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March 24, 2006
I Am a Rock...
...apparently. The woman who screened my bone density at the More Marathon expo today told me that I was like that comic book character who is a rock (any comic book experts out there?). I had never had a screening before and while I was confident that with my dairy intake and my (at times excessive) weight-bearing activities I probably was at low risk for osteoporosis, there was a very small but vocal bit of doubt running around in my head. When I was in college, because of stress due to overtraining I was amenorrheal for a little over two years. It was an intensity issue rather than a mileage issue (my mileage hovered around 50-65 miles per week, depending on the season), I think -- I just never let up. My "recovery" runs were done at 6:30-6:40 pace, sometimes faster... not all that much slower than my race pace. When I look back on my college cross-country "career," such as it was, I realize that my Sunday long runs were generally tougher, effort-wise, than Saturday races. By my sophomore year I was so run down that I was sick all the time -- any germ that came my way took me down. But I somehow failed to connect anything -- the constant illnesses, the poor race times, the missing periods -- to my frantic training intensity. Finally, my junior year, a coach came along who forced me to actually take easy days, and who refused to let me add intervals to workouts if I felt I hadn't worked hard enough. But I've always worried that those two years would have a detrimental effect on my bone density. Apparently not. Or maybe I would be even further off the chart than I am if not for those years.
Running... I've been a bit under the weather for the last week or so (I think I've had the super-mild version of the 'flu that you get if you've been vaccinated), so my runs have been a pretty draggy business. A little distressing because I was looking forward to getting some good trail runs in while home for spring break. I did a tempo workout yesterday (20 min. T/10 min. E/10 min. T) on cool, dark, silent streets. It's so nice to be able to do a workout outside at 10:30 at night and feel perfectly safe. When after 10 PM you have to get your gatorade from the neighborhood gas station quicki mart through a drawer similar to those at bank drive-thrus from an attendant who shouts to you through thick plexi-glass, it's pretty tough to feel comfortable running the streets (or even the lake path).
Today I did 7 and 1/2 in Central Park with my friend E. The run capped off a fun day of bridesmaid-dress-shopping (E. is getting married this summer), marathon expo-going, and frozen custard-hunting with my two closest friends. Ever since I had some frozen custard last year in the midwest and raved about it, my friend E. has been determined to find some in NYC and try it. Turns out the only place to get frozen custard in NYC is "The Shake Shack" in Madison Square Park (they also were apparently awarded the prize for best burger in New York in 2005 by New York Magazine, a fact I wish I had known before I ate a rather indifferent turkey sandwich for lunch). So, after some dress shopping and lunch, we headed to "The Shake Shack" and E. got her frozen custard. That turned out to be our most successful venture of the day, as we never found a dress we liked, and our projected 10-miler got reduced to 7.5 so we would have time to have dinner with our friend J. before she had to rush off to the opera. So, in all, I guess we accomplished pretty much what we set out to accomplish.
Posted by alweiss at March 24, 2006 10:30 PM
Comments
Hi. When I read a personal account of any sort, sometimes a song will come up based on a word ot recurring words. Spontaneously I find myself "visualizing" the actions of the words used (as in this case "bone density test" - which i have never taken but would be curious about). To existentially metaphorize downwards and make a human-to-machine parallel, it's like a music pop-up window suddenly materializes in the brain's desktop. It happended recently with a post by Alison she ended with "I will survive". I guess it could be called "cerebral-intra-multimediality", of far earlier origins than its IT counterpart. I read something and lay my own soundtrack to it. To make a complex thought short, I am reading your post and the first song that came up with "bone density test" was - based on your preoccupation - "bad to the bone" by George Thorogood: like you were worried about "bad bones." I would have posted the lyrics here for fun, but as i only remembered the refrain, I went to look at the lyrics and I thought they could be misinterpreted if just printed. And then I started to wonder about just how much music is heard without really listening. In fact I think about how it is not straightforward at all to be a good listener. Especially with danceable and heavily rhythmic music. But in fact, how hard it is to listen well in general. Just a thought. And while we are on the topic I would extend the challenge to accurately listening to ourselves: that could be quite an (a runner's) accomplishment. bests, corrado
Posted by: corrado giambalvo at March 25, 2006 05:15 AM
The thing I remember about your first year is how we used to go into the races so tired, we'd run poorly... then come out on Sunday upset with ourselves, and hammer the Sunday run, and all through the week, repeating the cycle. It was intensely frustrating... *until* the last weeks, when we finally started getting some recovery, and our times started dropping. I ran faster in those last weeks then I have since...
Posted by: pjm at March 26, 2006 08:35 AM
I loved this entry. I think overtraining is a "rite of passage" for us crazy runners . . . we all do it at least once (or twice, or three times) and then we are amazed at how quickly our race times dip once we take more easy/rest days.
Posted by: bridget at March 26, 2006 10:20 AM
Frozen custard... Not far down the road from here is one of the locations of the "most famousest" frozen custard west of the Mississippi: TED DREWES!! YEEHAW!!! Step right up, wait thirty minutes in line, and get yer concotion with midwestern flavor that would impress the pants offa Fitzgerald himself. They even gots there own website!
p.s. This comment is an attempt at a parody of one of this fine establishment's "local commercials," the quality of which I'm sure does not improve as one moves from locale to locale.
Posted by: stephen at March 30, 2006 11:12 PM