I ran the Bellingham Bay Half Marathon yesterday, along with nearly 1500 other people.
Bellingham Bay Marathon Update
Category: running
Finding the Balance in Running and Life
As I write this, I can feel my IT band screaming, and there’s a sensitive spot on my left foot that I think is frostbite, a reminder that perhaps I over-iced yesterday, slightly panicked that I may be getting a touch of plantar fasciitis (please let it not be so). I’m concerned about the half marathon coming up next weekend. I’ve just turned in my final paper for this quarter, and I’m frustrated that I’ve not written a haiku in days.
Funny how life turns out. Last year at this time, I wasn’t running or writing psychotherapy papers or penning haiku. I wasn’t even thinking about such things. Now, I can’t imagine life without any of these activities.
Last weekend I ran the Fairhaven Runners Waterfront 15K. I placed second in my age group. About a month earlier, I entered a 5K race/fundraiser for Alzheimer’s, Miles for Memories. I finished first overall in the women’s division.
I did not set out to be a racer. I certainly did not set out to run fast or to finish anywhere near the front of the pack. I don’t start a race thinking about how I am going to finish, just that I hope I will finish and that I want to enjoy the run. Now that I’ve had some success with running, I’m beginning to second-guess myself. Whereas I used to just get up in the morning and go for a run, now I wonder if I should go long or short, fast or slow, run hills or flat? Should I ice or soak in Epsom salts? Will taking a day off now hurt or help me in my next event? Am I a poser?
Recently I find myself pondering that place between unconsciousness and deliberation, between being ignorantly blissful (or blissfully ignorant) and calculating. I know I compare writing and running quite often, but again, I find the similarities enlightening. At the beginning of this year, I started writing haikus with abandon. I traded them back and forth with friends, posted them to the Haiku Room on Facebook and just enjoyed the experience. Until I started getting attention for them. Then I started overthinking and performing, writing haikus for an audience, and that’s when my haiku writing came to a halt. I got stuck. I became too aware.
Now, I fear the same thing happening with running. I want to just run, but at the same time, I am extremely proud of my accomplishments. And, I have to say, I totally dig winning medals and ribbons, but I don’t want running to be just about that. I want my running to be about health and happiness, connection and community.
I want to go about life consciously, full of awareness, and making good choices, but what happens when that awareness interferes with spontaneity? When overthinking causes indecision and indecision results in immobility? How can we strike a balance and just run happy?
More Procrastination Poetry: A Few Forgotten Haiku from July
Yesterday procrastination worked very well for me. After fiddle farting around on my blog, I got down to business and cranked out some good pages for my paper that is due tomorrow. I am hoping the same magic will happen today. I still need to put a few finishing touches on said paper, add some APA citations, and give it a good thorough edit. Perhaps I will post it when I’ve finished. It’s about how my gender identity has developed over the course of my lifetime. Pretty interesting, this unpacking of gender.
I’d rather be writing poetry, but these four forgotten haiku will have to do for now. Enjoy 🙂
What happens if I
Catch the muse, pin her down, make
Her my specimen?
She deposited
Words like coins, some IOUs
A cold heart’s ransom
Muse comes, muse goes, but
I own her wand, her wings. I
Am muse. She is me.
I am my only
Competition. The race is
Simple. Head v. heart
Procrastination Poetry: July Haiku Wrap-Up
I should be writing a paper for my Gender Development class—six to eight pages “telling your story of how your gender identity has developed across your lifespan thus far.” Alas, I’m procrastinating. Funny, how the assignments I think will be easy turn out to be the most difficult. Instead of writing about my non-gender conforming ways, I thought I would share some of my July haikus instead.
I’ve not been terribly prolific—not quite back up to one a day, but I have managed to cobble together a handful of decent poems this month. A few have to do with running—since I ran my first half-marathon a week and a half ago; some to do with writing, and most to do with life in general.
Enjoy!
How hard must I wish,
To conjure your words from air?
Eyes shut. Hands open.
(I know, I already put this one in a blog, but I really like it, so it bears repeating)
We dwell here between
Words, beyond voice, in this our
Violent silence
Early morning run–
Lightning fast feet, pounding heart.
What’s ahead? Behind?
Catch and release these
Vivid fantasies. Unhook,
Swim fast, silver flash.
On the precipice
Staring into the void–what
Happens if I leap?
Some Sundays digging
In the dirt is more sacred
Than going to church
How many poems
Must I write to get to your
Chewy soft center?
These words, my breadcrumbs,
A crafty trail I’ve contrived
For you to follow
An itch I can’t scratch
That’s what you are, embedded
Deep. Unreachable.
Nights like this your words
Arrived on moonbeams, dancing–
Spinning into me
Super moon rises–
Feel gravity’s pull and the
Tsunami’s release
Super moon rises
Between Mt Baker and the
Endless sky. Listen.
Seven hundred miles
Logged since January–I’m
Running for my life!
Distill it down to
Seventeen syllables: Life
And Love. Poetry.
Thirteen point one miles
First ever half marathon
One step at a time!
Facebook lives or Face
Book lies? What deeper truths lurk
Beneath these facades?
Do you ever walk
Alone or lonely, keeping
Pace with your own heart?
Post-Race Update
I finished my first ever half marathon on Saturday at approximately 10:40 a.m., in about two hours and ten minutes (give or take a couple of minutes—my Nike app and the race clock had a minor disagreement). I ran well—much better than I anticipated—and was astonished by my times. I exceeded my expectations by at least a minute a mile and so finished the race at least 13 minutes faster than I expected to. And I ran happy! There are pictures to prove it, thanks to The Little Woman and my pal April who were strategically placed along the course (i.e. volunteering) and could take my picture as I passed their stations.
But what has amazed me even more than my time and finishing the race is the sheer outpouring of support from my family and friends, both in real life and on Facebook. I realize that I’ve been engaging in some serious shameless self-promotion and have felt slightly bad about it. I go back and forth in my thinking about why I feel bad—I think part of it is how I was raised (sorry mom and dad—you’re always on the hook): to not be prideful, to not draw attention to ourselves, to not brag. And then there’s the me of now, the me that has learned to ask for support, to reach out and make connections with community.
Four years ago I couldn’t have imagined ever, ever, ever running. I mean, I ran when I was in high school and into my early twenties, but once I had kids and then a job, exercise took a back seat to just getting by. The Little Woman and I used to laugh at the runners we saw on the side of the road as we sped by in our car on our way to Saturday morning breakfast. Then middle age set in, and we realized something had to shift if we were going to move into old age with any sort of grace (and longevity).
Long story short, here we are, entering footraces on our weekends, becoming those runners at whom we used to laugh. But even at that, running a 5K seemed doable while running 13.1 miles, well that just seemed crazy. Who would want to run 13.1 miles for fun? And then I had this amazing six months in which I was able to focus on going to school and running. Throw in a little anxiety and I found myself in the perfect position to perfect my running. Without really even trying, I ran 90 miles in January, then 80 in February, and once I realized what I was capable of, my competitive juices started flowing and the race (so to speak) was on. Each month I ran more miles. I became hooked on my stats—miles run, times, splits, averages. I’ve racked up close to 800 miles so far this year.
I started losing weight and getting faster. I made friends with other runners. We started running together on the weekends and then on weekday mornings. When I didn’t feel like crawling out of bed, I knew I had someone waiting for me. This support thing really works. The turning point for me came in April, at the run to raise money for the victims of the Oso mudslide. I went out with the goal of running those six miles in an hour. I finished with a personal record of 56 minutes and came in third in my age group. Things got completely out of hand from there.
Last month when I registered for the Chuckanut Footrace and the Windhorse Half Marathon on back-to-back weekends, I wondered if I’d lost my mind, but I just kept going out each morning and putting in the miles. I listened (sort of) to my friends about what I should do the week before the half, and I did my best to taper. I struggled to back off the week before the race, because as I’ve written previously, running makes me happy. It’s how I deal with my anxiety (returning to school at 51, not working, changing careers, being an erstwhile writer/poet). I live for mile three when the endorphins kick in. I am endorphin dependent, I’ll admit it.
I needn’t have worried. I had great support, great training, great advice beforehand. The Little Woman was at the halfway point handing out water and cheering me on. And she was at the finish line to hang the medal around my neck. My buddy April was at mile 2.5 and 10.5 (on the way back) pointing me in the right direction. My friend Cami was at the start and finish line organizing the race and providing inspiration. And all of you, Dear Readers, were out here in cyberspace rooting for me as well. Thank you all. It takes a village.
I’m ready for the next challenge. Bring it on and run happy!
Running Happy
Tomorrow morning at 8:30, I am running my first ever half marathon (my friend Cami puts on The Windhorse Half Marathon each year–read about it here). I’ve never run more than 11 miles, so this is a new adventure, one that I’ve been working up to for the past few months (though not really on purpose). Since January, I’ve logged nearly 700 running miles, and last Saturday I completed the Chuckanut Foot Race which is a little more than half of the run I’ll be doing tomorrow—the same basic route, only tomorrow I’ll have to run back.
My running buddy and friend April has a sticker on the back of her car that says Run Happy. I love this sticker because running makes me happy. Not that anyone who sees my Chuckanut Footrace race photo would know this fact. In fact, if I do a quick review of recent race photos, I don’t look happy at all. Not while I’m running. I look happy before and after, but the pictures of me actually running definitely paint a more dire picture. I look like I’m expecting the world to end. No one would have any idea that my mind has been occupying a very happy place as the miles unfurl beneath my winged feet.
A few months ago, an acquaintance saw me running at my usual morning running spot. I grunted in her general direction as I ran past, maybe managed to give her a little wave, and continued on my way, focused on the task at hand, i.e. running. When I saw her later in the week, she asked me if I’d been running under a little black cloud that morning because I seemed “dark” when she saw me. I thought about that comment for a moment. “Yeah, I guess,” I said, “some days I feel like the windshield, some days like the bug. Today, I was the bug.” I shrugged and forgot about our conversation. Until I saw her on the trail again a couple of weeks later—then I made a concerted effort to smile. I didn’t want her to think I ran under a dark cloud. I love running—it makes me happy even though it sometimes hurts.
One of the things I love about my favorite running trail is that for the most part, the regulars are a friendly bunch. Most of the folks I see regularly smile and wave. Some say good morning. I smile and wave back. I try to remember to smile and make eye contact when someone comes my way. One of the reasons I run the trail clockwise is because most people run counter clockwise—I can see more people this way, and fewer people run past me. I startle easily when other, faster, runners pass me from behind. I’ve run other trails, but have yet to encounter such a consistently cheerful bunch of morning exercisers.
Just this morning as I was walking around the lake (I couldn’t stay away—my morning routine has become, well, my morning routine. I didn’t run though—being in taper mode—I just walked one time around), one of the regulars stopped me to tell me how she had noticed how much weight I’d lost in the past few months. Wow. I was touched, amazed actually, that she would reach out like that, but that’s what running has become for me—connection: with strangers, with friendly faces, with a community.
Running makes me happy—happy enough that I’m going to lace up my shoes and run 13.1 miles tomorrow.
Z is for Zebco
Evidently fishing season opened this week. Fisher people of all stripes line my regular running trail and the funky smell of dead trout permeates the early morning air. That smell—muddy, scaly, wet—it takes me right back to childhood.
Fishing loomed large in my family. Everyone fished. For fun. For sport. On my dad’s side of the family, salmon fishing. Expeditions to Westport. Cases of canned smoked salmon and tales of my father seasick, green and puking. On my mother’s side of the family, trout fishing adventures. Long family vacations up endless gravel roads, hundred of miles into the Canadian wilderness to remote lakes filled with legendary trout.
I never got to go along on the Westport adventures, and truth be told, never wanted to. They sounded miserable. But the trout fishing expeditions? Everyone went along on these trips. We’d pile into our truck, the canopied back filled with our tent and sleeping bags, fishing rods, reels, creels, our green metal Coleman cooler, the green Coleman camp stove, jugs of kerosene. Dad drove while mom, Brucie, and I squeezed together on the bench seat. I generally straddled the gear shift while mom held my brother on her lap.
We didn’t have to go too far to meet up with my mother’s parents where my little brother and I defected for Grandma and Grandpa’s camper. We clambered immediately to the top bunk over the truck cab and rode the hundreds of miles up there, peering excitedly out the window, watching impatiently as the ribbons of graveled roads unfurled endlessly before us.
Behind the camper, Grandpa towed his boat—a silver and red aluminum craft, not fancy at all. Not large. I’m guessing 15 feet. It had one engine, maybe 10 horsepower and a set of oars. Bulky orange life vests, tackle boxes, recycled plastic containers filled with dirt and worms from Grandma’s worm farm, and gorgeous bamboo and cork fishing poles filled the boat.
I so wanted one of those fishing poles with the shiny and complicated reel. Instead, I had a child-sized fishing pole with an attached reel—a Zebco. A simple, plastic, one-piece uncomplicated piece of equipment. The Zebco reel was enclosed around the fishing line and had a button I pressed to release the line as I cast.
At the end of my line, a red and white bobber, a couple of lead weights, and a hook with a worm. At the end of Grandpa’s line? Shiny silver spoons, fancy lures, orange and pink and iridescent. Oh, how I wanted those lures on my line. I did not want my Zebco with its pedestrian bait and hook. I remember opening Grandpa’s tackle box and ogling his lures—so many options, each little tray and compartment filled with candy-like choices, fake gummy worms, fuzzy bumblebee bodies that hid barbed hooks.
My tackle box, yellow, held very little—a small glassine bag of hooks, some fishing line leads, those little brass clippy things that attached the lead to the rest of the fishing line. The spools of monofilament that squeaked when I pulled the line out. bobbers, lead weights. I remember pinching these little lead balls open with my teeth, putting them on the line, and then pinching them closed again—with my teeth (this cannot have been a good idea).
I caught a lot of trout on that little Zebco. I wound Grandma’s fat, coffee ground-fed worms onto those hooks, cast my line out, and watched that bobber with single-minded intensity. I sat in that boat, orange life vest tied tightly under my chin, bulky and smelling of last year’s fish, stained with the blood and slime that washed the bottom of the boat. I rarely ate the trout we caught, though I loved to fish. Loved the ritual, the waiting, the quiet on the water.
When we had caught our daily limit, I helped Dad and Grandpa clean the fish—I had my own knife and knew how to cut down the belly, how to use my thumb to scrape the innards out. I can still feel the trout’s spine under my fingers, the serration against my thumbnail.
As I got older, I lost my desire to put the bait on the hook, to slice open the fish, to scrape out the guts. Squeamishness replaced my attraction to the ritual, and I don’t think I ever took my children fishing (though my dad, their grandpa did). This realization as I ran my laps around the lake this morning made me sad. Fishing filled my early years—that Zebco rod and reel saw me through fishing derbies, represented independence (my brother and I used to camp by a stream near our house, fish and cook the trout we caught for dinner over an open campfire), and connected me to family in ways nothing else really did.
I smiled as I ran this morning to see all of the children with their parents, and grandparents lined up around the lake, building memories, casting their lines, grinning widely as they held their catches. If I ever have grandchildren, we will go fishing. They will have a Zebco.
Y is for Yes!
Last November, Bellingham hosted its very first TEDx event, Here by Choice. Many terrific speakers made this an unforgettable day and though I didn’t plan ahead well enough to attend in person, I did watch most of it via live stream on the Intertubes. I was inspired, moved, educated, motivated.
One talk still resonates with me these many months later: Galen Emanuele’s Improv to be a Better Human Being which you can watch here. I didn’t come away from watching Galen thinking I would make a great sidekick to Wayne Brady, Drew Carey, or Ryan Stiles. I came away with a newfound respect for the power of the word Yes.
Galen begins his talk by asking the audience a few simple questions: would you want to increase joy in your life if you could? Do you have someone in your life, who, when you tell them you are going on vacation, they say “aw man, you suck!” Is there someone else who shoots down every passionate idea you come up with?
Negativity, Galen tells us, sucks the energy right out of great ideas. Saying no halts progress and destroys an idea. According to Galen, the principles of improv offer a better approach. Improv depends on the principle of “yes, and” and operate on a handful of basic tenets:
- Say yes
- Make others look good
- Be positive and optimistic
When I finished watching Galen’s presentation (back in November and just now, for a refresher), I determined that I would begin the New Year with a commitment to saying yes. I decided I would not let no be my default answer, the first response that crossed my mind and my lips.
Saying yes can be scary. The first thing I consciously said yes to was to The Haiku Room—Yes, I would accept the invitation offered and agree to write a haiku a day for the entirety of 2014. I’d never written a line of poetry in my life. I did not see myself as any kind of poet. What if I failed? What if the real poets laughed at me? I said yes anyway, in spite of my fears. Now, I cannot imagine these past four months without my haiku family, real and virtual. What a gift saying yes to haiku has been.
The next thing I consciously said yes to was an invitation from my friend Cami to run in a 10K race the first weekend of January. I hadn’t been running in four months as I was trying to recover from some heel injuries, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to jumpstart my way back into running with a 6 mile race. And Cami runs marathons—I’d never be able to keep up. She cajoled and then I remembered my commitment to say yes. I had a great race—I loved running with Cami, and that run launched me to another level of running. We finished that run in about an hour and 7 minutes.
My friend April is training for a half marathon next week and asked if I wanted to do her long training runs with her. I’d never run more than seven miles, but I said yes to a 9 mile run, and then I said yes to an 11 mile run. I just ran a 10K this weekend in 54 minutes because I said yes to running this year.
Not everything that I’ve said yes to has turned out to be amazing and awesome, but nothing has been awful either. I’ve had experiences I wouldn’t have otherwise had. I’ve stepped way, way, way outside of my comfort zone and discovered that, huh, nothing bad happened. I survived no worse for the wear and maybe even a little wiser.
I’ve made friends. I’ve written more than 50 blogs (because I said yes to two blog challenges) and more than a hundred haikus. I’ve discovered that I can run around Lake Padden twice and even three times and that really, it’s not a bad run from Squalicum Harbor to Fairhaven Park and back again. I’ve learned that I can be honest, tell my truth, stand my ground and that the world will not crumble. In fact, just the opposite happens—I find renewed strength and support.
So, give Yes a try—commit to saying yes, to being positive, to building others up. I highly recommend it. Take 12 minutes and watch Galen Emanuele’s TEDx Talk—say yes. You’ll be glad you did: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhkcmN-CCYw
X is for April Haiku Review
I cannot believe that April is almost over and I’ve spent another month writing haikus (and daily blogs). Again, so many of these haikus defy explanation—I will try to give some insight into as many as I can. Some, though, just pop into my head fully formed. Others I get pieces of and have to then work out the remaining syllables. Occasionally, I will sit down with a topic in mind—generally these poems turn out to be the ones that sound the most forced, the least authentic.
So, as promised, here’s a haiku that begins with the letter X (which is the letter for today’s blog):
X—a crooked cross,
Sideways marks the spot, and, drawn,
Erases me gone
X can stand for so many things—ex, as in former. A place to stand. A place to dig. A spot. A signature. X’d out, as in erased.
My heart’s flame burns white-
hot blue tongues arise, dancing,
Seek your oxygen
Poetry sparked and
Ignited passionate fire–
Stark truth doused that flame
This one came directly out of Jake Ballard’s mouth on Scandal one night a couple of weeks ago, after Olivia tricked him into sleeping with her so she could get her hands on his phone. I just wrote it so that it lined up 5-7-5:
Tell me you felt it
Too. Tell me I’m not crazy.
Tell me you were there
The Little Woman and I were born under the same sign—we’re both Geminis, so when I read my horoscope in the morning, I’m reading hers as well:
Every day I
Read my horoscope and yours–
Astral projection
This year I seem to have a huge amount of pent up energy that I keep trying to expend through running and writing and now, school. So I wrote these:
I’ll sleep when I die–
Til I’m exhausted, weary.
Sounds good in theory
Wet sneakers pound through
puddles, toes shriveling, cold.
Insidious rain.
I woke up on Easter morning and this came to me, fully formed. It is one of my favorites:
Whatever tomb has
You trapped–Push away that stone,
Step into the light
I woke up another morning just wanting to write a haiku in Latin. I’ve never even studied Latin, but there it was, this desire I think to break out of the limits of the language I know, the desire for more meaning, maybe. I had to resort to Google, and it’s not exactly the right amount of syllables, but good enough:
Verba volant
Cor ad cor loquitur
Clavis aurea
(spoken words fly away
heart speaks to heart
golden key)
I struggle often with what to write, what parts of my story, my life belong to me and what parts of my story belong to others. I’ve written blogs that have upset people in my life—these haiku deal with finding that line, that balance between speaking my truth and revealing someone else’s:
Truths stuck on my tongue
Peeled off, now forced to drain through
The nib of my pen
I beg forgiveness
again for speaking my truth—
Is my story mine?
The scales tip toward
truth, and compassion falters–
Elusive balance
How does the writer
tell her story, pen her truth?
Dull the sharp edges?
Truth wants to vibrate
up and out in minor chords.
A sharp dissonance
Warrior woman
Draws her word sword, aware it’s
Double-edged, dang’rous
More on writing—this first one seems pretty self-explanatory. Here’s a whole series of haiku on writing into silence. Sometimes all I want from my writing is a reaction, feedback, someone on the other end to acknowledge my words. I don’t need cheers and accolades always (though occasionally that sort of feedback is awesome), but it’s difficult to write into silence, day in and day out. I don’t care for it much. My frustration seems pretty clear here:
Some days the words must
be pried piecemeal from dry earth
dusted off, washed clean
Looking for Divine
but finding only silence–
The great unlearning.
I have to escape
great silences, vast chasms
echoing within.
I can’t keep birthing
Words into silence. These are
Boisterous children
I’m pushing my words
Into silence and meeting
Resistance. Friction.
Your silence echoes
Through my canyons of desire–
Freshly gouged and deep
My words like wafers–
communion offered, received,
Ingested. Some Truth.
My sentences, like
Wine. Drink from the blood rivers.
exanguination
These paragraphs, my
soul. Transubstantiation.
Sacrifice. Rebirth.
These poems take a little liberty with the haiku form:
(Sorry–)
I just meant to tug
that one thread, not to make the
whole thing unravel(Can we–)
Mend this ragged edge
Knitting word bones together–
Follow this thread home?
Please do not invite
me in and then abandon
me at the threshold
What lives behind the
sets we construct, the masks we
wear? Step off the stage.
Mudslide
Nature knows no bounds—
Follows her own path toward
wreckage, renewalOso Strong. Forty-
three gongs of the bell between
Amazing Grace and Taps.
This last one also came to me one morning, after I woke up from a vivid dream and starting writing about how someone so far in my past could occupy any space in my head while I was sleeping. It didn’t seem fair. This is the haiku I ended up writing, not quite where I started, but it turned out to be a favorite:
See this hotel in
My heart? Revolving door for
Itinerant guests
V is for Vexing
We are almost to the end of the alphabet, Dear Reader, and I’m Very unsure what to write about for the letter V. In my post accepting this challenge, I sketched out some ideas for each letter (excepting J and K). My thoughts at the time for V included Vaginas and Virginity. I’m not keen on either one at the moment. Not keen on writing about either, that is.
Instead, I think I will write about things that are Vexing me. The first thing? I keep getting emails from LinkedIn telling me that people want to add me to their networks even though I have 1) deleted my LinkedIn account long ago, and 2) tried (anyway) to log in with the email address to which they keep sending me notifications and get back the message that they have no record of that email address. So then . . . how? How am I getting emails from LinkedIn? If they don’t recognize my email? I don’t understand . . .
Nothing else is Vexing me . . . at least nothing that I can write about. Okay, well, one thing is and I probably shouldn’t write about this, but I must. I’m suffering from a bad case of “runner’s butt.” There, I’ve said it. The butt is out of the bag. What happens when you run five miles a day for three months in a row? Things get, uhm, problematic. Apparently.
Here’s the deal. When I started going to the gym a few years ago, I went in a cotton t-shirt and cotton shorts. Old School. I soon realized these fabrics were not going to work long term, but I did not want to invest in expensive athletic wear, so I suffered through and did well enough working out for an hour in my cotton clothes. Sure they got heavy and didn’t wick away anything, but I could go home in short order and put it all in the laundry.
But then I got a free lightweight, wick-away workout t-shirt from work and wore that one night to the gym. What a difference. I was hooked. I got some wick-away workout pants and some wick-away socks. I got a new pair of workout shoes. Talk about the right tools for the job. What had taken me so long?
The only part of my wardrobe I didn’t change was my underwear. I mean, yes, I changed my underwear. Of course I did. But I didn’t switch to quick dry or wick-away undies. I didn’t need to. Nothing bad was happening down there. I worked out. I came home. I showered. I laundered. Issue-free.
Same thing when I started running. I loaded up on the quick dry, wick-away shirts, shorts, socks, tights, jackets. Still, I clung to my Jockey cotton underpants. And why not? I didn’t have any issues, still, with down there. I ramped up my runs: 3 miles, 5 miles, 7 miles. Nine miles. Still good. My Jockeys served their purpose—I did not chafe. I did not suffer.
Then I ran 11 miles. Oh. My. What a difference two miles can make. I grabbed the baby powder and applied liberally. I added some Neosporin. But things only got worse. I mistakenly figured that since I wasn’t going to run 11 miles on a regular basis that things would return to normal, but it’s been a week now and things are most definitely not normal. I’m afraid Dear Reader, that they may never be.
So, I bought some new underpants, some that aren’t cotton, and I went for a run, a test drive if you will. My tights fell down! I ran around the lake holding my pants up. Twice. I never in my life thought I would say that my Lycra tights fell down. I mean, seriously—I didn’t even know that Lycra tights could fall off. But they did—slid right down over those non-cotton panties. I suppose the logical step would be to go out and get a smaller pair of tights, but honestly, my tights aren’t loose, they are just slippery.
The Little Woman thinks I should run commando, but I can’t quite wrap my head around that notion. Seems I’d have issues with seams and such. And I’d feel, uhm, Vulnerable. There’s something safe about underwear, about having that extra layer between my altogethers and the world out there. Seems like it might be a tad, er, breezy.
I have a problem that I need to solve. So, I’ve been interviewing my runner friends about their underwear habits. I’ve been checking out the options. But have you seen the women’s underpants options in the athletic section of, say, Fred Meyers, for example? First of all, there’s only one option. One. Option. The Under Armour “cheeky underwear”? Who are these made for, exactly? Puhlease. These will not suffice. Why is it women get virtually no fabric and men get yards of it? I mean look at the difference! It’s not right, I tell you.
I’m afraid I am going to have to change my ways and that it’s going to take some trial and error, some investment on my part, some purchases. Some experimentation. So, if you see me running around the lake holding up my pants, don’t laugh. Send baby powder. Stat.
Pamela Helberg 