#379: A Christmas Day Run

Nephew.. keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine. - A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens.


So here's how I kept Christmas this year:

‎32° 10.01mi/2:07:47 @ 9:15. AGL/ParkersMill Loop. Adidas Grey. 5:00 run/0:45 walk. Splits: 12:53 12:11 12:12 12:15 12:33 12:54 12:55 13:17 13:18 13:10.. Once you're off the highway, this is a beautiful course. Hills, farms, horses, South Elkhorn Creek. Perfect Christmas run.

It was still dark when the dogs woke me. I let them out and bundled up next to Mrs P for a few extra minutes. Before long, Clare started yipping and a smoke alarm started the chirp that tells you it's time to remove the battery and forget to replace it until the time changes again. I got up and fumbled with the thing for a while, then let the dogs back into the house and gave them breakfast. Put on a pot of coffee. Pulled on the running clothes I had laid out last night. Made some toast.


Even under the best circumstances, it's a bit of a chore to get Mrs P up and moving on Sunday morning. Of course, last night we were at church until late, then we came home and made our final preparations for Santa's arrival, (just in case, you know?) I was pretty confident she would be sleeping in this Christmas. The dogs returned to their naps, and I opened up mapmyrun.com to find a route for the morning. There is a road near our home I've been wanting to run, but it's pretty narrow and I worry about traffic. I figured Christmas morning was likely to be a low volume time, so I laid it out. 10 miles. Rolling hils. Country roads. Just my style.


While I was there, I did a search and checked out the route for the Pittsburgh Marathon. Man, it looks so brutal. There's a nearly 200 ft climb from mile 11 to mile 12. That's steeper than anything I've ever tried to run. I'm going to need to spend some time in the mountains this winter.


Once the sun had come out and the temperature had risen to a balmy 32°, I put on my warm-up suit and reflective vest and hit the road. The morning was just beautiful. The steely gray sky gradually warmed to clear blue as the day warmed my face. The first 3 miles are along a highway that I have driven many times. It's such a different perspective when you run. At one point, a bunny loped along ahead of me, by the side of the road. I'm not sure if he was running away, or trying to coax a tortoise into a race. We had fun for a few yards, anyway. My route took me past my beloved Actors' Guild, then turned toward farmland. This little road follows the banks of South Elkhorn Creek for a while, then climbs up toward Bluegrass Airport. Running past horse farms on a sunny morning is heavenly. Doing it on Christmas morning defies any language I can put together. I can't explain this, but when I'm running, I find the smell of horse manure in a field to be so exhilarating. It smells of earth and life and it's just so... I don't know... pure, you know? 


It got me thinking about Joseph. Poor, old, quiet Joseph. He had to walk a long way, a lot longer than I ran this morning. He had a young finance who had turned up mysteriously pregnant. He had a dream telling him he should marry her anyway. Now, he had the Romans calling him back to Bethlehem for a "census," whatever that meant. Probably more taxes. This was no way to start the winter. Then, when he finally dragged his little family into town, they couldn't find a bed. Wound up sleeping in the barn. Surrounded by animals. The smell of horse manure. I wonder if the carpenter from Nazareth took any comfort from that. Sitting there awake while his wife delivered somebody's child in the straw. Smelling the animals. Hearing their breathing and shuffling feet. And once it was all over, and Mary slept with the child on her breast. Did Joseph put his head down in the straw and look up at the stars, breathing in the earthy smells of the stable, wondering what just happened, and what it would mean for him and his bride-to-be? Before long, Joseph would be walking again, the Gospels tell us. This time, he walked all the way to Egypt while Herod hunted for the little boy hidden in swaddling clothes, riding in his mother's arms on a donkey laden with gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Myrrh. Just what a newborn needs. Maybe he could sell it when they got to Egypt to buy some tools. I wonder if Joseph had any hope in his heart, in the midst of all that confusion. He was doing his best to do the right thing, and it was turning out to be more difficult than anyone could have anticipated. He would marry the girl. He would raise the boy. He would pretend nothing was wrong, that he couldn't hear the snickers, that it didn't hurt to know his wife had been unfaithful. He did it for the sake of the child; for the sake of the woman. He did the right thing. And in a way, Joseph taught his son how to do the right thing; even when it hurt; even when it made no sense; even when it cost more than anyone could have imagined. 


I made it home just as Mrs P was wrapping the last present. She got a set of Harry Potter DVD's. I got two books on marathons by Jeff Galloway and Grete Waitz. We went out to Hunan for dinner, but didn't have the Chinese Turkey. Now, as I type, three dogs are stretched out on the floor, Clare is curled up in my chair, Kizzie is sleeping on a blanket in front of the heating vent in our bedroom, and Maggie is rolled up in a ball on our bed. Mrs P is reading. It's as perfect a Christmas as I can imagine. I hope old Joseph got to enjoy one or two in his life. That's the best part about Christmas. It's the night Hope was born.

He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms.

Peace, and Merry Christmas
Pennsy

#378: The Law of the Pack

Mom always tried to get me to write thank you notes. For reasons I cannot explain, I resisted her efforts. Wicked child. I didn't know what to say. As if "Thank You," just wasn't original enough somehow.

I've always wanted to be impressive. Umpteen years ago, this blog started under the title Pennsyltuckian.  I started blogging to share my deep insights into God, the Universe, and Everything with a world that was starving for my wisdom and eloquence. The more I wrote, the less impressed I grew with myself. The more words I typed, the more I realized how little I really had to say. The truth is, I didn't know squat about God, the Universe, or Anything. Fortunately, God's wisdom had a course of graduate studies in mind for me. I'm still not nearly as original, wise, or insightful as I want to be, but I do have a PhD in Gratitude. Here's an extract from my dissertation.

I am grateful for the Pack. I live in a world that idolizes the lone wolf, the man who can stand on his own two feet. He think for himself, takes care of his own, minds his business, and keeps his own counsel. I tried so long to be that man.

Maggie

We had cats for years. Lions live together, but most cats are lonely people. Given her 'druthers, Maggie and Kizzie would spend their whole lives curled up in a warm spot, purring quietly, contemplating the mysteries of the universe and occasionally taunting the dogs through the baby gate. Their encounters with each other can be civil and affectionate, even tender, but they always carry a tinder-box in their back pocket.  They will hop up onto the bed when the mood strikes them, but neither is much for hugging. You can love a cat with all your heart, but the cat will always her limits.

Leader of the Pack?

Dogs live in the Pack. They hunt together, sleep together, raise their pups together. The dogs in my life have shown me how to love without limits. We play in the rain. We run in the grass. They have welcomed me into their world, though I can't do a thing for them except scoop dry nasty chunks of food into a bowl a couple times a day. It's a poor substitute for the game they were created to hunt and share in the wild, but they are grateful. I love all the creatures who share my home, but I will never be "one of the cats." The dogs have taken me in as one of their own. They even let me think I'm in charge from time to time.

Humans are slow, weak creatures. Compared to our brothers and sisters in the wild, we are not fast or strong. We can't see our food or smell danger. Our claws are short and brittle, our teeth flat and dull. The one advantage a human has is a brain. We're smart. And our ancestors were smart enough to realize that the only way for us to survive was if we lived together. We learned the law of the Pack. Mrs P likes to tell me, "Everything we do is better when we do it together." As always, she is right.

"We are the Duck!"

When I lost my job, I found a group of people struggling together to make it in the world. We traveled in small groups, trying to sell insurance to people who, for the most part, didn't want to see our faces, let alone buy our products. It could have been a lonely, depressing life - and the truth is, I sucked at selling insurance - but I found a pack who cared about one another. We understood one another's struggles, and when one of us was in trouble, the rest of us were willing to come to their aid. A few succeeded in the business, most of us didn't, but all of us found strength and love in that strange, wonderful Pack.

Stolen image, but this is what crazy feels like.

When I lost my mind, Mrs P knew she couldn't pull me back to sanity by herself, and that I couldn't help myself, either. She took me to the nut house. I spent 10 days there, taking pills, walking the halls, living without shoelaces or a belt. Afterwards, I was in an outpatient program for a month. I met with shrinks and counselors and social workers and big burly types who always showed up when one of us got out of hand. Those people were great. But the most important part of my healing happened in the big room in the middle of the ward, when all the professionals were in their offices doing paperwork, and the nuts would sit together and share our stories. We were depressed housewives, battered lovers, broken-hearted soldiers, grieving orphans. We had been fired, raped, dumped on, cheated on, and born with wired crossed in our heads. Most of us knew what it was to face the choice between life and death, and many of us had tried to choose death. Some of us had days when the pain of getting out of bed was just too great. One by one, we would stop by their room, like a little den, and offer to listen. We didn't have to ask how they were doing. We knew. All we could offer was our presence. The safety of the pack. There were no miracle cures in the nut house. We all went in crippled, and we all came out limping, but we were all a little stronger for the time we had spent together.

If you've been following FMR, you know my cancer story. I'm always blabbing about it. I wonder if people get sick of hearing it. But then I think of the people who might need to hear: the people who stare at the ceiling in the dark, worrying about a cough or a lump or a spot of blood that shouldn't be there; the people waiting for the results of tests that will change their lives; the people who haven't yet decided whether to fight or give up; the ones whose hope is fading; the weary cancer fighters who feel like old lions, left behind to die; the ones who love people with cancer, who don't know how to help and don't know how to keep fighting. Most of the people who hear my story won't need to hear it, but some will. That's my job. They are my Pack.

The Strong Eight - cancer warriors

My Wife. My Mother. My sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles. The friends who call and pray. The strangers who weep and nod in recognition. The church that never gave up on me, when I gave up on it. The theatre who played on my behalf and welcomed me back when the time was right. The Head and Neck Support group who shared my whole healing journey with me, from puking and oxygen tanks to my first half-marathon. The men and women at the YMCA, some vets of the cancer wars, some simply people who loved us, who came together to sweat and laugh and cry for joy at the life we have been given. The lady at the gas station who told me she was having a great day because "I'm a ten year breast cancer survivor." The man who had just had his prostate removed and was afraid he would never make love again. A guy who won the Tour de France seven times. A woman who had just been told she had started her third relapse of ovarian cancer. The people who take the time to read FMR. They are my Pack. You are my Pack.

And so this is Christmas: The Feast of the Incarnation. Believe what you want. Celebrate how you like. In my house, we celebrate the day God turned to creation and whispered, "You are my Pack. I am one of you. We are more whole when we are together. You are the source of love in my life, and I am yours. We each have our own stories. We live our own lives. But our lives are better because we are together."

Emmanuel.

God is with us.

And we are with one another.

The Law of the Pack.

Thanks be to God.

Peace,

Pennsy

#377: Don't Wait Till You Get Cancer

Don't wait till you get cancer,
To decide why you want to stay alive,
To live as if you mattered,
To embrace what is precious.

Don't wait till you look Death in his unblinking eyes,
To start living,
As if every moment were a chance,
To help a miracle happen.

Before you need an army standing by your side,
Fighting for your life,
As if your life were worth the trouble,
Start fighting for yourself.

When you wake up in the morning
And the day begins, no matter how much you dread it,
Trust that there is something wonderful in it,
Just because you woke up.

Sweat the small stuff,
A friend's broken heart, A stranger's tear,
As if you were meeting the most important person in the universe,
Because that's just what you are doing.

 Being broken is not a sin,
Staying broken is;
Find your portion of strength
And healing will follow.

Pour yourself out to the world,
And you will be an empty vessel;
Fill yourself to overflowing,
Become a fountain of blessing.

God created everything and called it good,
Take Him at His word;
You are a beloved creation,
Made in the image of holiness.

Don't wait till you get cancer,
To stop hurting yourself,
To ask "Why?"
To pick your battles,
To dance your dance;

Choose
What you want to love,
Where your heart will be,
What you want to become,
Whom you will serve;

Take
Life from your Maker,
Humility from your victories,
Compassion from your suffering;

Give
Hope to the fearful one,
Comfort to the sufferer,
Company to the lonely,
Courage to the battered.

Cancer changed my life;
I am a better man than I have ever been;
I know now what I have always known;
I've stopped living as if there are more important things than love.

Don't wait till you get cancer,
To live;
Don't waste another second of your beautiful life;
Every moment is a chance,
To help a miracle happen.

Peace,

Pennsy

#376: You Only Get One Chance at your First Marathon

Pennsyltucky dreaming...

I now have 26.2 reasons to look forward to the new year. I sent the money in, and I’m registered to run the Pittsburgh Marathon on May 6. It is a long way, but then, so was 13.1. And 6.2. And 3.1. I thought 1.8 was going to kill me. And then there was that morning I had to stop and rest after crossing the street. A full marathon is a long way. But I know I can run one step. I’ll just keep doing that. Am I nervous? Yeah. Do I have a plan? Also, yeah.

I’m using a program from Galloway TrainingPrograms. It’s designed to prepare a first-timer to finish the race without injury and without swearing to never run another one. No speed records. No near-death experiences. No puking. After all, since it’s my first, no matter what time I get is going to be a personal best.

I’m doing two training runs a week to build strength and maintain conditioning, with a Long Slow Run (LSR) on the weekends. That will give my old joints plenty of time to recover between workouts. On Monday and Wednesday, I’ll be cross-training (XT). XT is the work you do because you’re too crazy to take a day off, but you don’t want to kill yourself. At least that’s how I understand it.

I have a lot of options for XT: weight lifting, circuit training, swimming, spinning, body-weight training, Pilates, TRX. I intend to mix them up to keep things interesting. I have three goals in cross-training.

1.      Continue building my endurance. Nothing matters more in long distance running. It doesn’t matter how fast you can run if you can’t keep going all the way to the end.

2.      Build core strength. Not just my abs. The skin around my belly is so stretched out, I don’t ever expect to see a six-pack, but I do need a strong center. That includes the whole abdominal girdle, stomach, sides, butt, and lower back. It’s important to give the running muscles a recovery day, so I won’t be doing so much leg work while I’m training for the race.

3.      Dump some ballast. I want to get my weight down about 15 pounds. When I’m climbing up that hill to Oakland, I don’t want to carry more than I have to.

4.      Get pretty. This is my vanity goal. I want to look better in a tee-shirt. I tend to overlook bench presses and curls and such movements because they’re so isolated. I’m going to take the opportunity to focus more on my upper body: arms, shoulders, chest, and back. I confess, there is a macho man hiding inside me, longing to come out and kick sand in cancer’s face.

I also have the Run the BluegrassHalf-Marathon tucked into my calendar on March 31. That fits nicely into my schedule as a tune-up for the big one. There’s also something poetic about running races in Kentucky and Pennsylvania this spring that warms my Pennsyltucky heart.

I’m planning a major fundraiser to go along with this race. I’ll have more to tell you about that later. I’ll only get one chance to run my first marathon, and I want to make the most of it. As always, FMR will be a big part of that journey.

I look forward to traveling with you.

Peace,

Pennsy

#375: Casting Call for Actors' Guild Runners and Walkers

Do you love Actors' Guild of Lexington? Ever wish you could do more to support their work? Can you run or walk 1.8 miles? Do you like to show off by using phrases like "leverage your network," "viral marketing," and "grassroots philanthropy?" Here's the chance you've been waiting for.

After the success we enjoyed with One for the Five, Team Pennsy is launching a new fund raising effort on January 1 called Keeping the Dream Alive. We'll be training for the Shamrock Shuffle 3K on St Patrick's Day in downtown Lexington. This is a really fun race, an reachable distance, and the kind of lunatic, emerald-clad crowd you would expect on St Paddy's morning. Your registration fee (which is cheap - last year, early registration was $18)  supports Habitat for Humanity, a great cause here in the Bluegrass.

Our efforts will piggy-back on theirs. As a team member, you'll have your own page on Crowdrise.com, just like the one we used to raise $3555 for the Markey Cancer Foundation. Then you can contact your friends, family, or strangers on the street to solicit contributions that help Actors' Guild's work. It's fun. It's easy. And it's good for you. Can't beat that.

But before we start raising money, we need to put a team together. If you would like to join us on the street on March 17, 2012, all you have to do is...

• Go to the Keeping the Dream Alive and join Team Pennsy. Crowdrise has lots of tools to help you get started. And of course, I'm just full of sage advice that's absolutely free. 
• Registration for the 2012 race opens in December. Once we're all signed up and ready to go, we'll begin our campaign early next year. 

I'm really excited at the prospect of building on the generosity and energy or the Lexington theatre community. You were there when I needed you. Now we can be there for each other.

Peace

Pennsy

#374: Scan-ziety: The Fear of Finding Out

Available at Hope and Dreams Designs

Once you've had a positive biopsy for cancer, you can never look at tests the same way again. So I was awake at 3:30 this morning, thinking about my upcoming colonoscopy.

I don't have any symptoms or warning signs. It just seemed to me that it was time to do the thing. I know too many people who waited too long to have it done. I don't want any surprises. On the other hand, finding out is not that pleasant a process.

I first experienced Scan-ziety while waiting for results from the CT scan they ran a month after my last radiation treatment. It seemed to take for ever for the week between the test and the appointment with the doc to pass. I had already spent four weeks wondering if we had gotten it all. Now, somebody out there knew, some radiologist or something, and they weren't telling me. I remember working hard to stay positive, but that didn't stop the haunting thoughts. What if I still have cancer? What if it spread somewhere else? What if my family and I have to go through another few months like we just survived?

As it turned out, all my fears were unfounded. No new growth. Meet my new best friend, "NED," (No Evidence of Disease.) Finally, a happy ending.

It is my impression that when a person goes to war, they never really come all the way home again. Being in a firefight changes them in ways that can never be undone. Cancer is a little like that. Surviving teaches you a lot about your own strength, your own courage. When I'm working out with my LIVESTRONG friends at the gym, and things get really tough, I sometimes joke, "It's not as hard as chemo." Sometimes we all laugh, but often somebody will just nod grit their teeth, and get back to work. Nothing in an exercise class is that hard. Not once you've kicked cancer's ass. Still...

It is always there. The Possibility. Smoking? Drinking? Sexual promiscuity? Obesity? Small potatoes. Nothing puts you in a higher risk group than having had cancer once already. I met a woman at the Y last week who was on her third relapse of ovarian cancer. One of my friends is waiting to find out if she's on her fourth. The Possibility.

You wonder, will the next one be harder? Harder than surviving? Harder than coming back? Harder than a half marathon? You wonder and you worry and you watch the numbers change on the alarm clock and finally you get up and start writing about it because thinking about something else just seems impossible at the moment.

OK, let's face it. There's a lot you can say that's funny about a colonoscopy. Not in good taste, perhaps, but funny. I'm sure that in come Wednesday evening, I'll have plenty of humorous anecdotes about the prep, the procedure, and my recovery from anesthesia which is always a laugh riot. I'll write one of those posts that makes Mum roll her eyes and Mrs P say something like, "Hmmm. Not one of my favorites." We'll all have a chuckle. To tell the truth, I'm not exactly consumed with the drama of the thing, even now.

I'm just thinking about it.

Living with it.

The Possibility.

It may never arrive. It won't ever really go away. But it better think twice before coming back to our house.

We've already kicked its ass once.

Peace,
Pennsy

#373: Numbers, Numbers, Numbers

TALE OF THE TAPE...

	1/20/08	4/27/08	7/20/08	4/16/10*	3/17/11	7/1/11	10/23/11	Change
Weight	405	366	357	397	292	262	261	(1)
BMI	49.3	44.5	42.9	48.4	35.5	32	31.8	(0.2)
Body Fat %	43.8	31.1	31.4		29.1	24.5	23.7	(0.8)
Lean Mass	228	231	245		207	198	199	1
Resting HR	87	70	68		64	62	58	(4)
Neck	19	18	18		17.25	16	16	NC
Shoulders	59.5	55.5	59.5		55	52	52	NC
Chest	58	57	58		50	46.5	47.5	1
L Biceps	15.5	16	18		13.5	13	13	NC
R Biceps	16	16.5	19		14	13	14	1
L Forearm	12.5	12.25	13		11.5	11	11	NC
R Forearm	13	13	13.75		12	11	11.5	0.5
Waist	59	52	50.5	60	46	43	41	(2)
Hips	61.5	57.5	56.5		51	48.5	48	(0.5)
L Thigh	29.5	30	26		27.5	27	25.5	(1.5)
R Thigh	30	30	26		28	27	24	(3)
L Calf	20.25	20	20		18	18	18	NC
R Calf	20.5	20	20		18	18	17.5	(0.5)

*4/16/2010 was the day Pennsy was diagnosed with Cancer.

This update is based on my measurements from Sunday morning, before the Iron Horse.The changes continue, but have slowed down considerably. I plan to spend the rest of the year giving much more attention to the weight room. I want to build some more upper body strength and cut some weight before I start training for the spring races.

RUNNING LOG

68 degrees. 4.17 mi/59:14 @ 2:30(est). Legacy out and back. Red Pegasus. 3:00 run/1:00 walk. PERFECT day. EZ recovery run.

Today's run was an easy recovery jog on the Legacy trail. I deliberately slowed down every time I felt myself starting to slip into my familiar, 11:00/mi pace. I also started experimenting with more frequent and longer walk breaks. The Nike+ site is down, so I don't have split times, but I'm sure they were level. It's the easiest 4 miles I've ever run, and my legs felt a lot better after I was finished. I still had quite a bit of lingering soreness from Sunday's race. I did a little reading, and it seems I did not walk as much as I should have after the half. But this little jog helped a lot.

WEIGHT ROOM
3 sets / 15 reps / Super sets / 1:15 rest between sets

Exercise	Weight
Squats	135
Seated Cable Row	170
Supine Hip Extension	40
Dumbbell Push Press	20
Dumbbell Rotational Lunge	20
Swiss Ball Crunch

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OK, here's how this workout goes... You do one set of squats, then one of rows, then squats, then rows, etc. Once you've done three sets of each, you move on to the next "super-set." this is part of the Fat Loss program from Schuler and Cosgrove's New Rules of Lifting. You know how crunches feel a little wussy sometimes? By the time you get to the crunches at the end of this workout, you have a lot more respect for those little sit-up things. The way I was grunting and groaning, you'd have thought I was pushing a broken down truck.

I didn't intend to do all this today, but I vegged yesterday, and wanted to get back on schedule. I'm looking forward to some exhausting, undramatic days at the gym.

And speaking of the gym... I just got word, I've been hired to work at the Y where I've been working out all summer. I'm so excited to start. I'm hoping I'll be of use... might ever be able to steer some survivors toward the program. And I'll always have an excuse to be at the gym! Fall is shaping up...

Peace,
Pennsy