November Is the Awesomest Month

I’ve been thinking a lot lately, far more than writing.  Obviously.

I had signed up for this year’s NaNoWriMo and finally hatched what I thought was a great idea, but some (good) life circumstances threw me off track in November and I didn’t get more than about 500 words written.  I’m keeping the idea in mind, though, for a future project.  It’s called “101 Ways to Disappoint Your Mother” and it’s borne, in part, of my experience losing my mother earlier this year – and no, it’s not quite as snarky as it sounds.  It in an exploration of (mostly) female relationships: mothers and daughters, sisters, friends – and how they define women. The story starts with an engagement in post-WWII Alabama, and moves on from there.  I have a great deal to flesh out before I even share a lot more about it, so we’ll leave things at that for now.  Let’s just say that it’s in no way a man-bashing book, nor is it a pair of rose-colored glasses strapped onto a vaguely sappy  memoir.  I’m not all about that!

My birthday was on November 15^th.  Early this year, my step-mom shared with me that she was convinced it would be my best birthday ever.  After my mom passed away in February, and Ross struggled to find a better job (while I was still unemployed), that seemed hard to believe.  When Ross’s grandmother died in the summer, it seemed even harder to believe. 

But things started to change.  Actually – things really began to change once we completed the Great Race in September.  It was almost as though we’d accomplished both this huge physical and spiritual event.  Our bodies were aching but we were so incredibly proud that we’d done something that we never thought we could do.  I thought a lot about running as it’s mentioned in the Bible, too.  Paul frequently refers to the Christian life as a race.  It’s all about discipline and endurance.  (If you’re doing it right, anyway!)  Although I didn’t train properly for the Great Race, I had a wonderful first-time experience as a runner and want to continue (once my doctor gives me the okay).  Once we hit that milestone, life started looking up. 

Our Disney vacation soon followed, and I can hardly begin to explain how wonderful it was!  The experience definitely deserves its own post, which I’ll work on soon.  After that, my husband sent me to the Pat Benatar concert on my birthday with one of my best friends, Jaime.  We were pretty much the youngest people there, which I can only guess was quite soothing to Jaime’s “recently thirty” mentality.  Can I just tell you why I have so much respect for Pat Benatar?  First of all, even though her life hasn’t been ideal (she married and divorced quite young), she’s been married to the same man for nearly 30 years.  She has two adult daughters and a healthy relationship with them both.  She’s talented.  She never got into the drugs and alcohol pop star scene.   She’s more than a pair of legs and a voice.  I love that she’s always had a heavy hand in writing her own material.  Her songs are more about female empowerment than about female superiority, which I personally think is awesome.  And she still sounds incredible.  Unlike a lot of pop stars today, Pat Benatar was never really gimmicky.

She sounds great without auto-tuning. 

Ross would have gone with me, but he’d already committed to a men’s weekend (with my blessing) before starting his new job within the company.  He’s still dreaming of his ideal job, and I hardly blame him, but we’re both pleased that he’s now working in Career Services, helping graduates find jobs, rather than trying to remind former and current students that they do, in fact, owe the school money…even if they didn’t complete their schooling.  My poor hubby probably heard the phrase, “What?  I didn’t sign nothing!  I never signed anything!” a dozen times a week a t least.  That can be an incredibly frustrating job, even for a perpetually sunny guy like Ross.  So things are looking up there, too.

We’ve gotten some other pleasant news lately but we’re not ready to share those little details just yet. 

I’m thinking of getting together via the interwebs with my old roomie Megs, who is one of the funniest human being on the planet.  She has three kids, I have three cats.  We both believe in God, but practice our faith differently. Megan is a vegetarian.  I’m an everthing-I’m-not-allergic-to-a-tarian (which means I am, in fact, open-minded in regards to vegetarian cuisine.  To a degree.)  We went to college at Clarion.  We’re both pretty cheesed off at the school right now for the retrenchment debacle, which has decimated all three of our fields of study and basically made us look like fools for choosing such “useless” majors. (psychology, theatre and English).  Together, we’re kind of like generally-not-angry superhero comediennes.  Maybe we’ll start a blog: The Bec and Megs Comedy Minute.  It’ll just be flashes of our status updates.    Kids and cats are funny on their own.  Put them together and you get comedy gold.

Right?

We’ve also brought our outdoor stray into our home, too, which is what officially brought the above housecat total to three.  Freyja goes to the vet tomorrow.  We’ve kept her in her own room for the past week, to get the other cats acclimated to her and also to protect them in the event she’s got fleas or worms (we suspect neither, but you can’t be too careful.  This kitty has been a stray for at least a year, according to our neighbor, and cats, you know…just pick things up.)  She is a gorgeous girl, very gentle and sweet-natured, and she’s never once scratched or bit either of us since she started visiting us in August.  Slowly we worked up to picking her up and cuddling with her, which isn’t her favorite.  But she tolerates it without a lot of fuss.  She has a conversational and very insistent meow, and she is affectionate and likes the infrequent belly rub.  She learned how to sit on command (yes, really.  Loki does it, too.)  She takes treats directly out of my hand.  She has the most beautiful green eyes lined with white fur  and a gray pretty face; she looks kind of glamorous.  She used the litter box immediately, leading me to believe that maybe she’d once been a house cat.  Who would ever want to get rid of such a wonderful little girl?

Problem is, we think she might be preggers.

Leave it to us to have pity on the unexpectedly expectant cat in the neighborhood, right?  I guess we’ll learn tomorrow if Tubbs, the fully-equipped, ugly-faced stray male who sometimes lurks by our house, is gonna be a daddy.  If it’s not him, I’m utterly stumped, since I haven’t seen a single un-neutered male cat in our area other than him.  Not since we found little Thor shivering in the rain two springs ago.

It’s the Christmas season, but I don’t think the acknowledgement of the Virgin Birth extends to local felinity. 

And I Would Walk 500 Miles...

...or at least, you know, jog for about three.

It was The Big Day.  As Pittsburgh welcomed the huge, slightly ridiculous but really adorable floating Rubber Duckie during its Festival of Firsts, people like me - first-time runners - were wondering what this 5K thing was all about...and, maybe, if it was worth it.

Oh, it was.

When I had signed up for the race several months ago, I didn't really know if I could do it.  Like many people (artsy ones in particular), I really struggle finishing projects that I start.  and this was a really big project for me.  I've mentioned in the past that I was diagnosed with asthma when I was a child and dealt with a myriad of respiratory problems during my youth.  Although I haven't had many issues as of late, I didn't know what starting a real exercise program would do to me.  

Turns out, it's actually been great for me.  Since I had started out very gradually, strolling for a half-hour on my lunch break, then slowly increasing it to a 50-minute power walk, I've built up my endurance.  I still need my albuterol sometimes, mostly during seasonal changes or extreme weather (ultra-high humidity and really brisk mornings are hard - and this past week has been particularly difficult), but most days I'm fine without it.  My bigger concern was that I had gotten drastically off-track regarding my Couch to 5K program.  That, coupled with an upper respiratory infection that had been clinging for the pat week, led me to the decision that I would complete the race, but as a walker, not a runner.  And I was okay with that.

Then something crazy and wonderful and magical happened.  As I was in Oakland, in my beloved city on an absolutely picture-perfect day, surrounded by a sea of people in brightly-colored Nikes and battered track pants, I realized that I had no reason to be nervous.  I guess I'd imagined that all 15,500 runners and walkers would be sleek and trim, with calves to kill for and perfectly toned arms.  I thought there was such thing as a "runner's body", but guess what?  There isn't! 

There were heavy-set women in their thirties; skinny, bearded old men who wobbled a bit as they ran; tall, athletic college students who hardly seemed to sweat; scrawny pre-teen girls; lithe, flexible twenty-somethings whose running shorts were a little too short; and young mommies and daddies jogging alongside their children.  And they were all there for one reason: to finish the race.

My former roomie Megan sent me a message encouraging me to do my best, whether it was by walking or running, but, she said, there is something very special about being in a crowd like that - you never know what you are capable of.

She was right.

I started the race with my husband at my side and we were walking briskly.  Almost immediately, I slid into an easy gait and the first mile was down - no sweat. I couldn't believe it.  I hadn't gone for a jog in probably almost three weeks, but there I had it.  Mile one in about fifteen minutes.  And I felt great!

Mile two started with a bit of a hill, and many of the runners and walkers around me slowed a bit.  I did the same, as did Ross, and I lost sight of him.  As I began to struggle a bit for breath, for the first time, I focused on the sounds around me.  The constant slapping of shoes against pavement.  The ragged breathing of the beefy guy behind me.  The nearby "good job, keep going" of the volunteers offering water just up ahead.  The members of Duquesne University's marching band rocking "Eye of the Tiger" to my right.  (No joke - you ever hear that played on a tuba?  So much awesome.)  The day was gorgeous and it was a strange experience to be running the path I had driven so many times when I worked at the Starbucks in Oakland.  I wanted to just gaze up at the bright blue sky, enjoy the crisp air and the sunshine, but I forged ahead.

Mile three, I swear, was going to be the death of me.  The fact that I had not stuck with the Highmark program was now painfully clear as I tried to measure my breathing, ignore the slight cramping in my side, and the sweat that was cascading down my neck and back.  On the sidewalk, here and there, were officials, family members, and volunteers.  I saw two older women who didn't appear to be there to support anyone in particular, so they were cheering for every single person who jogged by.  I thought that was great!  I played songs in my head to keep my feet moving.  I finally settled on "Overcomer", a recent Christian hit that has encouraged me in plenty of ways.  And my feet kept going.  My arms kept pumping.  My breath kept coming.  My heart kept beating.

As I rounded the corner, hitting the three mile-marker and seeing the finish line on my left, I felt tears well up in my eyes.  I had little breath to spare, but I said, out loud, "Mom, I'm doing it!  Mom!  I did it!" and felt that I had defeated my own fears.  I know she would have told me I was crazy (maybe I am).  And asked if I'd taken my inhaler (I did).  Then offered to make my favorite dinner as a victory meal (her oven-breaded chicken, wilted spinach salad [with bacon!], and great big gobs of gooey mac and cheese [with bacon!]).

As soon as I crossed the finish line, raising one weak arm in the air, I felt a wave of nausea overwhelm me and thought, "I am going to vomit here in the park.  With thousands of people watching me.  Oh, my God, I am about to be THAT person."  Thankfully, though, the feeling passed almost immediately and I began to search through the throng of exhausted runners for my husband.  He finally found me, and I noticed that he was holding a banana and an Eat 'n' Park Smiley cookie - and neither one was for me!

"Priorities," he said with a grin.

As our bodies recovered from the happy torture we had just endured, we made our way down to see that yellow duck in the river.  Was it art?  Well...no, probably not.  But man, it was cute.  And it seemed to make the real ducks jealous.  The mallards floating by must have wondered why they, residents of the city rivers for years, had never been given any type of party at all.  We took some cute selfies and wondered how many peoples' pictures we ended up in.  Then we headed to the new coffee shop in Carnegie to celebrate our victory (i.e., survival).

Ultimately, I learned that I completed the race in 39:22, giving me about a twelve and a half minute mile.  I was fairly impressed with myself and thought - how much better could that number have been had I stuck with the program?!  Still - pretty great for an overweight asthmatic!

I haven't run since the Great Race.  Sadly, I pulled my hamstring and it is taking some time to heal.  Not to mention, the recent change in weather has been hard on my asthma and I've been having flare-ups recently.  Still, I'm bundling up at work and walking on my lunch break.  I've maintained my weight.  My PCP was proud of me at my recent wellness check when she learned of my weight loss and regular exercise schedule.  I'm planning on running the Race for the Cure in May to honor several friends, so I'd better get cracking, here.  Soon!

Thank you to all of you who cheered me on  - whether you really thought it could do it or not!  If you want to read my story from start to finish, you can click here, here and here.  I had the honor of sharing my journey via my employer's blog, too - I hope that it was a message of encouragement to everyone who got to read it!

(Currently, the internet isn't letting me post pictures on this blog so you can click on the links above if you want to see some.  I'll update as soon as I can figure out the issue!  -RG 11:00 AM 10/26/13)