Change of Pace

Just a short note from Montreal. It is really cold here but beautiful.
I am going ice skating now and will be home tonight.

Nothing like hanging out with the international crowd to make you feel like a stupid American. I've now officially studied Latin, Greek, Spanish, Japanese and Russian and dabbled in French and German and I'm still lucky if I can make myself understood when I try to pronounce 'hello' correctly in any one of them. Now the German is teaching me to talk dirty so I've been affectionately calling him 'miene kleine miststuck'. I won't repeat what he calls me.

We never did go ice skating, figuring that we were running a little short on time to fit that in. Despite such brilliant foresight and planning, we still finished up our Montreal visit with an anxious bus ride to the airport, only just missing our flight back to New York. We thought we had gotten lucky that there was an even later, delayed flight into Newark, but it turned out that U.S. Immigration & Customs had already closed for the night leaving us up the proverbial sheisse creek.

You learn a lot about a travel partner in this sort of situation. Freezing temperatures, a late bus, an incompetent driver, incomprehensible TSA regulations, $100 ticket change fees, uncomfortable lounge couches, overpriced airport beer, talkative nocturnal Quebecois teenagers and a 4am wake-up call are all potential challenges to a companionable relationship, but all in all, the evening was more of an adventure than an ordeal.

I'll write more about the trip tomorrow, with photos, but right now I've got a broadcast to fact-check and I'm finding it a little difficult to keep my eyes open.

Found out today that my little Thai resort survived the tsunami last week and except for still not having phone service, is as good as new.

There were about 10 boatmen from the area who died or are missing, so there is still a lot of sadness, but the people there are lucky to still have pieces to pick up. A local web genius there was kind enough to post some pretty dramatic photos of the actual wave and some nice photos of the beach a week into the clean up. I'll put in my own plug for Railay Beach here because it really is a beautiful spot and they can use all the tourists they can get right now.

2005 Drinks to date:..30.....Miles:..16 1/2

I realized today that while I might be single, I've actually been involved in a long term, committed relationship for about 24 years now. Me and running are coming up on our 25th Anniversary now. Wonder if I can convince my friends to buy us some silver...?

It's not so different from any other relationship, really. We've had our ups and downs over the years, facing the usual hurdles like laziness, injury and the occasional alcohol induced cigarette.
We have had some jealousy issues now and again...for example, I'll be wanting to go out drinking with my friends and the running just whines and complains, saying it wants to have me at home, alone, in bed. I'll even admit that I used to cheat a lot in the beginning, but as I've gotten older I've really renewed my commitment to my sport and now we really do take care of each other. I do my best to drag my tired self out of bed regardless of temperature and precipitation, and it rewards me with beautiful, mild misty mornings like the one in the park today and even after all these years, I'm still getting faster, so it really is true...the more you put into it, the more you get out.

Now when it comes to relationships of a more conventional kind, that's another story. I think it's most visible in New York, but it's probably true in most big cities...it's not the boys with the commitment issues here, it's the girls. Or maybe I'm generalizing too much, but it's definitely true for me.

I've seen it done in a lot of different ways. We place strict limitations on the kind of guy we want. "I'll only take a Jewish boy," my friend Vic says. "He can't be taller than 5'10", insists Jen. Myself, I tend to eliminate anyone who isn't fit, politically liberal and well traveled. And I'm not alone, my fellow bloggers have typed countless screens of HTML explaining in excruciating detail what they are looking for in a mate. And of course, the boys are just as guilty as all of this as the women.

Even if I found exactly what I was looking for, I wonder if I'd know what to do with it. A glance at my history though shows I do a pretty good job at avoiding ever having to face my fears. I fall hardest for the guy I meet while covering the Olympics in Japan or the one who's barely out of college or most recently, the one who lives in friggin' Berlin. God forbid I consider starting something with one of the nice, successful, smart guys I know on the Upper East Side. That's far too threatening a prospect for my commitmentphobic psyche. Or perhaps it's just that I'm already taken. As it turns out, running can be a very possessive lover.

2005 Drinks to date:..42.....Miles:..23 1/2

I'm really not sure how I did it, but I know that I trained for my first Boston marathon during the winter I lived in Chicago. I remember commenting to native Chicagoans on a - 25 degree day that it was really, really cold out and they scoffed at me for being a thin-skinned eastcoaster. I was vindicated the next day though when the cover headline of the local newspaper read "COLDEST WINTER IN 25 YEARS". I recall that there was snow and ice and I remember it was cold, but eleven years later, I don't remember how I found the motivation to get out there almost every day to put in my miles along the coastline of the frigid Lake Michigan.

I was just thinking about this today as I looked at the forecast for the next week in New York. The coldest day will still be well above zero and none of the snowfall is expected to be very significant. I caught myself trying to make excuses about how it was really too cold to run and how I wouldn't be able to run if there was snow on the ground, but in the end, those are really just that, excuses. So while I do in fact think that tomorrow may really be a little too cold for me and my unfortunate cough, I am going to do my best to be tough and to remember, it's still warmer than Chicago.

2005 Drinks to date:..48.....Miles:..23 1/2

Like I don't have enough guilt about not running, now I have to feel guilty about not blogging as well. So much for my "no excuses" plan. Between my sore throat/cough and the nasty cold spell we've been having, I've only even considered going for a run once in the last week. And now there's a foot of snow on the ground, so I guess that will keep me indoors for a bit longer. As I start to feel better though, I might think about running the stairs in my building. It's 17 floors, so if I run up those and took the elevator down a few times, I think it would be fair to call those intervals. The only time I ever took the stairs to my apartment was during the blackout in August of 2003, and I remember it being a bit of a dizzying experience, with all of the going around and around. Still, it would get my heart rate up and give my quads a workout.

And just in case the running/blogging guilt wasn't bad enough, I've also wrecked havoc on my finances with the purchase of a Nikon D70 to replace my broken 4500, along with a Nikkor 28-200mm lens to go with it. And if THAT wasn't enough, I also spent a staggering sum at my out-of-network Optometrist's office for new contacts and glasses. You could argue that this counts as a necessity and can't be helped, but since I've been coveting a pair of sexy, librarian glasses for some time, I know in my heart that it was really just another splurge.

Once I have all of the above in my possession (camera, lens and glasses) I will of course, post a photo.

So after a heartfelt consultation with my running soulmate Connie, we decided....despite everything, stress fractures, romance traumas, work dramas, and travel complications...we were going to pick a date and focus and that date would be June 18th...Grandma's Marathon.

Duluth fucking Minnesota?? What was I thinking!? But then I've only only ever heard good things about this race, so why not? The race filled to capacity in 14 days last year, so I filled out the form the first day they posted it on the web (today) and chequed it, licked it, stamped it and posted it and now I'll just wait and see what happens. Hell, it could be fun.

Besides that...not much. The cough is getting better. The new glasses arrived and they are tres cute indeed. No camera lens yet though, so you can't see what they look like. Soon...

Oh, also, if anyone wants a gmail account? I've got some invites. Email me if you're wanting one.

2005 Drinks to date:..52.....Miles:..23 1/2

They might not be the most flattering shots I've ever taken....

But the fact remains that the D70 is one amazing camera. Me gusta mucha y traeré detrás las fotografías hermosas de Colombia. The glasses I'm still on the fence about, but I am getting used to them. I still have to learn to truly embrace my inner nerd.

On the work front, the president of my division spoke to us this morning. He's a nice guy, and well respected, but very slick and very polished and I'm not sure how much new information we really know after his q&a session. He did say not to expect major staffing changes after Dan retires, but that we would be phasing in some pretty dramatic reformatting of the broadcast. In the course of describing the changes, he kept refering to "the anchor or anchor-like character or characters", which drew some chuckles, but wasn't entirely enlightening.

My cough is slowly subsiding as the temperature sluggishly rises and the ice on the park drive starts to melt, so I'm hoping to perhaps get in a run on Friday morning.

2005 Drinks to date:..53.....Miles:..23 1/2

My only real excuse for still not running at this point is this annoying cough that won't go away, but I am on antibiotics now and with any luck, those will do the trick in the next couple of days. For what it's worth though, this is what my regular running trail looks like right now, so I'm probably just as well off taking a break right now.

So instead of fortifying my muscles this weekend, I worked on enriching my brain a bit and tagged along with Jen to the Rubens exhibit at the Met. Nothing like pudgy renaissance chicks to make you feel like you're not really that out of shape after all.

I walked back across the park afterwards and played with the new camera a bit and now I'm supposed to be getting ready to go to Olya's party out in Brooklyn. This will be my first real outing with the camera and I'm almost as excited about that as I am about the caviar and lobster that are usually at these Russian birthday extravaganzas. I just have to be extra careful not to spill Vodka on the Nikon...