near the end as I passed two spectators, I asked, "Am I running?"

"Yes, you look good!"

They were nice.

Coming into the chute, I wasn't dying or anything, but I couldn't straighten up. During the walk through, I mentioned that to some women I thought I recognized. One of them asked if I wanted to go to the first aid station. No I didn't; I didn't go to first aid when I nearly fainted at the end of my infamous/famous Saint Patrick's 10K when I had leukemia in 2003 and didn't know it, so I wasn't going to do it on Sunday.

I picked up my purple hot chocolate mug and leaned against a tree. I wanted to see how the chip reader worked when you stand in front of it with your bib on, so I went over and tried it. It was a little over 50 minutes for three miles. About the time that at one point I could have run twice that much.

I shrugged it off because the point was to see if I could run without pain. I did, and that was the victory. Now maybe I can run more and get in shape for some other 5Ks. A friend from the tennis group said she would do it with me. I have to admit that the thought of another St. Pat's race did flash through my mind...

I went home and lay on the floor and stretched. Then I took a shower and went down to Bev Bloomberg's "Brunch and Buy," where I joked to people that I was eating as much food as though I had run a 10K.

In my dream that night, a group of us took turns lying on the ground and trying to catch the string of a pink balloon that someone down the field was shooting into the air. My turn came and I caught the string. It was a little difficult to see but I got it. I looked up into the sky and saw another pink balloon floating, then another and another. They were all disintegrating and falling down in little pieces. At first I thought that they were going to hurt me, but then I realized that they were light and wouldn't bother me and I would be OK.

I looked all this up but it is too complicated for me to put together.

Today and tomorrow I got to Boston for maintenance.

Today is photopheresis and tomorrow a checkup with Dr. Alyea at Dana-Farber.

A friend asked me if I ever went a whole week without a doctor's appointment. I said probably not.

Running for fun and a good cause

I can remember clearly the warm early fall day in 2002 when I felt like I was flying along Woodbridge Street towards my house, having just about finished the 10-mile run that my friend Bill Zajac, an experienced marathoner, said would be a good basis for my upcoming half marathon. 

I felt good, as I did when running the Hartford Half in October, so good that I thought I could have continued onto the second loop with the "real" marathoners. It was a funny day in many ways. First, funny in an unexpected way when I beat my friend Mike, who always beat me in tennis. Funny because it was pouring, and Mike and I got drenched when dashing between trees for cover, not knowing what the more experienced participants knew, that in weather like that you cut a hole in a garbage bag and wore it like a cape that you shed when the race began.

Feeling a little under the weather, so to speak, I had talked to my mother the night before. She had urged me not to go. I got up in the dark and went on the adventure anyway. Very possibly, leukemia was brewing, because just about five months later I ran the sluggish Saint Patrick’s race that led to my AML diagnosis. 

I bring this up because, due to pain in my toes, my training for tomorrow's Hot Chocolate Run has mostly involved doing other activities, with a little jogging thrown in.

I'm doing the 5K Fun Run (as opposed to the more competitive road race) with some tennis friends. Carol Constant, the captain of our summer team, the (Holyoke) Paper Dolls, organized our little running team to show our support for another of our tennis friends, Marianne Winters, executive director of Safe Passage, for which the race is a fundraiser.

As I wrote in my piece for Womensrunning.com, pain in my right big toe has curtailed my running. When the other big toe started hurting also, I followed the advice of a runner friend who said to go to a chiropractor. At first I thought, “Chiropractic for your toes?” But I made the appointment with a chiropractor another friend had recommended. He was luckily able to fit me in last week.

That chiropractor, Keith McCormick, was the right person to see. He is a triathlete who knows a lot about running from personal experience. My friend said he’s great at figuring things out. He figured out that the problem in my toes is coming from my calves. When I saw him last week he said he could get me to the point where I could do tomorrow’s run.

He worked on my calves (and my feet) three times this week. The pain was excruciating. I squealed. Yesterday I ran … well, scratch that, I slowly jogged…2 ¾ miles.  My toes felt OK at the end: a good sign. So that is my training run for tomorrow’s 5K.

I would have done it more consistently if I had been to the chiropractor before. But I figure with all of the walking, tennis and spinning I should be able to do three miles. It's a long way from the days of 10Ks and more, but it's better than not doing it all.

Plus we’ll get to have hot chocolate.