Run DMZ

Thank God the school bus was late.   I was standing on a busy corner, looking for the school bus to come down Black Mountain Road when I heard crackling and saw a plume of smoke rising out of a canyon about 100 yards away.   It took maybe 30 seconds for it to register, and when it did, I pulled out my phone and dialed 911 to report a brush fire. A small one at that point. I was connected to CalFIRE and told a crew was on its way.    Ten minutes later, with no sign of any first responders and the fire now growing, a woman walking up the street saw the smoke and called 911 again. She got the same response and so we both stood and took photos until the bus finally arrived. By the time I got our boy inside and texted my husband to come home from the gym, flames were flying up the hillside. Sirens could be heard…in the distance. A police car was coming down the road and I flagged it down, pointed to the fire. A couple of minutes later, ambulances, police cruisers, and new...

I was about 15 minutes into my morning run when I saw the lady with the golden retriever and waved. She waved back and agreed it was going to be a hot one today. About five minutes later I was climbing a big hill when a couple walking their black lab gave me the thumbs up. “You got this, girl,” the woman said, and smiled.   I felt a little naked without my neck gaiter, but I also realized with each friendly encounter that when people see your entire face, they are more apt to engage. Today’s the first day Californians can move about our state more freely, with vaccination rates high and COVID-19 cases very low now. Most restrictions over the past 16 months are now lifted, with exceptions.   You still need a mask at schools and hospitals, dentists and doctor’s offices. And you need to mask up when riding on public transportation, cabs, trains and planes. This is going to make it even stranger (and more dangerous) to travel, at least until Sept 13 when those masks can be removed...

  For many, many years (like, early 1990s to the late aughts) I kept track of my training on paper calendars. First, I used those pocket-sized calendars you could get for free with a Hallmark store purchase and later for $1 at a Dollar Tree. I was quite diligent about documenting my runs and cross-training, if only out of habit. Rarely did I consult the logs; I just enjoyed those few seconds of satisfaction recording my commitment.   Then I migrated to  a now-defunct social media platform for runners and triathletes . It was even easier to keep track of how much mileage I logged. But the social component had me veering off course. I’d make “friends” with high-mileage runners and suddenly feel less adequate. I commuted by bike to my job at the time, riding 10 miles each way with most of the return 10 all uphill. And still, I didn’t feel worthy because  Penelope was for amateurs  (even local police told me this!). Some people I followed appeared to do little but w...

A lot of the allure surrounding Coronado, an isthmus that likes to call itself an island, boils down to this: it’s flat, pretty and has plenty of shoreline. Gridded streets are lined with mid-century bungalows and large custom homes with deciduous trees and well-manicured gardens.  New homeownership  is out of reach for most of us (and probably residents who were fortunate enough to purchased property a half-century ago when the place didn’t have much going for it), but a heavy Navy presence adds a little diversity to the community. Coronado has two thriving restaurant/retail centers:  one offering sweeping views of the downtown San Diego skyline and a ferry ; the other, an  iconic hotel  and  ceramic cow .    Near the latter is a beach where they rake the sand daily, so everything looks just so. The result of that attention to detail has been Coronado Beach cracking the Top 10—sometimes even the No. 1 spot—on one of the most respected  annua...

It’s been an amazing, exhausting, gut-wrenching 10 days. It began on what would have been my parents’ 60 th  wedding anniversary, had they lived to celebrate it. My daughter texted early that morning to ask if I’d watch her 19-month-old while she went to the ER, possibly to give birth a few weeks earlier than her official due date. By the time I got there (ugh, pre-COVID traffic is back), symptoms had subsided and a quick trip to her OB/GYN confirmed she was fine.   About 30 hours later, I got a text that everyone was again at an ER and heading by ambulance to another  hospital that wasn’t under a cyberattack . My grandson had collided with a tailgate during a neighborhood block party and suffered a concussion. He was vomiting and lethargic and disoriented. I needed to take care of their dog, who’d been diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer two days prior. I privately noted that it was the anniversary of my beloved grandmother’s passing and therefore all would end w...

  The other week I was doing some deep cleaning and came across this race photo. It resurrected lovely memories from one of my most unpleasant finishes. It also reminds me of how much has changed over the years--to both me and marathons.   Note the slant of the sun . This shot was taken in the last miles of the course, with the sun already inching toward the western horizon. The Richmond Marathon used to start at 12:30 p.m. on an October Sunday to allow locals time to go to church before downtown streets closed. This made weather a wildcard. It could be the cool fall day long-distance runners dream of, or it could swampy. I got both, with heat at the start but a cool breeze at the end.    Now almost every marathon starts early morning to accommodate bigger crowds .   Note the bib number . This race had less than 500 marathoners the first time I ran it. You could sign up race day, especially if you ended up not running that much more popular marathon two hours no...

I miss mornings when the only goal was for him to be on Zoom with a full belly and clean(ish) shirt by first period. I miss the soft openings, the overheard banter between the teachers, aides and students before getting down to business. I didn’t get much of my own work done during online school hours, but I did learn a lot.   We opted to send our child back to school last week, as did about half of San Diego Unified parents and guardians. This meant our middle school could offer on-site classes four mornings a week, versus the planned two. But it also meant half of all students have something still holding them back. Those that are on campus must sit farther apart and follow one-way foot-traffic flows and, of course, wear masks at all time. No water fountains work, but there are bottle-fill and hand sanitizer stations. Every single child is sent home at 12:30 with food for lunch, dinner and tomorrow’s breakfast. The online kids’ families line up in their cars for their food bags. ...