Tag: half marathon

Running Through It

In January, a friend asked if writing has interrupted my running goals. I have been ruminating on the question since then, including since I first started drafting this post in March (if that explains at all how this year has been going). I also found it so hard to answer, important to mull over, because writing and running are integral to my every day. I find time to move, time to write. It’s all creative to me. It’s always happening within me, even if I’m not actually writing or running in the moment. I started a blog called POETS THAT SWEAT, after all.

Prioritizing book event opportunities did change my racing schedule. I was out of Baltimore for many spring races. Evening engagements made me a group run ghost. I was spending time with writing friends in ways I hadn’t done since before the pandemic. I loved that time. We always need more time.

What I didn’t choose was severe lung inflammation, stoked by a major allergy flare before some updated allergy testing, then some ugly bloodwork I’m continuing to investigate. The ENT & allergist saw how a week without antihistamine to do some allergy testing caused my joints to swell, caused intense full-body joint pain. With endometriosis and my hypermobility, I have some big-picture concerns still to be determined. 

I managed to run this spring, though scaled back. Rather than racing, runs were connected to travel. During AWP in March, I scheduled my flights to have extra time to run. This was, of course, planned before the severe allergy flare, but I managed to have a good time. All while my friend and AWP roommate heard my breathing suffer.

First, I explored the Santa Monica Pier. I had started a daily steroid inhaler a couple days before getting to LA. My lung inflammation was so severe at that point that a half-mile easy jog was nearly impossible. I jog-walked for about 2 hours, taking in Venice Beach, Muscle Beach, skaters grooving to Fugazi, with Andrew McMahon in my head. I ate cash-only churros from a local vendor next to the end of Route 66.

The steroids continued their magic over the next five days. I was able to close the trip with an epic 14 mile run from Griffith Park to the Hollywood sign, The Last House on Mulholland Drive, Angel’s Frank Lloyd Wright crypt, then through the Los Feliz neighborhood. I think about the route all the time. The smooth dirt trails, the coyote quietly searching, the misty haze blanketing the city, the ranch tucked in a valley. I can see why so many people find magic there.

I had a quick weekend in NOLA in mid April for the New Orleans Poetry Festival. My lungs were so much better by then. I even had a chance to run around the art museum with a poetry friend, talking mostly about running and some about poetry.

My partner and I went on a road trip to Big Bend National Park for the last half on May. The trip deserves its own post. I have a notebook full of notes from Roadside Geology, tour guides, and observations. I’ve seen movies set in West Texas, looked at pictures, but the expansive land has an immense beauty I have trouble giving language. The best I can do is say I felt in my bones a depth that only scratches the surface of what indigenous people have seen in the land for thousands of years. I wasn’t able to get any readings scheduled during the trip, so I did some pop-up roadside recordings that I called “We’re All Oddities: Roadside Book Tour” on my Instagram.

I look to ultra-athletes with chronic illness, like Devon Yanko and Grayson Murphy, to not be afraid to keep finding new ways to explore. I’ve expressed this before – I’d be in pain if I wasn’t running. Why not have some fun? I have a tentative massive goal for 2027 that involves going to the Salton Sea. First, I have a road half-marathon to take on in October. Like I mentioned, I’m in the middle of testing to see if the doctor can pinpoint SOMETHING that’s causing unbearable fatigue. It’s going to take up most of my fall, but I refuse to pause my life.

Books I’m thinking about / recently read:

  • Mountain Amnesia by Gale Marie Thompson
  • Between Two Kingdoms by Suleika Jaouad
  • Recollections of My Nonexistence by Rebecca Sonlit

Stay sweaty and glittery. None of us are free until all of us are free.

I am deceased

Nothing more unnerving than being a thing.
-Dorothea Lasky, Milk

My first attempt at a longer trail race…was an experience. Not quite unnerving, but felt very much like I didn’t want to be a body. I ran the Hyner Trail Half Marathon yesterday. Quite a few people gave me useful, practical advice beforehand about the course and the climbs, yet the real time experience left me feeling deceased by mile 5. It was a 14 mile race—those last 9 miles were straight guts / wondering if I was a ghost.

I had a little pity party on Strava, so I’d rather focus on additional pieces of the race that struck me in a positive way:

  • PA Trail Dogs put on such a fun race—from clear communication about how to get to the start in a remote area to delightful folks at the aid stations. I am keeping tabs of more races they host throughout the year. The group maintains Central PA trails, and at the adult races, they use proceeds to fund trail races for kids.
  • Pennsylvania trail runners absolutely crush descents. I was told to watch for this before the race, and then every time I saw it happen as I was passed, I would tell the runner they were incredible.
  • Bless the aid stations. I took a spill on a root of a flat section about a half mile before the mile 8 aid station. Correct, I didn’t fall on a technical section. I paused to try to decide if I should just call it an 8 mile training run. I had pickle juice, ginger ale, and then one of the volunteers looked at me while I was sipping coke and said “want some Fireball?” I added some in my soda. This is not a road race, kids.
  • It was not the final climb (so many steep climbs, I misunderstood the elevation chart and expected more rolling hills, my bad), but there was a climb again after the mile 11 aid station. As I stared at the ascent, the speaker at the station started playing “Come Out and Play.” The rage of The Offspring came when I needed it. I did not exactly charge up the hill in my state, but it was a decent effort.
  • A man was playing a banjo and drinking from a growler around mile 12— other runners acknowledged him so I know I wasn’t hallucinating. I told him he was doing it right, we had a brief laugh.
  • I have such a good time with my brother. I was talking about Wineglass and how I never want to hear a race is net downhill ever again, so after I finished Hyner he was like “Well, this race was net downhill. The finish is below the start line.” LOL I had a good laugh in my frustrated post-race mood.
  • Lighter shoes are not always better. I definitely wore the wrong shoes. No, a different shoe wouldn’t take me from a 14 minute-mile struggle descent on switchbacks to an 8 minute-mile send-it, but my toes were not protected enough in my beloved Adidas Terrex Speed Ultra. I thought “race” and brought them, but I should have brought my Altras (I don’t know the model because I bought them so long ago, they are basically Hummers for my feet). My toes were tenderized by all the slamming downhill early in the race. They needed more protection on the descents.

I’ve already debriefed a bit with my coach, and I’m excited to add more long trail efforts to my training and to hit more races. I love the controlled chaos of trail running, and the camaraderie after. I’ll take a few days off, then be back out there logging longer miles for bigger goals, and having a good time with the Faster Bastards Oberhills crew.

Books I’m thinking about / recently read:

  • Milk  by Dorothea Lasky
  • The 2000s Made Me Gay by Grace Perry
  • I’m So Fine by Khadijah Queen

Stay sweaty and glittery. Black Lives Matter.