Run DMZ

  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 picked Labor Day to return to the gym because I knew everyone else preferred to do anything else but work out. There were a lot more signs on the door beyond the one I remembered warning to keep it closed. Now everyone entering was ordered to wear a mask and Department of Defense-approved athletic attire. A posted schedule showed the three times a day the facility closed for cleaning.    The check-in system was the same as it had been when I last used it March 2020. But the faces behind the desk were all new. I showed my ID and asked where the rowing machines were now located. Their previous location had been converted into an F45 studio – a gym within a gym and  the first on a military installation . The women’s locker room looked the same except for all the signs now prohibiting selfies, not just dying hair in the sinks.    When I first started attending  this gym  20 years ago, there was a lone rowing machine wedged between two pieces of Nautilus ...

  For more than two years, I’ve lamented leaving Les Mills’ BodyPump, a group exercise class I took consistently every Tuesday and Friday early morning at a local 24-Hour Fitness. Then I abruptly  left both the class and the gym . When I finally returned to San Diego, I started back at my original gym on a nearby military base, having finally gotten over the issues that forced me to flee there.   Now it’s time to move on again. Due to the ongoing pandemic (and maybe well beyond it), all local military gyms are open only to active duty and their dependents, plus DoD civilians who work on base. I do not fit any of those categories. And returning to 24-Hour Fitness isn’t an option, being as they are in Chapter 11 bankruptcy and do not appear eager to reopen in my suburb.   I started looking into online exercise programs, especially free ones that a friend recommended from YouTube. But I just couldn’t connect with the format or instructors. My older daughter told me she’...

I love the music of Kate Bush and Joan Armatrading . Both are longtime, UK-based artists – true, uncompromising, one-of-a-kind artists – whose careers greatly influenced my own. No, I can’t sing or play a musical instrument or carry a tune of any sort, but their lyrics and arrangements have inspired my own prose and poetry over the past 40-plus years. They dare to be different and both have been blessed with critical acclaim.  Here’s the thing, though: I can’t run or row to either of them. Other than Bush’s 1985 hit “ Running Up that Hill ,” I can’t maintain a nice rhythm while working out. It’s even harder with Armatrading’s music. Try as I might, I tend to mentally stop and ponder or instantly reconnect with an old memory whenever one of her songs is playing. The exception: “ Drop the Pilot .” Maybe this is why I’ve migrated in recent months from listening to music while exercising to podcasts, which require their own level of attention. Podcasts are very in, as y...

I am trying to remember the last time I went to BodyPump. It had to be about a year ago. Did I set up my equipment in my favorite spot? Or was I forced to the other side because that woman with auburn hair got there first? Was I wearing my favorite workout outfit? Or did I dress in the dark again and arrive with mismatched clothes? Did we have Amy as our instructor? Or was it that young woman who loved hard rock songs?  By the time my daughter convinced me to go to a group class, I’d been rowing and running at that gym for about four years. I’d always wanted to return to BodyPump after (gulp) 20 years. But I’d come to dislike crowded rooms and especially ones encased in glass walls so anyone could watch your workouts. I got over it and went. And I got hooked. Within minutes I was breathing heavy; within a few more sets, I was soaked in sweat. I only went to the Tuesday and Friday 5:30 a.m. sessions because of my work schedule. But I started to think of those days as...

Thanks for all the suggestions to this week's strange encounter, in which wrestling Marines kept colliding with me as I worked out on a rowing machine at the gym. I ended up doing c) Continued rowing as if nothing was going on. After the second hit, I saw I had 7 minutes left and dug in to make a point. I rowed even faster, as if that somehow was going to speed up time. But rowing machines are noisy and the extra volume, let alone my determined, stone-face expression, caused a couple of guys to move closer, if only as a symbolic gesture of protection. I probably reminded them of their mother. I left soon as my time was up, and I likely was a topic of a conversation. Or maybe not. These guys have dealt with much worse.

It's been awhile since we've had a real-life strange encounter while exercising. Thankfully this morning provided an excellent opportunity to make up for lost time. Here we go. You are using the rowing machine, located in a corner of your gym's "spin room" and immediately next to a giant mat used for a variety of exercises - both group and individual. No shoes allowed. About 15 minutes in, a group of 8 young Marines fresh off an Afghanistan deployment come into the room and start wrestling on the mat. This appears to be a survival exercise, though it also is helping with the post-war stress these young men may suffer. You are happily rowing along. Goyte and Florence and the Machine are pumping through your mp3 earbuds when out of the corner of your eye, you see a pair of wrestlers moving toward you. They flip a few more times and land right under your machine, after smacking into it of course. You stop. They stop. They disengage their holds and another pair starts...

You’re heading to take a shower in your gym’s highly humid locker room when you notice the only floor fan has been moved into one of the occupied stalls. No one’s running water. About 15 minutes later you emerge to now find the fan is aimed at a heavyset woman dressed in a floral blouse and black skirt. She’s lying on a long bench and she has her legs up. Did I mention she was wearing a skirt? You are one bench over and avert your eyes, then out of the corner notice her just staring into space. Occasionally she changes positions, but mainly she’s just staring and sharing her hoochie with the world, which at least is covered by underwear. Do you: a.) Continue to ignore her b.) Blow hot air at her butt. c.) Ask if she’s OK. Well, I did all three. First, I pretended there wasn’t a woman lying next to me in a strange position. Then I decided to test her by coyly aiming my blow dryer to elicit a response. Normally when it’s that humid, I don’t aggravate things by adding more heat to the roo...

I know of a lot of middle-aged running friends who are motivated by their parents to run. Their mother or father was in poor health for many years and it ultimately cost them their lives (or at least a higher quality of it), and so one reason they initially put on a pair of running shoes was to avoid the same fate. However, that's not the sort of parental connection outlined in a provacative post about the link between exercise and genetics in this morning's Daily Beast. It reflects a couple of scientific studies that show we may be genetically encoded to favor workouts. That means some of us will never enjoy exercising like others, nor will our children. If this is true, then those of us modeling good behaviors by eating well and exercising in moderation may merely be passing along the endorphin baton to those with our "exercise gene." And that might also explain why some parents who push their kids into sports end up disappointed that their child never "takes...

I went back to school this year to learn new software skills to stay competitive in today’s anemic economy. About 80 percent of the students are professionals who lost their jobs; the other 20 percent fear the same fate. The classes take place at a satellite campus in Serra Mesa on Saturdays and Sundays. We have to arrive between 7 and 7:30 a.m. to get in line for a good seat in the Mac Lab. Some weeks, I am in class all day Saturday; others, it’s Sunday. Beginning after spring break next week, it’ll be both Saturdays and Sundays through May. I don’t know about the other 20-percenters who have day jobs, but I’m beginning to tire of weekends devoted to a life of the mind. I love it while I’m learning, but come Sunday evening I realize how little time I spent outside a cold classroom. This semester’s schedule also has created an exercise inversion. I basically now bulk all of my running, rowing, and gym time into Monday thru Friday. The key for me is to prepare well the night before. I ...

During my recent four-month forced hiatus from running, I kept track of calories using a couple of popular calorie counters: Fitday and, later, MyPlate . According to my daily average intake, I should have lost 1.8 pounds a week. Instead, I gained five pounds. Part of the problem was something I wrote about last month : I vastly underestimated my recorded portions and serving sizes. But I also fell for miscalculations on how much I burned exercising. Basically, you cannot trust the accuracy of calorie estimates generated by machines, which tend to provide far more generous numbers than you’ve actually earned. Exercise machine manufacturers want you to believe you’re burning more than you might be so you’ll stick with their product. Calorie counters take your word on weight, age and especially effort. Your number is aggregated with others, from fat to fit, to come up with an average. But we all move mass differently and everything from proper form to a spicy burrito breakfast can impact...

I love Saturday mornings again. I had all of my errands - including washing my car - done before 8:30 a.m., when I arrived at a former gym to warm up on the rowing machine before starting a beginner's yoga class. I know I'd mentioned taking yoga classes before, but this was the first time in more than (gulp!) three years that I actually did it. I was thrilled when I found out the instructor was the same one I enjoyed when I took Yoga for Runners . This class, which had several true newbies, was perfectly paced. We focused first on breathing techniques ("breath of fire" being my favorite) and then launched into your standard beginner's poses, such as mountain , child's pose , downward dog , and triangle . Best of all, I didn't need a single correction from the instructor. I did, however, need a block for assistance on occasion. But as one of the oldest in the class, and also one of the injured, I felt it wise to 'fess up early that I'm in over my h...

A few years ago a Red Dress Run buddy and I contemplated trying out for a masters rowing team in Mission Bay. Both of us had reached that point in running where marathons were no longer gratifying and ultras took too much training time. Many master rowers aren’t just former college crew members; they are long-distance runners ready to give the joints, but not the muscles, a rest. I then had an unconventional work schedule and couldn’t make the 5:30 a.m. summer tryout camp sessions, so I quickly abandoned the idea and instead became a one-woman indoor rowing crew at my gym. However, it wasn’t until this month that I actually looked into correct form and discovered a wide variety of workouts. That’s because I will be exercising almost exclusively in a gym for the next couple of months as my torn achilles tendon continues to heal. Like running, form is everything in rowing. Fellow Southern Californian Glenn recently rediscovered indoor rowing and has posted some great information . Fitsug...

It took two bum-busting falls on black ice and a near collision with a skidding car for me to break down and buy a treadmill during our first winter in Cape Cod. It cost about a grand on sale at Sears, and it ended up being used more than I expected in our tricked-out basement. I used it to run at 4 a.m. weekday mornings because it was the only time I had between my crazy Boston commute, only it was so loud it woke everyone sleeping three stories above. During Sunday long runs in January, February and March, it kept me out there when no one else was. I’d tell myself, “I’ll run half outdoors and then finish with the rest on the treadmill.” Then I’d hit the midpoint, with my sweaty hair iced to my face and my Camelback frozen solid, and remember how much I dreaded that machine. I would tell myself I could do another 30 minutes outdoors and then finish inside. And I’d keep at it, until, of course, I’d done the entire run in the bitter cold. When movers were hauling that treadmill out of t...

Most of you don't look at my online training diary, but if you did you'd notice I'm in the throes of another online rowing challenge. This is my first since February and it requires me to row 31,000 meters between Oct. 25 and 31. Doing this using gym equipment creates an additional challenge because sometimes both machines are in heavy use and sometimes the 30-minute rule is enforced. So I'm essentially doing this in four days instead of seven. I took on the challenge because, after almost a full year without racing, I need new spark plugs and this is the best way to get a cheap tune-up. And, if this morning is any indication, my body's running much better already. Usually if I'm going to row long, I run short. But I woke to perfect 45-degree weather and decided to run 5 miles around Lake Miramar first. A mile into it, a guy in a warmup suit heading my way did a U turn in front of me, and I figured I'd use him as a rabbit. Only I caught him a half mile later...

After suffering through the night with a migraine, I decided to not join the others running around Coronado this morning. Instead, once I was fully recovered, I knocked down some tea and toast and headed to the gym for the first of my now-annual fall gym triathlons . I start with 20 minutes on three pieces of cardio equipment and work up to 30 minutes on each (our gym time limit) and then on gaining distance within each "event." Today's stats: Row: 3110 meters Cycle: 5.5 miles Crossramp*: 1.4 miles *I am not sure what this piece of equipment is called. I've been going to the gym twice a week to row, so that part was easy. So was the cycling, thanks to recent rides with Penelope. The tricky part was what to do for the third leg that didn't aggravate my achilles. The treadmill and outdoor track were out. The Stairmaster seemed like a stupid idea, so I settled on the elliptical trainer. Only the piece of equipment by Precor that I chose actually was a cross between a...

My husband is upstairs showering before we head together to the gym. He does this every Sunday -- showers to go sweat, then comes home and showers again. This makes no sense to me. Then again, some days neither does he.

I hurt my hip again so this morning I went to the gym to row and do some arms and abs work. I also decided to weigh myself. My clothes have been feeling a little looser so I had high hopes that the weigh-in would leave me feeling truly lighter. Instead, it showed that I now weigh more than ever before, even when I gave birth! So I went home, showered and put on an outfit I'd gotten for Christmas from my very hip sister-in-law. The scarf still had the tags on it. The camisole and sweater fit much more snugly than my usual tops, maybe because of sizing but more likely because of my newfound proportions. In any event, I can't tell you how many people at work complimented me. Maybe I should show off my fat more often.

Gordon : Go on then, run! Dennis : Isn't there some kind of like... special technique? Gordon : Well... yeah... you put one leg in front of the other over and over again really really fast. My husband surprised me yesterday by renting the DVD Run Fatboy Run , a comedy that revolves around a marathon. I thought it was hilarious! I'm off really really early this morning to row 14,000m in one session for the C2 Valentine's Day Individual Rowing Challenge . I'm not officially entering, just challenging myself with some serious cross-training before work. It should take me about 1 hour, 30 minutes to finish if I don't take a break. Oh, the Tour of California kicks off tomorrow up in Sacramento. The LA Times had an interesting piece about a dustup between Lance Armstrong and a former cyclist-turned-journalist.

The first time I returned to the gym after a long absence, I saw a notice reminding everyone there was a dress code at the place. It boiled down to two things: No hats indoors and no revealing clothing. The first made perfect sense since it's long been proper etiquette, particular among the mostly military clientele, to remove your hat when indoors. The second part, though, has me curious. Maybe I just work out at the wrong time, but I've never seen anyone, male or female, dressed in anything less than T-shirt, shorts and/or sweats. Never. This place is for the hardcore, or hardcore wannabes like me. No one talks while they work out, let alone makes eye contact and smiles. A few did before the war, but not now. It's one reason I love the place. Initially, I thought the dress code reminders were for all the January newbies. Then I remembered they first appeared in December. This weekend, they multiplied and were plastered in every room. Who keeps showing up half-naked, I won...