cheers...

Over here.

I'm sorry, Mr. Knee. I shouldn't have done that to you.

Rough and unedited. So angry about this I almost don't care how unpolished the syntax is...

So, back in November, I completed a 50-mile race, during which my knee began to act up.

Here we are, almost four months later, and there are still troubles. This is so so so very uncool. With the exception of a three-week hiatus several years ago, I have run most every other day since fall 2001. Since this latest knee business, running's been pretty much out of the picture. If running is in fact addictive (see above re: running a 50-miler), withdrawal symptoms should be long past, right?

My family doctor thought maybe this was a torn lateral meniscus, which is very rare. My first orthopedic surgeon, whose bedside manner was, well, not satisfactory (for the record, the fact that his radiologist left me on the table in me shortpants with the door wide open does not increase my affection for his practice), said I had rough cartilage under my patella, said my xrays look fine, gave me some drugs and for all intents and purposes told me to call him in the morning. Second-opinion orthopedic surgeon sent me to physical therapy. Physical therapist (and all of her colleagues) put me through the works, had lots of good conversations about my weird knee problems and appears to be very curious about what's wrong. Because PT seems not to have fixed things, orthopedic surgeon ordered MRI. Saw OS today to talk about MRIs. MRIs reveal no problems at all. OS says let's do arthroscopy to figure it out.

The whole saga blows. My knee doesn't really bother me unless I run. I get these occasional twinges that feel like a bruise, but they go away quickly. When I run, it's not stabbing and terrible pain, but tenderness that I read to mean something like, "OK, dude. There is something wrong with your knee. If you try to run a marathon, surely things will be wrecked." So I'm faced with the possibility of surgery that doesn't fix things but leaves me with the task of post-op recovery. Or maybe surgery that leads to A-ha! and a fixed knee. Or I could quit running and continue the downward spiral into un-fitness again.

No more ultramarathons. Not that there's anything prima facie wrong with them - plenty of runners do plenty well running more than 26.2. My experience tells me, though, that I should stick to less-than-absurd distances.

test entry

Because this blog fades...

heave ho, me hearties

Can't stop listening to Rogue's Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs, and Chanteys. This is not surprising, as I have a longstanding - if juvenile and unoriginal - thing about the high seas, as it were. Chalk it up to finally getting the best novel, Moby Dick, about 8 years ago. And then realizing that Jaws is probably the best of late 20th-century American film.*

Here is what I would like to say about this collection and the fact that I've had it playing a good 4 hours a night since Tuesday (for the uh... record, there are 43 songs). If you must be unrepentantly maudlin, do it well.

If you hit the iTunes and buy one or two of these, you'll want to go for both Baby Gramps pieces ("Cape Cod Girls" and "The Old Man of the Sea"), "Mingulay Boat Song," the two John C. Reilly (yes, that John C. Reilly) pieces, and... well, I'm taken with most of them. I keep forgetting this is sort of a novelty thing.

* It occurs to me that I've never used this medium to put together a defense of these two claims (Moby Dick and Jaws as the respective peaks of their categories). Maybe someday.

5 things, etc.

Jason has tagged a few of us with this five-things-you-don't-know-about-me meme.

Obviously, an exercise in knowing how much to show without getting in trouble. Kind of like striptease, maybe?

1. ...was prom king in high school.
2. ...am incapable of walking across campus without completing this one little OCD tic.
3. ...watch way more television than seems appropriate.
4. ...am a comparatively slow reader.
5. ...was pretty much written off as a newborn. My parents were told not to hold out much hope. (I don't mean to take this last one lightly, and it's likely that the sentence fragment approach comes of as flip. I have long been told that I had heart failure, and the story was repeatedly pretty regularly. Doctors explained that the odds of my survival were very very low, but I apparently wound up under the care of an uncommonly good neonatal physician who made it happen, much to my relief. As a fifteen-year old, this biographical note was easily picked up for all too obvious ends - the high drama of adolescent self importance, e.g. Now, it's a story with different valences).

So, I'll tag Alianora, now.

buffy-oke

Yes, please.

Buffy sing-a-long. You betcha. Fortunately, we've been rehearsing for a few years, now.

lists and accounts

Went to Georgia for Christmas, and the long drive didn't seem so long as last time.

Drove back from Georgia after Christmas, and This American Life podcasts made the drive sort of rewarding.

Took the train to Philadelphia for the LookHowSmartIAm conference, and we're all very smart. Some smarts are more sanctioned than others. Silliness aside, four of the sessions I took in were absolutely worth the trip. Also, some day I'll see more than the conference center, three hotels, and three restaurants/bars.

Took the train home from Philadelphia, and many of the buildings you can see from trains are abandoned. Some look like big red-brick foundries with chains hanging from the ceiling. Like from one of Kerouac's Lowell novels.

Hosted a New Year's party, and, as ever, had great fun. One should be careful when one gets pushy about themes and gimmickry at one's party. Let's say you decide to give a quiz on the preceding year, for instance... Just be cautious, is all.

Did as little as possible on 1 January.

Here we are.

jfk 50

my (running) goal this year was to finish the jfk 50 mile ultramarathon. more than a few people insist that training for--and running--a fall marathon is sufficient preparation for the ultra. they're right. sort of.

photos are here.

the jfk 50 begins in boonsboro, maryland; there are two starts, one at 5:00 am and another at 7:00. i was part of the 7:00 group, which means i had sunlight on my side. there are really three acts to this ultra. first, the appalachian trail. second, the c&o canal towpath. finally, a stretch of rolling asphalt roads into the finish in williamsport, md.

the course follows a climbing road up to the appalachian trail. we take a right on the trail and run/walk/hike/stay upright for about 13 miles. it's fairly sublime this time of year. more than a quick glance over that clear vista means a twisted ankle, or worse. my neck's sore from staring at rocks, roots, and ruts from the more than three hours on the AT, but it was pretty.

around mile 15, we leave the trail, grateful for the change. whew. next up, a marathon on the flat gravel of the c&o towpath. one of my knees, not really used to trail running and therefore unhappy with the preceding 13 on the AT, began smarting at some point between miles 19 and 21. pretty scary to have a totally unfamiliar pain at mile 20 of 50. had i not been running with a group of friends (more on that below), i just might have dropped out. it hurt. got some tylenol in my system at mile 27 (more on my unmatched course support below, too). things got better in about half an hour. my friend jen, with whom i ran almost the entire race, noted that we'd been running for more than five hours. here's the thing... the hardest part wasn't thinking about how many miles remained. time left was the monster in my mind. the diminishing number of hours to go offered little comfort. really. not even near the end.

the view from the canal was never as monotonous as i thought it would be. i've now seen harper's ferry, shepherdstown, the caves near antietam. it all seems appropriately... old. i ran most of that section with the same 3 or 4 people. made it so much better. we came off the canal for the final 8 miles on the rolling roads. those roads were less forgiving than i'd expected. after about 8 hours on trails and gravel paths, asphalt blows.

ate lots throughout the race. during 5-10K races, aid stations have water and sports drink. 10 milers and half-marathons have more sports drink, maybe some gel. marathons will have lots of water and sports drink, gel, some oranges... at the ultra, you get FOOD. peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, soup, cookies. m&ms, chips, pretzels. i actually think i ate too much between the start and mile 15 or so. i don't want to eat another gel ever.

around mile 47, jen and i allowed ourselves to start thinking about finishing in under 10 hours. we'd been walking 90-105 seconds per mile on the towpath and roads and averaging 10:45-11:00 minute miles. at mile 47, we decided to walk for 30 seconds, and that choice didn't feel so hot. at 48, we walked 90 seconds. at 49, we knew we could make our (brand new) goal of a sub-10 hour finish, so we walked for 28 seconds. that last mile was as agonizing as you might think; the race actually finishes on a slight incline.

finished with jen at 9:58. that's way faster than i'd expected. i've spent the past six months assuring first-time marathoners that one should never ever have a "time goal" for one's first distance race. just finish, and worry about your time next year. and that was totally my plan. no cares at all about when i'd finish, just as long as i beat the 12-hour cut-off. when we realized sub-10 was in sight, i let myself care.

i ran the appalachian trail section with my coach, andy, who finished in 9:27. jen was there, as was reinaldo, who finished in 9:57. my coach (and subsequent co-coach)from the marathon training program, bill, ran the second half of the AT section with us. so nice to have a new contributor to the conversation...

i ran most of the towpath with jen, wendy (another veteran of the marathon program), club member stephanie, and dave (who's a friend of a friend who runs this thing every year and now has 28 finishes). john, one of this year's pace group for the marathon training program, came along for 12 on the towpath. it was very good of him to come along, and i don't think we scared him too much.

i ran most of the last 8 with jen, a jfk veteran (this was her third). she set a new personal record by 15 minutes. on pained knees.

natalie ought to have picked up a medal herself, because she totally made it happen for everyone. during an ultra, you actually need a "crew," someone to show up every once in a while with a change of shoes, some tylenol, your favorite sports drink (pre-beer, anyway). natalie not only did that for me, she also supported four other runners, transported a couple back and forth between meeting points, and generally rocked. truly, without her support, both psychic and nutritional, it would've been a terrible day for me.

today, my knee still hurts (doctor says ice, elevation, nsaids, could be bruised miniscus. also, "i cannot advise running 50 miles."), but not so bad as it did yesterday.

after my three marathons, i've been excited about the next one. after this... tired. when i was trying to get the damn reflective vest off after crossing the finish line, this guy says, "imagine trying to do that after a 100-miler."

no thanks.

not yet, anyway.

help remedy my mistake, would you?

This is probably a little presumptuous, but I need to ask a favor of you.

[In this space, there used to be an unredeemable attempt to allude to an episode of The West Wing in which staffer Donna Moss arranges a sort of swapped-voting deal with a White House Naval officer played by Christian Slater. Something about absentee ballots... While Donna's plan worked out, my efforts to summarize it did not. Alas]

So. I learned recently that Maryland Votes, a no doubt admirable group, whose non-partisan work to register voters (particularly young voters) seems to have gone well, neglected to mail the voter registration form I gave them at a campus rally in late September (well before the deadline for Tuesday). We made an inter-county move, see, and this means my registration needs to reflect that.

This frustrates me to no end. Can't vote. On the phone, folks at both counties' boards of election have said (with varying degrees of confidence) that I can legally vote in the old county, but the clearly printed guidelines on my voter card and at the state board's site indicate in no uncertain terms that voters cannnot go home again, as it were. Voting law is not something I'm into breaking.

Sharing all of this is meant to accomplish three things.

1) Mea culpa for not mailing the form myself
2) Quiet complaint about the fact that an otherwise noble group has sort of let me down
3) I hope it begins to make up for my inability to vote and serves well as the foundation for my plea, which is as follows:

If you're looking for a reason to vote (ideally in MD, but anywhere will do), then have this one. Dave blew it. One less participant in the process. So let's add a participant to the other column.

If you and I know each other already (that is to say, if you and I are old pals), and if you're a local in need of transport, I'll come pick you up and take you to your local polling place. I've promised to volunteer at one polling site in the evening, so it would have to happen in the morning. Friends, let me know.

Like I said... presumptuous.

of recklessness and water*

It's been so long.

For more than a few years now, Natalie and I have initiated every summer with a pledge to take a day trip to the beach. I'm not absolutely confident about my numbers, here, but I think it's been at least four years since either of us has been. As it happens, vague notions about isolating a Saturday at some point between June and September, designating it drive-to-the-beach-day, is a largely inadequate strategy. Extended summer travel has generally been devoted to weddings, family, and... well... come to think of it, maybe we aren't really a summer vacation family. Hmmm.

Of course, I make a public observation about this only because we've now pulled a beach day off. After a morning run, a four-hour drive (with only one missed turn), and a half-hour search for parking, we got about four hours of mindlessness at Bethany Beach on Saturday. Just showed up, took an irresponsible amount of cash out of the ATM, bought some godawfully unhealthy fried food (crab cake sandwich, fried oyster sandwich, fries, chips), and parked among the friendly hordes on the sand. I'm a little skeptical of getting in the ocean, but just sort of felt into it, and so I took a couple of spells in neck-deep water, bobbing like a landlubber with the moderate-for-delmarva waves.

First time I saw the ocean: Summer after 8th grade
First ocean seen: Atlantic
Site of first ocean encounter: Assateague Island National Seashore, Maryland coast
First ocean activity: Bodyboarding
Second ocean activity: Three-foot wave up my nose
Second "ocean" visit: Sandestin, FL
Reason for second "ocean" visit: Effing Spring Break
Outstanding memory of second ocean visit: Listening to the Pixies after going to the cold, cold beach at midnight
Habit(s) adopted during second ocean visit: Drinking
Later ocean visits: Florabama coast; Ocean City, MD; returns to Assateague Island; Folly Beach, SC
Favorite ocean visit (rights to adjust reserved): Sunrise on some May 200X morning, Ocean City
Most ridiculous ocean visit: Father and brother visited spring 2001, drove to Assateague from Silver Spring, MD (approx 3.5 hours), spent 15 minutes on rainy beach, returned to Silver Spring, MD
Rough percentage of ocean visits in cold weather: 40-ish (Assateague x 1, Folly Beach, Ocean City, San-effing-destin)
Frequency of reminding self about what to do in the event of rip current: 1 / 20 minutes
Number of possible items to include in this increasingly unfunny list: between many and many more

* No. I haven't installed the thingy that'll let me allow comments again. I was at the beach.

[Update]

In a laughably pre-Copernican slip, I neglected to mention an entire ocean. Thanks, B, for drawing my attention to the East-coast bias. Sheesh.

And so, let the record show...

Spent a honeymoon morning on Stinson Beach, among wet-suited surfers.

To and from Stinson, drove coastal highway 1 in our rented convertible listening to the right song, over and over.

Years later, spent a weekend in a Malibu rental with a deck. The waves shook the house pretty well (a geographer friend who was there looked over the water, turned to the rocky cliff above, and observed coolly, "well, if the big wave comes, this is not where we oughta be."). Below, we saw starfish on the rocks and heard seals (sea lions? hmmm) at night. Saw porpoises playing. Baby porpoise was doing these skater moves over ma and pa porpoise.

Same trip, went for a run on the ocean-side shoulder of the PCH. That was a dicey choice.

nonono no no noooo! no!

no no no no no no no no! no!

no.

novice again

It's been nearly three years since I "built" this blog under the patient guidance of Jason.

It seems I've learned little if anything about Moveable Type since then, and so this comment spam business has gotten way beyond my mastery. I've turned off comments and trackbacks until I can get some reading done. Once some more effective means of filtering is running, we'll get more dialogic.

It's not as if much has been said here lately, anyway. All is well, but the urge to publicize the days fades.

angry man vs. bus

Dear Man Who Got Too Angry About the Bus Driver's Inadvertant Wrong Turn Today,

Was that really such a terrible thing to have happen? Friday afternoon. Spring break is on deck. The driver was clearly a flustered undergrad. He apologized to you. You looked like faculty. You were, let's face it, kind of uncivil about the whole thing. Sitting over his shoulder for the rest of the drive and scolding him for not making a turn when traffic wasn't really favorable? Sheesh. And that exasperated and oh-so-audible comment to whomever was at the other end of your cell phone call; you know, when you said, "I'll be home AS SOON AS THE BUS GETS ME THERE."

Just thought someone should point that out. There are enough publicly angry people already. I know because I counted once.

Humbly,
Riding Silent

books taken in very lately, with recommendations for and against reading

Off the nightstand, back up on the shelves.

James Frey, A Million Little Pieces. Yes, but only barely, and not for the reasons I would have imagined. Most of the conversation about this book has only reminded us that the standard approach to memoir remains naive.

Sarah Vowell, The Partly Cloudy Patriot. Yes.

Amy Krouse Rosenthal, Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life. Most Absolutely Yes. A memoir about which we ought to talk.

Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking. An unsettled yes.

Linda Greenlaw, The Hungry Ocean. Yes.

Don Delillo, Libra. Whatever.

man vs. citrus

One might reasonably hold that one isn't likely to injure onself with a tangerine.

Friends, be careful peeling the skin of this iffy citrus. If you aren't careful, and your finger slips just so, that little remainder of a stem might make an appointment with the underside of your fingernail. And ouch.