Not Random (Poem)
When our smiles overlapped
And we joked about
Vanilla latté promises
Toilet paper ideas
Watching a TV that wasn’t really there
Our backs were to the door…
What time was it
When you killed the cockroach, the kitchen critter?
I couldn’t understand HOW.
I didn’t think you had it in you.
What time was it
When the lava lamp exploded
And your screams locked the door?
My votives flared with rage…
What time was it
When you shaved off your milk mustache
And painted a shadow?
Your alarm clock woke me
I still don’t know how to turn it off.
Published in The Ebbing Tide, an anthology by the National Library of Poetry.
Sore Muscles, Broad Smiles (Prose Excerpt)
When I began training, the furthest I had ever run was a 12K, or approximately 7.3 miles. The first few weeks of my rookie chart seemed feasible, but the thought of running 10 miles–or more–seemed untenable. Regardless of my fears, I kept at it, and running began to take over my life. I ate constantly, but lost weight. I spent extra money on better shorts,I charted how many miles each pair of sneakers used, and I bored everyone in my home with runner’s talk.
Each week of the program consisted of two short runs, a medium run, and a long run. In Denver, greeted by a great blue heron, I explored the Platte River bike path in both directions, always in the morning before the summer heat ruined the experience. By the time I was up to 6 miles as my long run, I was visiting my family in New York City in July. Running along the Hudson River one morning, I was delighted to be startled by a flock of wild blue Monk parrots. When I reached 8 miles, and eventually 12, I was in the Adirondacks, exploring deserted snowmobile trails which spilled over with wildflowers and were bordered by mountain vistas. I learned to run with the necessary water, peanut butter packs, and chewy electrolyte blocks for fuel. I used safety pins to attach the edible items to my shorts, since I did not plan to run the marathon with a backpack. I saw very few people during these Adirondack runs, but my mileage tracker proved I was doing the work. As a reward for running early in the mornings, I could sneak into the lake for a skinny dip right after running. I did have massages regularly once I returned to Denver, but even my massage therapist was convinced that the lake had a part in keeping me injury-free. My return to Denver at the conclusion of summer was slow, as we drove across the country. On one training run, I followed a bike path in South Bend, Indiana at 6:30am. On my first morning back in Denver, after living at sea level for the 6 weeks prior, I ran 14 miles. It was painful to be back at elevation, but I pushed through. The days grew cooler as fall approached, and soon I was faced with a new challenge. The water fountains along the bike path were shut off to avoid freezing the pipes. There was only so much water I could carry with me, and I had to be able to refill. One day, I drove along the Platte River, parallel to the bike path, and hid bottles of water in bushes along the route. I wasn’t positive I would remember the exact locations, so I hid extras. Fortunately, as the Marathon Rookie plan wound down, I only had two really long runs left–18 miles, and then 20 miles. The idea behind the training plan is to run no more than 20 or 21 miles before the actual race. What follows is three weeks to taper down the mileage, and to rest up before the big day.
On my final long run of 20 miles, I ran from my house in southwest Denver to Sports Authority Field and back. In past weeks, I had run 17 miles during the morning, and survived to perform in the orchestra pit of a 3 hour opera that night. After the 20 mile run, I was thrilled to have an empty schedule for the rest of the day. My legs were sore, but my smile was broad.
During the week leading up to the marathon, I chose my lucky outfit, my favorite flavor of electrolyte blocks (it was margarita–which included salt to counterbalance the sodium loss during sweating) and slept as much as possible. There were rumors of some sort of hurricane heading towards the east coast during Marathon weekend, but I tossed that aside. What kind of little storm could possibly stop the New York Marathon?