Run DMZ

Back when I first launched this blog, I was a guest on 91x’s  Resurrection Sunday , a program then hosted by the late Steve West. Sundays were my long run days, and I spent hours listening to West, including an hour of “Hey Mom, I’m on 91x!” with a guest deejay decidedly not from the industry.   I “auditioned” by first filling out online the 20 songs I’d play, which not coincidentally were Steve West’s favorite songs along with a few rarely played tunes. The legendary disc jockey called, we talked, and I was booked for that weekend’s show. I gave several shoutouts, including to my fellow San Diego Track Club runners then training for the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon.   At the following Tuesday track workout, one of the run leaders told me he’d listened the entire hour. “You only picked one good song,” he said. “But it was a good one. I’d listen just for that one song.” That song was Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill.”   I’ve loved that song since the first time I heard it...

  The adage “Once a runner, always a runner” may eventually prove untrue. But I’ve learned that friendships built around running endure if they are meant to. I think to my current circle of close friends and 90% of them began with us running together. I’m including one that began with a hike, not a run, but it’s the same foundation built from conquering distance, counting steps and breathy-but-not-breezy conversations.   Walking works too, but for me, my personal identity remains tied to running. It’s probably why I’ll commit to walking for the rest of my life, and within weeks pick up the pace despite knowing the higher risk of injury and arthritic wobbles. It’s not a healthy relationship, I admit.    I wasn’t always a social runner. In fact, one of the reasons I took up that form of exercise in my teens was to escape into myself. In my 20s, it was to escape crying babies and a crabby husband. And in my 30s and 40s, it turned competitive. You think when you pass ano...

I sometimes forget what it’s like to belong to a running community. Not just any community either. I was part of the San Diego Track Club and for years the club—from weekly runs and Tuesday track workouts to volunteering and board membership—comprised a significant portion of my weeks and, quite frankly, life.  I’d belonged to two other running clubs before joining this one. The first was the Tidewater Striders, where other than “running into” some people from high school, I remained a lone wolf. Then we moved to Cape Cod and I joined the Falmouth Track Club, where I made some friends and enjoyed some excellent New England runs. But, again, I kept some distance due to my long weekday commutes into downtown Boston. I didn’t immediately warm to the San Diego Track Club either, but over time I grew to really enjoy everyone and felt like a part of a family. I looked forward to seeing familiar faces and developed deep friendships. I stayed in shape, too. Today, I got to fee...

News outlets announced yesterday that they are changing the San Diego Rock 'n' Roll marathons finish to Petco Park -- news that is sure to please just about everyone . I worked the final aid station the first year the marathon course changed from the MCRD near the airport to SeaWorld, and it was universally panned. And I'd run the marathon for consecutive years prior. The next year the organizers added the half marathon, which greatly diluted the crowd circling Fiesta Island before the final push. And last year it dwindled even more, with the half marathoners now sounding the horn that SeaWorld sucks as a finish point. (Finishing on the backside of DisneyWorld during its marathon does too, I might add from experience.) But that's not why I'm writing this post. There's a comment from the SDTC coach in the article, saying that seeing the finish line from a couple miles out made those last miles even more difficult. “At 23 miles, all you want to do is f...

It was a running joke (he he) during my tenure with the track club that if I planned a group run, it rained. I'm glad to see as part of my legacy that tradition remains. Drops fell right up to the start, but then the clouds parted and the brave souls who planned a rainy run were blessed with blue skies as we started the 6th annual San Diego Track Club Christmas Card Lane Fun Run. My participation was by invitation since I'm no longer part of the training group. It's a hard course. I know because I designed it and yet that didn't make me run any better up the steep hill at the start and gradual, grueling hill towards the end. But I got to reunite with old friends, like Irene and her husband, and meet a few new ones on the course. My conversation with a securities fraud attorney was especially interesting. The predicted time competition is still in place, and I was knocked out of contention by a lot of other women more intuned with their abilities. The guy who wo...

Take an inventory of people you'd call your friends and ask: How did you find each other? The other week there was a fascinating piece in The New York Times about the difficulties in forging strong, lasting friendships once we hit our 30s and 40s. It struck me as strange in that most of my strongest bonds began when I hit my 30s and 40s. My life may not be typical. I was usually the fifth wheel in school. Our family moved frequently with my father's job, but we didn't live in military communities where there were lots of transients. So I normally had to find a clique to infiltrate. But with no personal history, I was forever the outsider valued by the group mainly for my brain. In other words, I stayed in good standing so long as I allowed people to cheat off me during test and term paper seasons. There are a few exceptions, of course. I was recently invited to a very old and dear friend's 50th birthday party from high school. My college friendships, grouted by c...

I was in the final stretch of my 5-mile run up and around Lake Miramar when a big group of women in pink came into view. The leader would periodically stop and mark the course and when I came up to the markings I was amazed at how big yet perfectly outlined the flour arrows were. So I caught up to the group and saw that the leader was using a water bottle filled with flour. Genius, I thought. Why hadn't I thought to ever do this when my former track club members ran this course? Especially after people failed to read their maps, course cards and even street signs? The leader soon caught up to me on the final stretch at the lake and as she passed, I asked about her group. It was Moms in Motion and she invited me to join them. Then she blew by me. What she didn't realize was that we'd met before. In fact, we'd run together and even carpooled for a few months. I was then the fast one in the group. But on one particulary bad morning , she was among my saviors. I caught up w...

I'm about to make someone mad. I want to know why men can't follow directions. And don't give me that bit about how it's not nice to stereotype. Case in point: this morning's 5th annual Christmas Card Lane Fun Run. I used to direct this run, and I designed the 5-mile course. This is the fifth time at least half the field has done it, though only the second from this particular start and finish point. Everyone is supposed to look in advance at the course map and carry a copy if they need. This also was the first time I was a course marshal with my husband. When I gave him his simple marching orders ("Make sure they turn right at the corner where you're standing."), he looked at me incredulously. "You mean these people can't follow a map or go right when I tell them to go right?" Then he called me at my post after the first two runners - men - came through. "They just crossed the street for no reason after they passed me; I have no ide...

The highly competitive 5000m race was underway when people started asking if anyone knew who was winning. He wasn't preregistered, so he wasn't on the runner manifest the USATF announcer held as the men wound round and round the track this morning at Cal State San Marcos. Fortunately, I knew who he was, and if you are a longtime reader of this blog, you would know too. He was my friend Akos , a three-time runnerup and record-breaker at the Badwater Ultra Marathon. Now a PE teacher in his native Hungary, this summer he returned to San Diego and to his roots. He handily won his event at the annual Chuck McMahon Master's Track Meet, which included some of the fastest master's runners in the nation. But what was really amazing was his time. The last time Akos entered the 5000m was in 1992, when he finished in 16:12. Today, almost two decades later, he ran a 16:32! Who says ultra runners slow down with age?! There were plenty of stories like that one at an event that feature...

I manage the San Diego Track Club's Web site and produce a quarterly e-zine called San Diego Running . This was my third issue I created all on my own after taking four Saturday morning Web design classes exactly a year ago. I ran out of time and broke my own promise to always do my best. But sometimes, when everything seems to go wrong for you and those you love, you do what you gotta do. I had a fancy masthead like previous issues, but it wouldn't render correctly in Firefox and Safari. Then I had this crazy orange color where the masthead once was, even as Dreamweaver swore up and down it was white. So, since it already looked like crap I thought, "Why not pile it on. Make it look intentional." That's why the sidebar on the homepage is turquoise. And I just noticed some pages don't look right in IE8. Still. All this is my way of asking you to focus on the content. There may be something that helps you with your own running, whether you live in San Diego or ...

I came so close to batting 1.000 for hosting rain-soaked runs this year. And technically I did because we had drizzle before the start, but otherwise we really lucked out and hit that reprieve between storms this morning for the 4th Annual Christmas Card Lane Run. This would not seem all that spectacular of a streak if we lived in Portland or Seattle, but this is San Diego and it only rained on the Saturdays I had a hosted run scheduled. Each year is a little different and this time, due to what would otherwise have been a record crowd – San Diegans can be fair-weather runners – I needed a place with a lot of free parking and setup space. So we ran to Rancho Penasquitos’ famed neighborhood from a parking lot next to a city-owned skate park that doesn’t open until 10 a.m. The location from that standpoint was perfect. The course, however, was .2 miles short because I walked the group to the base of a big hill for the official start. This was for everyone’s safety. This one was probably ...

Once again a last-minute forecast check and reality did not align this morning as I hosted another training run. This time the rain proved a real problem since we were running all trails. I had a backup road course, but a group vote in drizzle affirmed the original plan to run along the main trail through Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve. The rain stopped just long enough for a group photo at the trail entrance and then I ran up ahead to get photos of everyone coming through a particularly photogenic spot ... and my camera would not turn on. That bode ill for the remainder of the morning. The plan was that everyone would turn around if the rain became more intense, which the rain did. But it's difficult to gauge rain pressure when you are running and so no one came back for an hour, and then folks trickled in (no pun intended), seeking a way to get the mud off their shoes. Before everyone returned, the park ranger came by to place a sign warning everyone to stay out; the trails were...

Last night at our track club’s annual awards banquet several runners and volunteers were honored. At least one was genuinely surprised: the Women’s Open Runner of the Year. She won for finally breaking the 5-hour mark in the marathon and taking 2 minutes off her mile time. And she beat far faster and more competitive females who’d been nominated this year. Until this year, the club’s board of directors would select the top runners, and as long as I can remember, the top runners came from the competitive racing teams. These teams contain some of the fastest and most fit men and women in the county, state and even country. It’s a rarified group. (The men’s open winner, for instance, finished second overall in the Disneyland Half Marathon.) But this year our Executive Committee decided to take nominations from the entire membership and then have that same membership select the winners. As a result, some members who’d made significant self-improvements made it onto the ballots and in at l...

You’ve probably heard this one before, but everyone wants to be a television (or radio) weather forecaster. Why? Because it’s the only job where you can get it repeatedly wrong and still not get fired. This time, though, even the normally accurate weather.com and weatherunderground.com were way off, leading to a very wet opening to the three runs I’m hosting this fall. Just an hour before the run, the forecast was for rain in Scripps Ranch between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. One television meteorologist said the rain would miss us entirely. And yet the skies opened just as we started the 7 a.m. warm-up stretch. It was pouring by the time everyone hit the first of three hills on a 9-mile route I call the Lake Rim Run because you climb up and around the perimeter of Lake Miramar. It also includes two short trails, one of which qualified this as a mud run too. Everyone in my track club's fall training program took the conditions in stride, considering it good training if they encounter a rainy...

See the father and daughter trailing everyone at the start of this morning's Ursula Rains Balboa Boogie? I thought they'd be my rabbits, so to speak. I thought wrong. That duo finished well ahead of me in today's cross-country 5k, as did every other child and adult except a Vietnamese high-schooler hoping to join the foreign service and her classmate, who wants once day to be either the first or the most famous Jewish-German character designer in Japan. I had the pleasure of being "the sweep" in today's open race. It's one of the few volunteer positions I'd never held within our track club and when I was assigned the open division, I was a little worried. This is part of a highly competitive cross-country series that draws very fast runners from throughout the county. (And, remember, my county is the size of Connecticut landwise and the nation's eighth largest by population.) It also meant that everyone in the field was at least 10 years and most l...

I just uploaded pictures from my position as a volunteer at this morning's 46th annual Balboa 4 Mile cross-country race. I love this opening shot not only because it looks like one guy is running on air, but because it also shows the age range in the open category. There were so many kids under 18, even 12, giving it their all today. I've long believed that volunteering as a course marsal or aid station worker is a great way to recharge and to revise your own race strategies. Plus, you do not have to worry about heat, hydration or the lines at the portable toilets. This is a tough course, which includes running up both of the biggest hills in Balboa Park (Powder and ZigZag) in addition to smaller hills. This year there was a new celebrity race competing for participants. But between the great turnouts at both events, I think it was a good day for one and all. I worked a well marked part of the course, which allowed me to take pictures while yelling, "Move on to the grass!...

I returned to my track club's Tuesday night workouts after a month's absence, and boy did it show. Our workouts consist of three parts: Hill training (through mid-Sept) Strides Core exercises I really enjoyed tonight's workout, so I thought I'd share it with those trying to improve their time on shorter distances, especially if your upcoming race is on trails, as mine is. We ran along the dirt Bridal Path in Balboa Park, which consists of small hills bordered by freeway on one side and "nature" on the other. The workout consisted of running at 5k pace for 3 minutes, immediately followed by 2 minutes of recovery. Soon as we hit the five-minute mark, we start all over again. We did this six times. I picked a bad day to forget my stopwatch, so I had no choice but to follow the pace of people in front of me, many of whom seemed to not go that much slower in recovery mode. By the fourth repeat I was wheezing; by the sixth, I couldn't remember my name. But I man...

The two biggest road races in San Diego are the Rock 'n' Roll Marathon in June and America's Finest City Half Marathon today. I haven't run the AFC in several years, but this morning I found myself maneuvering around traffic jams at 5 a.m. and then surrounding myself with AFC runners the rest of the morning. I volunteered to host the San Diego Track Club's post-race tent at the expo, which entailed buying select treats, loading up the car with items from the SDTC shed and hauling everything to our site before the first runners came through. That included the frozen grapes and chocolate milks in the photo above. Everyone was hard at work by 6:30 a.m., setting up displays and sorting fruit like these two young gentleman above. Our site, pre-setup. I needed three other hands to set up the tent and thank the complete strangers who came to my aid. After I had set up the regular and soy milk, frozen grapes (green and red), organic baked items, Red Vines and individually ...

This race is never easy, but this year I at least wasn't injured or ill, just not as fit as I first thought. The course includes some concrete, some asphalt, some dirt, some sand and some grass. It meanders through many of the main parts of Balboa Park and some that until today I bet folks didn't know existed. I ran the first 5.5 miles with my friend Alexis, who had her second child four months ago. Alexis and I used to run together regularly during my later marathon years, and running with her today really helped me maintain a decent-for-me pace. She even taught me a trick to help the quads on steep trail uphills that seemed to actually work. I really need to work on running down those same steep hills because that's where I noticed Alexis gained on me and I wished her well as I let her go and settled in behind some high school cross-country runners. My goal from the get-go was to run this one conservatively, and I did. That and excellent weather allowed me to pass people ...