Change of Pace

The funny thing is that I don't feel unfit. I haven't gained weight and aside from being slightly curvier, I don't think my body has changed all that much from when I was a 50+ mile a week runner. Of course, what changes there are may become painfully obvious whenever I have time to sign up for and run some local road race over the winter.

It's probably been about a month since I've gone running now. I don't do any sort of working out at all here at school, which is unfortunate since that would probably help with the stress. I went through a phase about a month and a half ago where I was just bursting into tears at the drop of a hat I was feeling so overwhelmed, but thankfully that silliness seems to have passed. Not that the workload lightened up any, but for better or worse, three and a half weeks from now it will all be over.

After this semester, I will have exactly a year left in the program. That of course assumes that I stick with it and am here for every semester between now and then. Life has a way of complicating things though, and there may be family responsibilities that throw a wrench in that plan.

My miles and miles have always given me a safe place away from the rest of the world to process the puzzles of life and come to conclusions and I rather miss having that. The truth is that I would probably use the time that I do have right now much more efficiently if I took the time to step away onto the lovely trails around here. I don't think that's likely to happen before the end of this semester, but if I make it back here in January (or even if I don't), I'm going to try really hard to make that a resolution for myself. Hey, if my mongo-preggers and toddler-mom blog pals can make time for it, I really have no excuse.

Our last assignment for my fundamentals of photojournalism class was to bring back two sports shots...one action, one a feature. I really, really did try not to fall back on running, but my soccer and football photos frankly sucked, so with just a couple of days before it was due, I really had no choice. I was quite pleased with what I ended up with though.

For my Fundamentals of Photojournalism class we were each assigned another classmate as a subect and we had to do a photo story about that person. My assigned student was a pleasant enough fellow, a junior undergraduate here, but as Biden would say, "bless his heart" but he was just as boring as can be. So no photos of mine will be forthcoming this time around, but I'll throw out a few by my documentarian, a French exchange student named Baptiste Etchegaray:I'm still only barely justifying my identification as a runner, logging just over 20 miles last week, but none at all so far this one. I went and watched and photographed a half marathon last Sunday and felt a pang of longing when the winning time was slower than 1:30, but I couldn't have run that these days anyway.School has not been the relaxed, easygoing intellectual experienced I had hoped it would be. I find myself overwhelmed by anxiety a terrifying percentage of the time and it takes very little to unbalance me to the point of tears. I miss my city and my friends and my boyfriend, who I see just about as often as when I was in New York and he was here. We're working on trying to improve that situation, but there's still just the endless work and reading always hanging over me.I watch the younger students and their voracious drinking, smoking, late-night lifestyle and wonder how they manage. Was I like that too? Is it just that I'm older now and don't have the energy for such hedonism or will I somehow be rewarded for my stoic monasticism with the stellar grades that eluded me as an undergraduate?

I'm going to hunker down and try to work on a paper now (my crazy friday night out with Sissela Bok and Kant) and then go to sleep early with ambitions of getting in a few miles in the morning. Then if I'm really good and finish that paper tomorrow, I can drive out to St. Louis tomorrow and curl up with my sweetie to sip wine, eat chocolates and work on my annotated bibliography for Mass Media...or Ethics, since I think that one is due sooner.

A picture of where I wasn't last weekend.

Every year a phalanx of photographers descends upon a small Missouri town for the Missouri Photo Workshop, where they each wrangle up a story and spend a week of days documenting it in pictures and nights getting their images and ideas ripped to shreds by a faculty of professional photographers. It's all very educational and cathartic and I felt lucky to be chosen as a volunteer member of the team (i.e. free student labor) that helped run it this year.

All in all it was good and I learned a lot, but just the same, if I'd had it to do all over again, I'd rather have been in Mesa Verde and the Great Sand Dunes National Park with Jack.

• I now know a great deal more about how to use a bunch of cameras and lenses that I can't actually afford to buy
  
• Have been informed that I should throw out every photograph I've ever taken and start over from scratch
  
• Was actually told to my face by a faculty member that I couldn't understand the issues behind whether or not Tiger Woods was pushed into golf against his will because I am not a mother and as a woman without children, this is just apparently beyond my...I don't know what...mental capacity? empathetic skills?
  
• Doubt I'll ever actually get a job as a professional photographer
  
• Learned how to deal with packs of ostensibly angry farm dogs who object to joggers using the roads in front of their homes

And labradors can sound mean and look mean when their teeth are bared, but if their tails are wagging, it's a good bet that upbeat, puppy-wuppy dog lingo will do the trick. That earned me a couple of escorts for two miles of a hilly backroad of St. James, Missouri, but only until we got to the border collies' territory. Apparently the canines of the town respect each others space.

The rottweiler and his sidekick yappy chihuahua luckily did not require any dealing with at all since by the time they came after me from one side of the farm house, I'd already turned around and was headed the other way, out of their view.

So that was running in St. James. A long dusty, hilly dirt road with lots of cows and horses and picturesque farms that had me kicking myself for leaving my point & shoot digital at home. I only went twice, but twice a week has unfortunately pretty much become the norm for me these days. 12 - 15 miles a week sounds ridiculous compared to what I was up to nine months ago, but it is what it is and at least it's better than nothing.

I am however considering the possibility of going to Spokane in December for the Cross Country Nationals with a local running group. I'd really have to get my act together to even be in remotely decent shape, but hey, maybe a little motivation would do me some good.

Yikes, is every entry going to be like this now??

Yes, I'm alive. No, I'm hardly running. I promise to write more, now let me crawl back into my cave (AKA basement apartment) and try and catch up on my reading.

Pfft. It's a sad, sad state of affairs. But this presents a primo spot to steal a recent quote from my dear pal Meghan's blog:

Yeah, well, suck it up, you will say! You will tell me that I have created this life change, and now I must live it. I'm trying; I will. But that doesn't mean it won't be difficult.

Whew. Way to fall off the map yet again, huh? My introduction to graduate student life kicked off with a two-week journalism "bootcamp" class that was supposed to bring us all up to speed on the importance of the profession and the role of research in good reporting. Well duh, that's what I DID for the last decade of my life.

Nonetheless, it's been a good refresher for me and a quick way to get to know my fellow students as well as a chance to build some confidence and get in a little writing practice before classes start in earnest.

I do feel a little crotchety now and again, compared to my fresh-faced 22-year-old classmates, but for the most part I don't think I look all that much older than them (thank you, running).

Speaking of which....I haven't done a whole heck of a lot of that running thing since my long jog through Ohio with Meghan last week, but I think that's to be expected.

That experience, by the way, was well worth the time and effort I put into it. I wondered briefly if I wasn't trying a little too hard to be super-Chelle by tailgating my cross-country move right into the Burning River 100, but in the end I'm so very glad that I did.

In contrast to poor Meghan, I had an easy and uneventful flight up to Cleveland and was delighted to meet her when I got there, not even realizing at first what a tiring ordeal she'd been through already. I've spend nights stuck in the airport before, but never right before attempting to race four marathons in a row!

She napped as much as she could that afternoon while I marveled at the wonders of midwestern strip malls and ginormous grocery stores near the hotel and then we headed out for pizza and pasta with two other online runner pals who live in the area, Salty and E-Speed.Salty marveled a bit in her post about the oddness of it all, considering that we really only barely know each other in a virtual sort of way, but it's funny...at the time it never occurred to me. We have so much in common and so many shared experiences, it just felt like a bunch of old friends getting together for a big, exciting event -- a big exciting event that was beginning at 5 AM the next day!

So we gulped down our vittles, hugged our goodbyes and hustled to get Meghan's tired bod back into bed.

(to be continued...)

Half marathon under my belt, the next big hurdle was the move. The goal was to be as helpful as possible getting stuff from apartment to truck, without doing any serious damage to my back that might interfere with pacing Meghan in Cleveland. Luckily my man has some serious muscles and my doorman was looking for a little extra cash for his help and know-how, so the boys took care of nearly all the heavy lifting and I dealt with the driving through NYC traffic in a 16-foot truck. It took pretty much the entire day, but we ended up at my cousin's in New Jersey that night well fed and ready to collapse.

We started part II of the trek not quite as bright and early as we'd planned, but still in time to make a stop at Jack's favorite hubcap dealer in West Virginia as well as my grandmother's in Columbus. That got us more than halfway through the drive and allowed us a much more refreshing break than we would have gotten in some random roadside motel.By this point we were firmly entrenched in the heartland of our great nation and I started to get a feel for my new life. From the highway, it looks like even with gas prices being what they are, my new life will have a heck of a lot of SUVs in it.

So after a relatively painless drive, we made it to St. Louis, crashed for the night and then hit the final stretch to Columbia, MO. Again, Jack did the lion's share of heavy lifting since by this point I was just two days out from Meghan's run. Somewhat worryingly, it is worth noting that by this point in the week, I had logged exactly zero miles. I suppose it might just be considered a really thorough taper?

I know, I know...it's just been a crazy few weeks and I've hardly known which way is up, much less had time to sit down and formulate a coherent blog-thought. But here I am, and I'll try to start from the beginning as best I can.

So, I think I said that the insanity started with a 10K team points race, which actually turned out to be a somewhat more manageable 4 mile race. Since I have pretty much zero speed in my legs these days, I busted out a 6:13 first mile and then promptly died for the rest of the race. I ended up with a 6:35 pace overall, which is fine, but it's a far cry from where I was just a few months ago. Honestly, three weeks later, I don't even remember much about the race, except that I think it was warm out. It was July, that's a pretty safe bet.

After that, I finished up my last week of work for a company where I've been for nearly 13 years. It's remarkable how freakishly easy it was to just walk away. I mean, I've come by my bitterness honestly as far as my feelings towards the CBS Evening News and 90 percent of the people who work there, but I've been really happy at the network's website for the last year. Nonetheless, when it came time to walk out the door, I can't really say I felt even a faint sense of regret about it. The network, and the industry in general, are in such an uncertain sense of flux, it actually feels really natural to take a time-out to examine the business in an academic setting.

The process of getting ready to leave my friends was definitely tougher, but that really started back when my pals started gettin' married and havin' babies and I started working crazy overnight hours and jetting off to the midwest every few weeks.
Plus, I've developed quite a few friendships right here with the runner/blogger set and those folk are conveniently portable.

The day before the actual load up the truck and move date, I hauled myself out to the park one last time for the NYC Half, a race I originally intended to make my last racing hurrah, with a hardcore race plan and a shot at PR at the distance. One food poisoning incident, trip to Cuba and Summer head cold later, it was clear that a fast time wasn't even remotely in the cards.

Plan B of pacing my friend Connie to 7:30 miles in the race turned out to be much more sensible and fun anyway. It was still challenging enough to be a great workout, but sane enough not to wipe me out for the move and my plan to pace Meghan for the last part of her 100-miler not even a week later. THAT story will come next.

Alright, that's enough catch up for now. I'll tackle the next chapter in a bit.

My mother was visiting this past weekend, so running and packing and fixing my disassembled kitchen sink all got put on the back burner so we could just have a fun, New York weekend full of nice meals, walks in the park, museums and theater. We're down to T-minus 13 days until I abandon this fair city, so it was really nice to just slow down and enjoy it before it's gone. After she headed back to Richmond though, I laced up the Asics and headed out to see what 12 miles would feel like.

It's actually something of a huge relief to report that it didn't feel bad at all. I finished up feeling quite fresh having run at a relatively brisk 8:15 pace on a warm summer evening, so I may not be the pathetic and disappointing 100-mile race pacer that I feared I might be three weeks from now. I don't know if running 35 miles as said pacer is realistic, but at least now I feel confident that 20+ miles is an easily doable goal. Besides, if my runner is suffering after running 80 miles or so, can't I provide a better level of support if I can truly feel her pain?

I'm still feeling somewhat overwhelmed by all the things that have to happen here before I leave, but I know one way or another, all the most urgent of them will get accomplished. My sink is now "sort of" fixed, except that the hot water only comes out as a trickle, but I'm hoping maybe Jack can tackle that project when he gets here right at the end.

I'll get a crown replaced on my tooth tomorrow (tying up loose ends before moving gets expensive) and hopefully still be able to go for a run and have time to do some packing. I need to find a notary so I can give my uncle power of attorney since he'll have to proxy for me at my subletter's board interview two days after I leave. So much packing left to do, and must sign up with AAA so I can get the discount on the moving truck and still need to get wardrobe boxes and call ahead to turn on the electricity and set up cable and figure out if we can stop at my grandmother's halfway through our journey, and schedule an exit interview at work and figure out how long I have to pay back that loan I took on my 401K when I bought the apartment and I sure as hell better be getting paid for all that vacation time I never took.....

My head starts to spin as soon as I begin mentally cataloguing all there is to do, and I didn't even include the 10K and the half marathon that are getting crammed in there as well! Running 35 miles after all that might be an absolute relief, to just focus on a specific, physical task and have permission to completely shut out the rest of the world for those few hours.

I actually got back about a week ago, but the combination of being around my sick brother and not sleeping enough and traveling on airplanes and sleeping in airports and kissing lots of strangers on the cheek left me with a icky, summer cold for all of this past week, so I barely had the energy to make it to work and home each day, much less think clearly enough to write a blog entry. I did however catch up on reading some of my friends' blogs, so that's something at least.

Cuba did not prove to be a running paradise this time around, though I did get in a couple of hot & steamy six milers while I was there. The track that I ran on last time has not been well maintained over the last 14 months and much of it was almost completely overgrown with weeds. And I remembered it being a fairly decent clay surface track! I did get another photo to add to the series I started last time though, Things That Run In Havana:

They're too similar to put them both in the series, so loyal readers, which is it...I was leaning towards the one with the barefoot boy closer to the viewer, but now I'm thinking the curvy seawall with the colorful bathing trunks is better. What do you think?

And if anyone's interested, I did manage to crank out an article about one aspect of my trip for work. I'd like to write more about some of the artists I met and interviewed while I was there, but that might have to wait until after my big move out west.