Run DMZ

Lately, I’ve been telling everyone within earshot that I’m tired of working so hard. It took a couple of carefree weekends and slow Mondays to realize how much more padding I want around hard weeks’ worth of work.    I’ve been a two-income earner for many, many years. With a few years’ exceptions, I’ve always held more than one job, as much to keep my mind stimulated as our cupboards full. And until now, I handled two occupations relatively well. But decades of heavy loads and a shortening lifespan have me reevaluating how I want to spend my days ahead. It probably doesn’t help that most of my friends now are unencumbered by jobs and school-aged children and living their best lives. I have several years before I can join them.   The hours add up My lifestyle is no longer a novelty.  A lot of people work gigs  beyond a full-time job. As a professional writer and budding novelist, I spend way too much time tethered to a desk and chair. I do get up at least once ev...

Yesterday I signed up to do next year’s   Bay to Breakers , the craziest 12k you’ll find in what remains my favorite city: San Francisco. I wanted to take advantage of the 48-hour low pricing (under $40); generous refund policy; and expiring airline credits. I’ve wanted to return to this event for more than eight years … and now I will if all goes as planned.   I’ll be running or, more likely, walking with my daughter and son-in-law, both B2B regulars. We’re already coming up with costume concepts and deciding which breweries to hit in our version of carbo loading. I’ve also been assured that seeking a position within Corral A doesn’t mean we need to maintain a 6-minute-per-mile pace, or that we get passed and cussed at the entire time.    Bay to Breakers is weird and wild, but the year we did it was weirder and less wild than others due to a bombing at the Boston Marathon just weeks before. That led to lower attendance, probably as much due to a stronger police pres...

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...

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 ...

  Even if you still work from home, or don’t work at all, you know summer Fridays are special. That’s because no one appears to work all that hard on summer Fridays. There’s a natural relaxation on the eve of everyone’s weekend that pushes big deadlines and really important meetings down the calendar. Freeway traffic is better Friday mornings; worse come Friday afternoons.   June’s a little tricky, despite ushering in summer. Some people take time off for vacations, but the bulk of us reserve rooms and plane seats for July or August. That slows things down all around. We just returned from a road trip, if you can call it that, to central Oregon. With me behind the wheel on the first leg, we made excellent time to our daughter’s new townhome in Marin County. I have not lost my preference for northern California, though I have stopped planning an eventual move there.    The rest of the trip was driving through wildfires and competing for chain restaurant seats with far...

  My large, heavy luggage proved the perfect metaphor for the baggage I brought to our girls’ getaway in Colorado. It was my first real vacation in years and I realized the toll of the pandemic shortly after we arrived.   I came to Colorado with a lingering cough that worsened through the days, or at least it seemed that way. I annoyed my friends and strangers alike. No one is allowed to cough in public anymore, let alone uncontrollably. An upcoming medical appointment will confirm which C it might be.   In the meantime, let’s share only the highlights with that old Joe Walsh song in the background.   Our home base was the town of Frisco —cute, well-manicured, condense and full of outdoor fun. At almost 9,100 feet elevation, it took my breath away. I had symptoms of altitude sickness, but they were mild. So, I ignored all of the advice I’d gathered prior—like drinking lots of water and staying away from alcohol and other dehydrating liquids.  I ate well. I ...