Archive for the ‘2010’ Category

What exactly about the Holidays is it that makes some people crazy?  And I don’t mean crazy in a sweet-quirky-somewhat irresistible yet menacing way like me- I mean bat shit.

It probably doesn’t help that we start the season off over eating and then running around on a day called Black Friday to nab a sale or punch a face or sometimes both.  I wouldn’t know for certain as I didn’t shop.  I am generally not shopping this holiday except for that soft sound of click-click-click.

In general I find a certain festivity in the air- people honk and flip fists while trailing you and your kin much too close in the Trader Joe’s parking lot.  They grumble and steal your spot in line at the post office.  Their cars hung with Christmas Wreath’s over the front grill swerve, cut you off, and blow a red light.  Most apparently fear no observations nor judgement from the big man in red.

While I have not helped our economy this Christmas ( you all are apparently doing a great job by the way! )- I have thrown up FaLaLaLaLa all over my house.

“Where do you store all this stuff!?!” she asks with Martha Stewart envy.

“Here,” I thrust a hot drink at her, “You want some tea?”

“Jesus- a Christmas mug!?”

“Yes, but that is a Snowman, not Jesus.”

Tuesdays in marathon training help keep you on the nice list as well.  I mean if burning your jets for mile repeats can’t soften you up into a holiday glow than I am not really sure what will.  Cold and a bit lonely- round and round and round the oval I went nailing mile after mile.  For five mile repeats, I averaged 5:35.  I was pretty pleased with this.  The effort felt- well- like I had to really focus and swallow down the “Good Luck’s” Rusty was handing out, but I got each one done.

I found my mind turning over into the miles- lap one, just run.  Lap two, half way.  Lap three, it hurts but you only have one more so pick it up.  Lap four- take it home…..and repeat.  Poof.

I left the oval all softened up in jello legs and a warm glow- like drinking margaritas in the morning.  Or so I have heard.  Then I went off to kick other asses at FitBuddha.  In my second class, a new client came in and set up on a machine.  I introduced myself and on about the workout we went.  She struggled through the first two moves and I ping ponged between the nine other participants and herself while calling descriptive instructions.  Less than three minutes into class, she paused, sat up, and told me out loud-

“You are the worst instructor I have ever seen!”

I am not sure what response one seeks when you throw a cheap golf ball at the windshield of a Ferrari…..but she got her fucking FaLaLaLaLa.  I reminded her that there are ten people in the class and if she needed that much special attention that perhaps she book a private.

“But you’re terrible.  How do you expect to retain clients?”

“You’re rude.  I don’t have a problem with clients.  There’s the door,”  I turned back to class, “And 5, 4, 3, 2…”

She stayed and suffered through the workout.  Enjoy.  Wednesday a grumpy old man shut the door to my spin room three times before I had to tell him,  ”Sir, you cannot close this door!”

“Well, your music is too loud!  Turn it down.”

“No.”

“Turn it down.”

“No thank you.”

Everyone needs to take their little reindeer ass and run some track.  Or find some Ho Ho Ho.  I don’t know.

Thursday I watched my son perform at his school in his Christmas musical sing a long- CUTE!  Ah – here a bucket of cheer.  I watched children perform the Beattles, Jason Marz, Rolling Stones, B-52′s, and then I watched my son do The Robot while singing Proud Mary!  ( This was right before he did his Spin-That-DJ move )

While I volunteered in his classroom, I listened to the children sing their holiday songs to themselves while we painted Gingerbread men.

“I want to wish you a Merry Christmas….I want to wish you a Happy Solstice…”

Ahhhhhh…..Southern California!

Look- I don’t care what you sing, just get Merry or get Happy or else….get egg nog!  Or electro shock therapy.  I heard that is good too.

Bye-Bye 2010!

Mumbling around the house, I may have been heard whining something to the tiny violin song of, “I don’t want to repeat another 2010.”

Hmmmm- OK, of the year swallowed 2010 had a few bad side effects: 20 weeks on an elliptical, more unmet goals, lots of reminders to be patient, lots of mistakes…er growth opportunities.  However, here on the last morning of the year, I am filled with nostalgia.  2010 will go into my memory as one Hell of a Great year.

But that does not mean that 2011 cannot be even better.

Happy New Year!

The breakfast oval has been anything but a run around lately- hill repeats, dirt works, tempo sets, treadmill sessions, and now fartleks.  Remember when you first heard that word?  Such an unfortunate name….but what is in a name?  A run by any other name would be just as nauseating.

Rusty does not normally attach comments to his assigned workouts.  When he does, I listen up.  The workout seemed short and almost easy, but he followed the written description with a “you will really struggle with this.  Good Luck.”

Hmmmm, it is like he is trying to tell me something.  Tuesday I woke up in a pile of fluffy white pillows peering out to a grey drizzling day.  Chubbsie really wants to drive this rain training home.  I strap Betty to my wrist, stuff my Ipod down my top, and adjust the bill on my purple cap.

I have run down the Embarcadero through Chrissy field to the Golden Gate Bridge numerous times.  Single and dating, engaged and anticipating, pregnant and expecting, and pushing a newborn and breastfeeding.  I run along warming up easy and watching the city awake.  Everyone seems to have a large cup of coffee in hand while their black and grey coats walk steadily toward the day’s business.  My red shoes jaunt along toward my own little meeting.  Running- it is my time.  This time Chrissy field finds me carrying an entirely different set of goals.

Through the park, I push my paces running my repeating sets.  I click my watch, turn on my heels, and take off back the direction that I came.  I feel strong, fast, and in control…..and I know I am doing my workout exactly right when I start to struggle.  A short sweet beat.  Beet?  No.  I mean beat.  Betty cannot keep up with the quick turn over of intervals and I therefore have no idea how fast my feet are moving.  But….I feel strong.  That will have to do.  I finish my set and place my hands on my knees.  I stare at the Golden Gate Bridge while waves crash into shore.  A few mud puddles fatten up and joggers tippy toe around them.

Up-righting myself, I head back towards Union Square.  Still feeling light on my feet, I find myself people watching as I motor along.  I realize how much I define myself and my world through running.  It may change someday.  If so, I hope only out of choice, but for now, it is a Runner’s World.

Now where is my cup of coffee?  Just one.  Caffeine is also on the black list.  It joins its friends sugar and alcohol.  No, not forever.  Just for 17 weeks.

That does not look like a picture of a beet.  No, Sherlock- tis not a beet.  It is a chocolate chunk beet muffin.  Hmmmm, that sounds as good as a tuna muffin.  Beets are a new super-duper-powered food says recent research done at Exeter University.  Nitrate rich beets apparently boost endurance by as much as 16%.  After juicing for six days, cyclists on the beet had 2% better times than cyclists not beet-ing it.

Wow!  OK, tell me about that chocolate chunk beet muffin!  Well, there is one cup of beets in the entire batch of highly caloric fat rich muffin mix.  To follow the study, athletes need to consume 500mL of beet juice a day.  How much is 500mL?  Go open a Stout, pour it out, and squish in beet juice.  That is a lot of beet juice.

I repeat- that is a lot of beet juice!

Beet-le Juice

Having consumed entirely too much sugar over the past two months, I have decided to clean up my diet for training.  I thought in saluting health it might be fun to test out what is being called The Purple Bull.  Fun.  Fun.  Ha-ha-ah, that is just a subjective word that F-U-N.  I do not care if you love beets.  You do not love beet juice.  Beet Box Betty is not a Beetnik.  Just Beet It?  Kids, You won’t be fighting to lick the Beeters.

Surely you have seen or heard of True Blood.  I believe I have discovered what set design uses to fill those microwaveable bottles of synthetic blood for your everyday civilized vampire.  Beet Juice.

Beet-Vamped

Oooh, I can feel my incisors growing.  Val, Hold the garlic!  I am going to take all the crucifixes outside.  Alright so perhaps 500mL of beet juice should not be served at room temperature.  Day 1- lesson learned: chill the beet.  Day 2- I tried to make the beet a bit better through mind trickery.

Beet Noir

Unfortunately-  without beeting around the bush, beets taste terrible.  Note to reader- the above portions of beet juice represent 1/6th of your daily ration!  But, I am not unbeetable.  I can beet it.  Beet down to power up?  Even the BBC is all over the purple bull and the British would not lie.

By day 3 I have discovered these side effects:

-Abdominal pain, nausea, a decreased interest in sugary food, red pee-pee and poo-poo.

This morning along side the shoulder of Rusagi, I ran 17 miles with 15 miles sub- 6:30.  Crediting the beets for that would just be Purple Bull Shit.

Beet someone today!

Everything wanted is bought at some cost.  Everything needed is justified by some reason.  What I want and what I need are often confused by the whimsical driver of my brain.  Or was that my heart?  As a child, Christmas was sheer magic.  My mother’s great talent is holidays and she turned the house into a winter spectacle dropped along the shore of Texas.  Macy’s did a pretty good job decorating their department stores in New York- I have seen the windows.  A  minus on my mother.  But wait…..Now begins the baking.  She would plan for weeks creating meal after glorious meal of gooey goodness.  For example- dessert in my house consisted of at least six pies, Christmas apples, marshmallow salad, and an assortment of chocolates.  No, we never had guests.

Under the tree sat a mountain of presents.  Many of them were quite nice, but mostly she would scavenge up dollar store goodies and wrap them up with silly notes.  She called them Jeffy gifts after her childhood pet.  We would spend hours “ooo-ing” and “ahhh-ing” at glass jars and blow up dinosaurs.  Every gift was attached with a creative note hinting at some clue of what was inside this shiny wrapped treasure.  She was the last to bed and the first to get up- bounding into a living room avalanche in gifts with bouncing curls and a crisp white blouse, black pants and something red.  Out came huevos rancheros and strudel and baked breads, coffee, juice, fruits, smoked salmon, cinnamon buns……Martha Stewart sit down.  Hide.

Christmas was Nanci-tastic.  Much of the fireworks leading up to the unveiling of wonder left a gap at the end.  A small festering hole.  It is done.  All done.  I have to wait another year for the magic to return.  As a child I could not think outside the glitter.  Christmas (minus the religious implications) is the perfect time to reflect on life’s blessings.  No.  You do not always get what you want.  No.  What you want is not always what you need.  But.  If you try…. sing it with me….

I have unwrapped all the glory of 2010.  Everything option, potential, promise, anticipation, and joy of this passing year has been unvieled and exposed.  There has been satisfaction and let down.  I have failed promises to people I love and others have failed me.  I have fullfilled dreams and have experienced things I never dreamed about.  The snow globe has been shook and things keep settling.  Life keeps living….and it is a beautiful life.  Even when the wrapping paper comes off.

All the little piles of packaged goodies under my tree remind me that 2011 is full of anticipation and dreams……but not perfection.  And that is OK.  The only perfect thing I own is wrapped in a box hidden away scared sick of breakage- I would rather have a beautiful crack and get some action

Merry Christmas!