Run DMZ

Running this morning along my suburb's main thoroughfare, I started to recount each of the 12 men and women I briefly described in a memorial program I helped create a few weeks ago . Some had big writeups in their hometown newspapers, especially if that newspaper was The New York Times. Others had very little, so I had to go searching and found this site - the name escapes me at the moment - that lists each fallen soldier and allows family and friends to post a message or a memory, sort of like writing on someone's wall in Facebook. There was so much expressed grief and guilt in those comments it was sometimes hard for me to continue. In one case, a bomb went off just as an outpost shift was changing, and had the bomb denotated 10 minutes later, another crew would have been killed. Instead, they had to handle the carnage. In another, a compatriate wanted everyone to know that their son or brother or boyfriend had pushed him out of the way to take a bullet to the chest. Most gr...

A good exercise for the heart is to bend down and help someone up.

...For this week, anyway. Iron Mountain Hike from Run DMZ on Vimeo . (Featuring my friend Maxine, who invited me on this hike the other weekend.)

I can't believe I'm saying this, but as I type we have the heat cranked in our house. It's May and it's San Diego. What the heck is happening? I thought it was just me. Yesterday morning I shivered through yoga, where I overheard others complaining that the indoor climate matched the sudden plummet in outdoor temps. Then this morning I ran through Santaluz under very low cloud cover and unusually stiff winds. I came home, got back into bed with a hot cup of chai but couldn't shake the chills (no pun intended). Moving On So near the end of today's run I saw a barefoot runner heading down a steep hill as I was chugging up it. I actually was moving faster than he was, despite his gravitational advantage. Then I noticed he was carrying sandals similar to the ones of the Tarahumara in Born to Run . It reminded me of a conversation I had with another nascent barefoot runner. He found it very difficult to actually run downhill because of the stress placed on his forefe...

I just read this week's Personal Best column in the New York Times on the lack of scientific proof that specific types of warm-ups work any better than others before a race. Back in my competitive days, my pre-race ritual included several sprints for 10k or under races and about a mile jog before a half marathon. Then, I made the typically rookie call to "save my energy" and not run at all before a marathon. Suddenly, that became the norm and I merely walked and did some static stretches, if that. I'm curious: What is your warm-up routine for, say, a 10k? Is it different for a marathon? Here's the NY Times piece for reference: The Right Way to Warm-up Is (Your Answer Here)

Here I am sitting in front of my laptop privately cursing another lost opportunity to get in a run—and it’s only 5:30 in the morning. Such have been my weeks for a while now, and I am suspecting the pattern isn’t breaking any time soon. I get up at all hours for what I consider important work—the freelance stuff that helps pay the bills and keep me sharp. (Well, as sharp as you can be at 4 in the morning.) Then there’s my position at a non-profit, which is threatened by the state due to California’s budget crisis. And this time it truly is a crisis if voters want to throw the elderly with dementia effectively out on the street, and right now they do . If I am up all night worrying, I cannot imagine what the families of our Alzheimer’s patients must be thinking. Meantime, daily living lacks its usual diversity. Calories get consumed but no longer counted. The gym bag remains in the bedroom corner. Laundry piles up, as do dust and bills, and my car is starting to resemble my closet. So t...