Run DMZ

  My favorite holiday is 4th of July, where the vibe’s low-key, family is optional, primary colors rule, and day drinking is encouraged. Independence Day is especially big in our former neighborhood, which hosts a run, a ride, a party in the park, and a parade. We return every year, making the 4th as much a reunion as anything. It is surreal to see the kid from three doors down now showing off his pregnant wife and my daughter’s flower girls turning into teenagers. I show off my young grandsons too. Me, the former neighbor with egg-cracking calves that ran for hours every weekend, now unrecognizable with lighter hair and a lumpy midsection.  Everyone asks if I ran the shorter or longer race and, for the second year in a row, I explain I don’t run anymore. This explains a lot, I sense them thinking as they politely drift to the next person with a red cup. Next year, I’m doing the ride – the longer one -- I vow after the seventh sip of my mango mimosa.  The parade is pur...

The current mayor of San Diego campaigned on a pledge to treat the place like a metropolis rather than a network of sprawling suburbs . You think San Francisco, Chicago, Boston and New York, and you immediately think compact blocks with mixed-use buildings, high-rise apartments and stately rowhouses, corner convenience stores, great ethnic restaurants and excellent public transportation.   San Diego has those things too, except the great public transit.    I was reminded of how much San Diego has grown during a recent early morning walk from Little Italy to Seaport Village via The Embarcadero . And again, a week later when we visited  our old suburb with family in town.    I can remember some of my first runs along the Embarcadero, dodging more homeless people than tourists, even during Comic-Con . The Gaslamp Quarter was still the nightspot it is now, but you took greater risks walking beyond its boundaries in the dark.    Cortez Hill, East Vi...

  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...

  The other day I recalled a conversation decades ago with a fellow member of a corporate running team known as The Deadliners.  One of the stars of the team was running late for a highly competitive 10k in downtown Norfolk. We feared she’d be a no-show and, as a result, we wouldn’t make it onto the podium that day.    When June finally did turn up, she confessed she wasn’t enthusiastic about running the race, which carried a steep fee for the times.    “Remind me again why I just paid $45 to do something I could also do for free?”   I couldn't deliver an adequate answer. She had a very good point. But one of our colleagues, Dan, was ready with a response.   “Duh, June. We do it for the T-shirt and maybe a medal.”   And so, some 25 years later, here we are, now running virtual races for a T-shirt and maybe a medal (back then given to those who placed; now, to those who participate). If not a T-shirt, then we seek some other swag to justi...

Post-race party in the park I bought those bright red running shorts exactly 20 years ago at a City Sports in Boston’s Downtown Crossing. They were on sale and fit—the only pair among the discount racks that day to meet my running-purchase criteria. I wore them often in the summers and early falls and then put them away come winter to get a little more life out of them. That strategy worked well until this morning, when I grabbed them to wear for the annual Scripps Ranch 4 th of July race and saw the elastic waistband was shot.  This should have been my cue to toss them, but we were in a hurry and I wanted to get one more race out of them, if only for sentimental sakes. This is my favorite summer fun run, where many former running friends and neighbors toe the line for the 10k or equally popular 2-mile fun run. And far as I remember, I’d always worn those red shorts to this race. I had lost my running shorts during the New York City Marathon , creating endl...

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...

This time of year we see an upswing in crimes of opportunity. I just posted the following on DailyMile and thought I'd repost it here because we all need to be careful out there. Yesterday at a track club potluck brunch, I learned that thieves have been deftly breaking into cars parked at Lake Miramar in San Diego by first popping the car's hood, disabling the horn and then somehow opening the doors and very, very carefully lifting credit cards from wallets. They do not disturb anything else so that no one suspects anything (unless they try to use their horn). The victims I know had no idea anything was gone until their credit card companies began calling to ask if they bought $5,000 worth of merchandise at Target -- I know, I thought the same thing: who can spend that much at Target?! Be careful when you park your car to go for a run or ride, especially if it's a long one. Always assume you are under surveillance, and try not to leave anything valuable to someone else behi...

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...

It is not a coincidence that I selected the annual Scripps Ranch 10k for my return to racing. I have a history with this event and its course, which I ran almost daily for years when I lived in the neighborhood. So today was a homecoming in more ways than one. And I could not have picked a more perfect race. For starters, my official finish was 57:16, or a 9:15 average pace (35th out of 95 in my age group). That happens to be right around the finish time of my last road race – in December 2008. However, despite our shoe D tags, I knew this one was done by gun time and clocked myself finishing at 56:52. So I'm truly picking up where I left off before tearing my achilles tendon. When I look back, I had everything going for me, except for “female issues” and one incident that I’ll save for the next post. The weather was perfect – low to mid-60s and overcast the entire way, with a slight headwind to keep from ever getting too warm or feeling the need to hydrate on the run. The course ...

...is to host a run for your half marathon training program that includes three big hills and two scenic trails and lots of rolling terrain in between. We had about 20 takers this morning for a challenging course that I created for the group three years ago . It's based on a longer course I used to do regularly when I lived in Scripps Ranch, which remains my favorite place to run in San Diego and probably always will. It's a deceptively simple course but it does require people to pay attention and to review a map if they are first-timers, and everyone but me was this morning. I served as the sweep, which meant I lagged behind everyone so when I pulled into an aid station, the volunteers knew they could break down and head home. [This didn't work as well this year because of a defiant late-comer who unknowingly set into motion a chain of frustrating events.] Moving up the first hill I suddenly realized: Wait a minute, I really am the slowest runner here today. The hills and...

This morning I arrived to meet a friend at a Starbucks in Scripps Ranch well ahead of schedule and decided to run a short route I used to do weekdays when we first moved to San Diego. The baristas mentioned a local SRHS student was putting on a benefit race for a girl with cancer. I immediately recognized both the organizer and the beneficiary: both danced at the same studio as our daughters. Suki is organizing the race/walk around Miramar Lake for her senior project; Taylor attended the dance camp where Alex was a counselor last summer. If anyone in the area is interested, the Believe in Taylor Run/Walk will be held Sat., Aug. 9 at Miramar Lake. The 5-miler (essentially a run around the entire lake) starts at 4 p.m. The 2-miler begins at 4:30. Given it could be hitting 90-100 degrees then, I suspect some runners will turn into walkers before the end, but it’s for an excellent cause and you can bet I’ll be there. For more information and a race form, go to BelieveinTaylor.org . Last n...

We all have courses that we love because of how we feel while we’re running them and because of how we feel when we're finished. I’ve done one for years that’s never disappointed me for both its challenge and its rewarding views. It’s hilly and it’s often hot. It’s also one of those runs that remind me of how blessed I am to live and train in America’s Finest City. Today about 30 others got to experience that slice of heaven (and hell?) for themselves. Stephen Burch, the guy behind the San Diego Track Club’s summer training program, was on vacation, so I volunteered to fill in and “direct” this weekend’s production, which I dubbed The Lake Rim Run. We met at Lake Miramar in Scripps Ranch at 7, warmed up and then headed into the hills above the reservoir. The first four miles are intense: you’re either going up or down (mostly up!) some seriously steep hills in residential areas. Then we head down a long dirt path with wonderful vistas to the water’s edge for the final half. Prior t...