Run your own race

I just read Julie Goodale's post on Fitness for Survivors about running your own race, physically and metaphorically.

A breast cancer survivor and ultra-marathoner, she was referring to her recent 100-mile race, in which she vowed to not compare herself to others. This is good all-around advice.

In that spirit, I will say that I ran one mile over the weekend – once around the lake – and maybe a little more because I went to and from my house. Over the weekend it seemed like every other runner was wearing a different colored St. Patrick's Road Race T-shirt. I dug through my drawers to find my latest one, from 2012. I wondered if I could do the race again. Maybe, maybe not.

In wanting to run, I am not trying to prove anything. My feet start on their own. My mind picks up a beat.

In other sporting news, I played my first round robin in months last night. I held my own. Some people hit it harder than I can, but thanks to George I can (sometimes) neutralize these strokes with spins and slices. Afterwards, some of us sat and talked. I had a delicious chocolate cookie with M&Ms.

The weekend was great. I had a special guest, one of my high school BFFs, Emily. We walked with friends (and dog), went to yoga, enjoyed coffee and conversation and had a candle-lit dinner party in which I took out my mother's silver.

And then last night, the "Breaking Bad" finale. It all came together so beautifully.

This morning, writing and cleaning up, then a walk. It's nice to have a 6-year-old dog who waits patiently in her corner of the couch while I get things done.

Prednisone: The good and the bad

This is what my dentist said to me Thursday while looking at my x-rays after I had my teeth cleaned: "The prednisone is doing a number on your teeth."

I thought he was going to say I had 12 cavities or something like that. It turns out I had two, after having one about six months ago. I use a special flouride toothpaste, but I guess my immune system just isn't up to the job. Maybe it's all those Swedish fish. Seriously, though, I don't eat that much candy, although I do admit to having a sweet tooth. In any case, after hearing the dentist's solemn tone, I was relieved to just have two.

I told the dentist that the the prednisone has also done a number on my hands, wrists and face, where little thingies keep popping up."Maybe my liver will be fine and the rest of me will crumble," I said. Ha ha.

Speaking of my skin, I have an appointment in Boston Monday morning with Dr. Lin for her to freeze some spots off my hands and wrists.

Katie was getting her teeth cleaned at the same time I was on Thursday. Afterward we went to the Holyoke Mall, which neither of us likes very much. We got there at the perfect time, right before it opened at 10 a.m., when we joined a group of shoppers waiting between two doors. We were personally invited in. We had agreed to go in two directions – Katie towards the store where she hoped to find a small lamp, and me going the other way in search of tennis balls for that afternoon's game. We figured we'd meet up in 45 minutes, but since hardly anyone was there, we finished in about 10. Best time to shop.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I had coffee the other day with a friend who told me she had already registered for the St. Patrick's Road Race. She wanted to know if I was running, and, regrettfully, I said no.

This time last year I was in full training mode, running six or seven miles at a time. Talking about it reminded me how much I want to get back. Yesterday I gave it another try. I set out to run a little over a mile, to the lower paved lake, around it, and back. Doesn't seem so hard. But I had trouble keeping my balance near the end, so I switched to walking a little and running a little.

I think this is how I'll have to do it, starting from the beginning and doing walk/runs until I am more comfortable with it.

I remember running

More precisely, I remember how to run.

I haven't run since August and have been working up to the day when I can do it. On Saturday I said, "Maybe tomorrow." Yesterday I didn't think so. After walking Maddie around the lake and doing some other things, I was tired in the afternoon and figured I'd call it a day. I lay down on the couch, covered myself with a cozy blanket and got a bowl full of chips. I figured I'd make a few phone calls and then take a nap.

I called Ben, but he couldn't talk much because he was on the way out the door to go running.

And that was all the motivation I needed. I came out from under the blanket, changed into running clothes, put on my running shoes, and, after a few stretches, was out the door as the sun dropped lower in the sky.

And then I remembered how to run.

I just went once around the paved lake (the path around the bigger, unpaved lake is covered with snow) and then ran back, for a total of a little over a mile. This is nothing compared to what I was doing this time last year while preparing for the St. Patrick's Road Race, but it was a start, and every time I take a break, I have to start from the beginning.

I went up the little hills so slowly that I might have been walking, except that I was using a running gait. I can't say that I got enough exercise to feel good, but I didn't feel bad either.

I told Joe that who knows, maybe I can train for St. Pat's. He said he didn't think that was a good idea. Actually, I think he said something more emphatic. I didn't really think I could, anyway.

Today, alas, I am sore.

St. Pat's, here I come

That's the St. Patrick's Road Race, scheduled for March 17 in Holyoke.

Until a couple of weeks ago, I wasn't so sure I was doing it.

Too hilly, too much stress, too slow, bla bla bla.

I haven't run the hilly 10K for five years, and I just didn't think this was the year. I've been running, but I haven't gotten up to that stage where it's something you want to do. Once I get going, I like it, but more often than not I have to push myself out the door.

It's the opposite with tennis. No matter how many mistakes I made the time before, I always want to go.

Ben asked me about the race a couple of times, and I said I thought I wasn't up to it. Then he texted a couple of weeks ago that he had signed up...and all of a sudden I found myself doing the same.

Last week, I ran 5.2 hilly miles one day and three flat ones the next day. (I know the exact distance because I checked it out on MapMyRun.com.) Two days in a row was unusual for me, and after I did it, my legs felt incredibly painful and stiff.

I've gotten a little faster in general, but on a couple of the hills, I looked down at my slow-moving feet and asked myself, "Are you running or walking?" My inner coach said, "Pick up your feet!"

There's something about cancer, chemo and coma, plus muscle-weakening prednisone, that makes your feet heavier. And then of course there is the age thing.

Today I felt pretty good and went out for what I thought was around six miles. Some birds helped me along, the hills and fields looked beautiful in the late-afternoon sun, and I began to enjoy myself.

When I got home and measured it on MapMyRun, it turned out to be 5.89 miles. Pretty close!

I stretched a lot afterward and am planning on skipping tomorrow except for going to the gym, and hopefully getting out the door will be easier Tuesday.

Meanwhile, if I get nervous about the race, I have to remember what my local doctor, Ronald Berger, told me recently: "You'll probably be the fastest bone marrow transplant patient out there."

Talking Turkey Race makes me want to run

I took this photo at Holyoke's Ashley Reservoir with my
cell phone while walking there with a friend a few weeks
ago. Today, runners will pack the trail.

Holyoke's 30th annual Talking Turkey 6-Mile Cross Country Race, taking place today, is expected to draw close to 1,300 runners.

I won't be there, but I will be thinking about it.

That race, which circles the beautiful Ashley Reservoir, is a must-do for many area runners, along with March's St. Patrick's Road Race, also in Holyoke.

I've run the Talking Turkey many times. It has a special resonance for me: When I ran it in 2005, it marked my comeback to racing after my chemotherapy and stem cell transplant in 2003. I wrote about the events leading to the race, and about what it meant for me, in a piece for the New York Times magazine's Lives page.

I was just talking to my friend Emily about it. She said, "Next year, right?"

That's my goal, along with one day getting back to the St. Pat's race, a hilly 10-k.

Whatever you're trying to come back to, you figure out different ways to build back up. (I admire you Pilates people. Ouch. I couldn't do it.) Tennis came back easily this past summer and fall, probably because, unlike running, it allows for frequent stopping to catch your breath, and in doubles, it has the built-in capacity for shouting "Yours!"

When coming back to running after each of my three Caesareans and my first round against leukemia, I tried two approaches. First, of course, I walked, slowly, and then aerobically, until I got to the point where I thought I could jog.

After the babies were born, I just went straight at it and ran the half-mile or mile (I can't remember exactly which). After leukemia, I took the walk/run route; quarter-mile walk, quarter-mile run, for about a mile until I could do one mile at a time. The rest followed naturally, as I built back up to my usual level of six miles or so on weekends and shorter distances during the week, mixed in with tennis, yoga, weights, biking, and, oh yes, did I mention my full-time job?

With my hematocrit currently about 28 (normal is 34.8-43.6) I actually feel fine, but I obviously don't have it in me to do more than a fast walk with maybe a few minutes or so of jogging between trees. So, I guess I need to be patient. It's not always easy, but of course we all need to remember to be thankful for what we can do rather than spending too much time fretting over what we can't do.

I wonder what approach others have taken to getting back to running or whatever activity that makes them feel like themselves.

Runners at the Talking Turkey Race usually get a really nice long-sleeved mock turtleneck. The last year I ran it, in 2006, they gave something a little different: a maroon fleece vest that I wear all the time. This year, for the 30th anniversary, they're giving out something super-special: a windbreaker. Sigh. I'd really have liked one of those. Sure, you can buy your own windbreaker, but it's not the same as earning it at a race. And as most runners know from an unwritten code, you can't wear the T-shirt or windbreaker or vest or whatever unless you finish the race. Not that I need any more T-shirts, but I do need to at least have a plan about how to get back to running.

Runners and their Races

The photo at right is of me finishing 

the St. Patrick's Race in the 1980s.

Most runners have a race they feel is their own. The St. Patrick's Race in Holyoke, Mass., a challenging 10K, is no more my race than it is that of the approximately 2,500 runners who run it every year a day before the city's big St. Patrick's Day Parade. But when people mention the race, I say, "Oh, that's my race." It's not because of my speed. I'm not especially slow, and not especially fast, but I am committed. I think my best time was 52 minutes. I'm not one of those people who keeps a log of race times. I look it up every year, but I never write it down. I have lost count of how many times I've run it, but it's probably around a dozen.

I started in the 1980s with friends from the former Holyoke Transcript-Telegram, a good little newspaper that lived and breathed the race, the parade, and the colleen coronation ball, which I remember as being the time when my strapless bra fell down around my knees during a dance. We went to the race for the fun, the festivities, the camaraderie and the challenge. At that time the race was longer by about two miles, following the hilly 

road that cuts through Holyoke Community College. They lopped 

off that extra challenge to attract more participants.
I took a break from the race after each of my children was born, and 

each time felt that I had finally come back when I could do the race again.

After my leukemia went into remission, I ran the race twice -- last year and the year before. For reasons that I will explain later, I couldn't run the race this past Saturday, when it attracted a record-breaking number of participants, more than 3,000. I did, however, go for a little jog at 1 p.m., the time the race started.

Our area has two big races: St. Pat's and, the Saturday after Thanksgiving, the Talking Turkey race, six miles around a beautiful reservoir also in Holyoke. My friend was raped at that reservoir, and for her, running that race was proof that she was stronger than her fears.

Similarly, when I returned to St. Pat's, the race that led me to the discovery that I had leukemia, I felt like I was facing some kind of demon and also celebrating a rebirth. I was nervous, excited and scared, all at once. Most importantly, I was a runner, not a patient. And when I finished, at a little over an hour, my mixed reactions showed me that I was thinking like a runner, too.
First came the exhilaration of crossing the finish line. Then came the critical thinking.
"I feel pretty good," I thought. "I could have gone a little faster. Well, maybe next year."