Run DMZ

[Note: I had artwork to accompany this unusually long post, but Blogger will have none of it right now.] Today I went to the hospital for a bone scan, which was going to confirm a stress fracture that earlier x-rays could only suggest. The three-hour procedure turned into a 9-hour ordeal with me at one point bra-less in a busy waiting room and arguing over what constituted claustrophobia. And that was the fun part of the day. Scanning the Parking Lot…and Then My Body After eventually finding a parking spot, we got to the hospital’s nuclear medicine unit around 8:30 a.m. for an injection of a radioactive tracer substance that later would allow any bone undergoing stress to glow during a body scan. I’d had blood work done two days prior, so one arm already was pretty bruised. We decided to use the other, so by the end of the day I’d have matching track marks. The needle pinched and the solution burned for an instant and then we were done until I returned in three hours for the screening...

Sometimes I fancy myself a budding social scientist. I read a lot of economics, anthropology and sociology books for fun and each summer devote part of my leisure reading to more weighty works. Right now I'm particularly drawn to food science, so this year I'm boning up on the human diet. The following is sort of a primer on popular scientific theories I plan to explore and share here in the coming months. Feel free to weigh in. The Associated Press distilled a compendium of 100 scientific studies into 10 reasons we're weighing more these days . Here's a breakdown: 1. Inadequate sleep. (Average sleep amounts have fallen, and many studies tie sleep deprivation to weight gain.) 2. Endocrine disruptors, which are substances in some foods that may alter fats in the body. 3. Nice temperatures. (Air conditioning and heating limit calories burned from sweating and shivering.) 4. Fewer people smoking. (Less appetite supression.) 5. Medicines that cause weight gain. 6. Populatio...

In many ways, I’ve come to terms with my temporary plight and even begun to embrace the good things about not being able to run. I’m staying up later and sleeping in longer because my early mornings aren't earmarked for a certain activity. I’m eating less and losing weight because my appetite’s adjusted to this sedentary lifestyle. And I’m moving guilt-free through the piles of DVDs, magazines, novels and non-fiction books that stacked up over the year. But every Sunday I suffer a minor setback. I’ve written before about my favorite day of the week , which always opened with an early morning long run through my suburb while listening to a retro radio show. That particular brand of 80s music no longer reminds me of my college years or my single days. After five years, the music now triggers memories of running right here in Scripps Ranch. I think of the sudden warmth of the sun melting through the marine layer and the fog lifting off Miramar Lake. The blue hues of the mountains in t...

About a month ago Dennis and I had an e-mail exchange about the lure (and the lore) of the Boston Marathon. He’s done it; I haven’t. We both agreed that the race is way too hyped. Dennis has decided to carry that virtual conversation onto his blog and I’d love to hear what everyone thinks (as would he, I’m sure). I think in our need to place order to everything, we had to select one race to be better than the others and the nod went to the storied Boston race. Its tradition, and especially the BAA’s reluctance to fiddle with that aspect, made it a natural selection. The somewhat recent institution of a qualifying time to limit the field (and presumably reduce permit costs) only strengthened runners’ resolve to run it, even if there are numerous ways to circumvent that requirement. Boston has a cache that other major marathons like New York City and Chicago do not, at least not within certain running circles. But I’ve frequently asked myself why I want to do it. I mean, I commuted by ca...

The New York Times' Jane Brody has written about health and fitness for decades. I remember buying one of her tomes at a discount book barn back in the mid-1980s, and by then she was a household name. So I'm going to give her a free pass on constantly referring to all runners as "joggers" in today's column . But I wonder about some of the advice she dispenses, presumably for former armchair athletes finally ready to leave the bench. She recommends people stay hydrated with water first and use sports drinks only if exercising two or three or more hours. That could be interpreted as running on water for a half marathon or more, and I wonder in summer heat, where electrolytes evaporate from sweaty bodies more quickly, if that's a sound strategy. She also states that nearly every marathon is marked by someone "keeling over" with a heart attack...given the hundreds of 26-milers now, that stat seems a little high to me. Maybe every major marathon?

This morning around 6, as I was shuffling into the grocery store near my house, I saw two weathered men on a nearby bench. They looked like many of the other unauthorized residents that live in the canyons of my suburb. One was younger and eyeing me; the other, older and oblivious. He was too busy talking into a cell phone in rapid, animated Spanish. It took me only a few minutes to buy the remaining ingredients for my husband’s breakfast in bed (a hearty meal complemented by cards, the sports pages and our bedroom TV remote on the tray), so the older man was still talking loudly as I left. I listened all the way home but could only make out one sentence, one I’d heard going into the store too. “I love you.” The elder man said it repeatedly and each time he did his voice raised an octave. That’s when it dawned on me the man was talking to his family back home. Maybe it was Mexico. Maybe El Salvador, Guatemala or some other Latin American country. Maybe the younger man was his son; he c...

This week I plopped my injured self on our solarium couch to proof pages of an upcoming personal finance book. Each chapter opens with a quotation, and all day yesterday I kept in mind the passage introducing a section on having children. “Enjoy the little things in life, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.” --Henry David Thoreau I know what Thoreau was driving at, but in my current state, I chose a slightly different interpretation. Someday soon I will look back on this marathon and this month and forget it opened with pain and anguish and uncertainty that just got worse as the miles and weeks progressed. Instead I will remember the giggles among us girls in the starting corral when I whispered that my “invigorating” spray to ease aches had mysteriously migrated to my nether region. I’ll remember Marissa snapping us smiling into her disposable camera as we ran with determination, and to avoid eye contact with the guy in the sombrero and Speedo. I’ll re...