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wombwater

November 21, 2024
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after my father died infarctively in 1983/I resolved to strengthen my own heart/and starting july 4th of that year/ran a distance of at least one mile/at a pace at least as fast as under nine minutes per mile/every single day rain or shine healthy or sick

managing a streak of four hundred and twenty consecutive days/and in the summer of 1984/trained for and finished my first marathon

to keep myself running on a given day/i developed mental games and tricks/to subdivide and conquer a given goal distance

one game was called “candy man” and the simple rule was to pay myself a nickel for every telephone pole i ran past/and when the run was over spend up to that amount of money/on candy and snacks/at one of the many convenience stores operating under the name “circle k”

at that time I could eat all the candy I wanted and not gain weight/because i had a ravenous metabolic furnace

another mental trick was to turn myself into a rider of the rohirrim in the tolkien mythos

a messenger delivering urgent tidings to a safe haven called “wombwater”

and having delivered the message and bathed in the healing waters of a celestial womb i would turn back and head for home/running till there was a mile to go/then clopping on my non-hooves the rest of the way for cooldown

and since my run started at 19th avenue and indian school road/and wombwater was the frontage road just south of orangewood and also on 19th ave/my run became a walk at bethany home road/for a net running distance of four miles

and at that time four miles was optimal for my training

.

as a man in his seventies my mind turns now and then to mortality

and paul simon singing “it’s all gonna fade”

but i yearn for a reality in which i exit galloping/to reach once more the healing haven of wombwater

and be restored

A Life Lesson from 30 years ago

October 22, 2020
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(First published, without illustration, on Facebook, earlier today.)

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There was something important about October 22nd, some significant event in my life, and I couldn’t remember what it was all morning. Now I do. Exactly 30 years ago was October 22nd, 1990. And it was an important day, not for what I did that day, but for what I didn’t do. I didn’t run.

The day before, I was riding high, training for the 1991 Los Angeles Marathon, putting in 40-plus mile weeks, lean and mean. And then about five miles into my run I got a little bit too uncareful, my always-pronated footstrike went awry, and I rolled my ankle, ending up in a heap on the ground. Cried out; made fists; got on hands and knees and then up and onto one foot. Tested a bit of weight on the injured ankle. ZING. YOW. It couldn’t take it, not full weight, not at first.

But run long enough, far enough, and go through things like shin splints and hip pointers, back spasms and side stitches, scrapes and bruises and Feet Full O’ Blisters, and to some extent pain becomes something you see on your mind’s monitor. Technical information. With the ankle that monitor was showing the pain as a slowly decreasing variable with additional beta-endorphins on the way, and the readout was blinking GET ICE ASAP.

Fortunately I was close to work and able to hobble there in short order. Our firm, Aim-Safe, Inc., the family safety-equipment business, had something even better than ice: Cold Packs. Break a seal inside the pack and the endothermic chemical reaction quick-colds the pack, and it’s much more conforming to the injury than a bag of ice.

My foot elevated, the cold pack doing its job, I called Joni, my wife. “I hurt myself,” I said, and asked if she would pick me up at the store. She dropped everything and hurried over, and while she was en route I yielded.to a bit of self-indulgent, self-pitying sobbing.

See, I didn’t know how badly I was hurt. It didn’t seem to be broken, but it was already impressively swollen. Tomorrow there’d be an enormous bruise. What about the Marathon? Was I out?

Here’s what makes October 22nd such an important day. I made a deal with myself on the 21st that during the next four days, no matter how much I felt the counterintuitive urge, I would not put a single ounce of weight on my injured foot. I would stay home from work and I would crawl to the bathroom. I would pretend that Christian Science, which my late grandmother Caroline had practiced, was real and would aid in swift healing. And on the fifth day, October 26th, I would put on my running gear and see what happened.

So 30 years ago today a running streak was broken, and what little I learned from my mother of the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy flitted through my mind. And I imagined the little corpuscular construction crew clearing away debris and rebuilding.

On October 26th I dressed and got to my feet. Ow, but not OW. And I went out and walked, and it seemed to calm the Ow down. After about a quarter mile I started striding, and at about half a mile I began VERY VERY CAREFULLY running. The running wouldn’t count unless I went at least a mile. I managed to go a mile and a half.

The next day, after babying my foot all day, I went out again. This time I was able to do two and a half miles before that mind-monitor edged its needle toward the Red/Danger mark.

And the next day I went five and a half miles. I was back. And to stay back, I literally stayed on track, using the reliable surface of the Phoenix College composition track, which had a nice bit of give/sponginess to it.

And on March 3rd, 1991, with Muhammad Ali high on a platform by the starting line smiling and waving at us, I and at least 10,000 others began our 26.2-mile purgatorial run. I finished the race in a little under 4 hours and 34 minutes, slighly spacey but triumphant. And I ran the next day, and the next, putting together a daily In Sickness and In Health running streak that lasted 576 days.

Today I’m watching THE COLOR OF MONEY. Fast Eddie Felsen, played to perfection by Paul Newman, has just been humiliatingly hustled by a young punk, played to perfection by Forest Whitaker. Eddie then sends Vince and his girlfriend, played to perfection by Tom Cruise and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, respectively, packing. Then Eddie gets his eyes checked, gets some aviator-style prescription glasses, and spends endless hours at the pool table, doing exercise drill after drill after drill. And then and only then does he start Hustling again.

It’s NEVER too late, Friends, to Do Something Great. But the sooner you make that first move toward Greatness, the better!

Wreckage and Running

December 28, 2016
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About eight years ago an arsonist set fire to the grass by the back fence of the house where I lived with my then-wife and still-daughter. Before the FD arrived the aluminum shed by the fence, and most of its contents, were destroyed. The remnants were put in another shed.

This week my now-former wife Joni and I made a deal: I would clear out the shed sufficient space for my kiln, potter’s wheel and other art supplies, and then some, and I would be able to keep them there until I found a home for them. (My current apartment is unsuitable.) While doing the clearing out I found three fire-damaged but interesting items that hearkened back to my long-distance running days.

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Here is an undated, unsigned page with two drawings on it. The upper left is a slight aerial view of runners at a race, probably at or near the starting line. The lower right is Mary Decker, who was declared Sportswoman of the Year by Sports Illustrated in their double issue at the end of 1983. (Since then she became Mary Decker Slaney.) I did this page in the mid-80s, most likely in 1984, the year I finished my first marathon. From 1982, the year of my first 10K, to 1993, I participated in more than 50 footraces.

The drawings show my draughtsmanship strengths and weaknesses at the time. I had excellent eyesight and a steady hand. I would not be able to do the pen-and-ink Mary Decker drawing, whose arrow is only 4-1/2 inches in length, today, at that scale and with such detail: I’ve lost both visual acuity and dexterity. But I do tend to finish what I started MUCH more than I did then. Both of these drawings are unfinished, and though there is a freshness and charm to that, there is also unprofessionalism.

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This is a letter I wrote to my cousin Livia Householder. She and I ran the 1986 MetroChallenge 10K, a course that looped around the then-thriving MetroCenter Mall, while she was visiting from California. I was giving her the benefit of my three years’ serious running experience. Alas, we did not run the MetroChallenge in 1987.

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Here are George Gilman, friend and fellow Glendale High School graduate, and I approaching the optional finish line of a race that came to be called P.F. Chang’s Rock & Roll Marathon. (I forget what it was called the year we ran it, which I think was either 1992 or 1993.) We had just decided to call it a race at the half-marathon point and not circumvent the finish line to do the second half. George is wearing a shirt he and I both earned doing America’s Finest City Half Marathon in San Diego. I’m wearing a shirt he and I and Dr. Augusta Simpson, another classmate, all earned in a half-marathon in Glendale whose name escapes me, whose course, near what was then the Thunderbird School of International Management, included a lot of rugged desert terrain, including dry washes and cross-country up&downs. That race was either 1991 or 1992.

These images speak of a time in my life that I am not quite sure is over. I hope to get back into running. Last year I managed to jog more than a mile a few times, but I could tell I was playing with fire. If I can get my weight down to 160, my running days will resume.

Maria II (9th of a series)

May 19, 2016
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This is the second Maria at Matt’s that I have portraitized, thus the “II.” This Maria is not only an energetic and enthusiastic Manager, but a hardcore runner as well. (Stay tuned for another runner, the trophy-winning Lucinda, later in this series.) Maria will run twelve miles in the morning, then come and do a ten-hour shift, performing multiple roles from bussing tables to adroitly dealing with “I want to talk to the manager” issues. She has done it all, including three Boston Marathons and numberless other footraces, and she has well earned my respect and loyalty.

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The Book of Numbers

March 2, 2016
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Numbers do a lot in defining us and our world. Age, height, weight, number of children, annual income, FICO score, T-Bill yield, T-cell count–the sheer NUMBER of numbers to track is staggering.

For years I’ve been going to a special scale at ChrisTown Spectrum Mall. It’s at the GNC Nutrition place, and for a dollar it gives you height, weight, BMI, and body-fat percentage, printing for you a date-stamped receipt. I know through using it that my weight maxed out at 253-plus pounds about six years ago. Yesterday I weighed a cool 179.0–but I took off my shoes and belt and my wonderful daughter Kate put the contents of my pockets in one of the Harkins souvenir cups we were taking to the movies. So it is a truer height and a less-baggage-encumbered weight than my usual.

But I HAD to get to a flat 179, because that was the exact reading I got on the Aim-Safe (family business) company freight scale on one of the most fateful days of my life. It was the 4th of July, 1983, and I’d struggled into my jeans shorts that morning and noted with alarm the muffin-top spillage of love-handle fat over the top of the jeans. Drama queen that I was and am, I did a Scarlett O’Hara “As God is my witness. . .” number, vowing that for a minimum of one year, I would run a minimum of one mile a day without fail, at a pace of nine minutes per mile or faster. I then–foolishly! idiotically!–punished my chubby frame with a 15-mile walk up and down the canal banks, from 19th Ave and Glenrosa to 40th Street and Van Buren and back, without benefit of sunscreen. (Left the canal bank and cut across for the last stretch.)  After taking a several-hours nap, and waking up feeling two weeks dead, I went to the corner of 19th and Indian School for my very first daily mile, stopwatch (“chronometer”) in hand. Reached Camelback and turned the corner to run the equivalent of crossing the street, and the stopwatch clicked in at 8:56:17 or so. And at the very moment I turned back to head for my apartment, downtown Phoenix started celebrating the Glorious 4th with a fireworks show–a sign from Heaven if ever I needed one.

Over the interval between the 4th and my birthday, August 30, my weight went from 179 to 155 and my running mileage went from 7.5/week to 25/week and more. In October I ran the MetroChallenge 10K in less than 54 minutes, and in April of 1984 I ran my fastest-ever 10K, 45:49. That August 19th I and 10,000 others finished the San Francisco Marathon; my finishing time was 4 hours, 8 minutes and change–but it had taken me a minute and a half after the gun (or was it an airhorn? don’t remember) went off just to get to the starting line.

So 179 is a number to conjure with. I hope to be 150, which I consider my ideal latter-life weight, by my 62nd birthday. As illustrated by the slips above, slow and steady WILL win the race, if tempered by sensibility and determination.

Seems silly, doesn’t it, the obsession with numbers? But empires rise and fall by them–the movie THE BIG SHORT is a marvelous demonstration of that.

Best of luck with your own numbers, Friends!

NaPoWriMo Poem for April 15

April 12, 2014
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the halfscore score

1: starting line

once upon an april
once upon cottonwood
once upon some racers

there was an event
of four subevents
marathon/half marathon/10k/2mile

and the people who came to race
were physically from willowbranch to peterbilt
and psychically from timid to attila

there was no starting gun for the 10k
just a convivial starting voice counting down
and when he got down to go we went

2: water waiters and chipper cheerers

volunteers in matching shirts and grins
dispensed water from the getgo
and walkers like me had time for a friendly passing word

hydration greases the wheels and cools the engine
but absorption by the body maxes at 8oz/15min
you don’t want your tummytank to be a sloshing

and so I was glad to see lots of stations
and sensible small cups and plenty of dropboxes for empties
races have made strides since my heyday

friends family and wellwishers lined the course at good places
three ladies seemed to be dispensing confetti
from a cottonwood tree & I thanked them

3: the theory of relative distance

there is about a mile and a half between start line and 2mi marker
about four miles between the 2mi and the 4mi marker
and about an eon of purgatory between there & the finish line

4: how it went from my end

i woke this morning with a twingey knee
thought rats this ain’t the movie i signed up for
dressed and readied nonetheless

got to the race via sweetheart transportation
got numbered got lootbagged got greeted by curtis
got hydrated got excited got started

was in a tight pack of walkers for a while
passing being passed keeping occasional pace
with a compadre or compadrette

the pack unclumped in a mile or so
i settled into a brisk but unfoolhardy fastwalk
not passing not being passed

little uphills and downhills took us to dead horse ranch park
and the unflats made me want to jog a little but i held back
until i couldn’t but i made the couldn’ts brief

there was a loop that some racers cheated past
didn’t matter; to each their own; when i looped
my fellow frontdesker and racer nancy saw me and helloed

there were live horses and riders at dead horse ranch
and i had to wonder what the horses would think
if they knew the name of where they were

more water more goodfeeling energy more limberstride loosening
jogged a little ran a very little
got airborne now and then for metaphor’s sake

another loop and a long climb through campground
a sign seemed to say norvs beyond this point
and i hoped the norv was not a vicious creature

of course it meant no recreational vehicles
and indeed the upper campground was festooned with tents
and smilers and squinters and dogs witnessed our phenomenon

on the way down i saw a fellow from cottonwood rec center
walking for him is a struggle few of us can imagine
but he has a lion’s heart and walks and walks and walks

a guy about my age and i kept passing each other
jogging and tiring with unmatching crests and troughs
he kept me from going crazy & breaking into a run

home stretch
my dear denise waves and smiles about an eighthmile from the finish
she takes a picture i will cherish

fast nice finishline with the racemeter reading 1:39 and change
handed a cup of water feeling giddy & good
in a warm broth of modest glory

Photo by Denise Huntington

 

A Dead But Perhaps Resurrectable Runner

December 15, 2013
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Yesterday I was cleaning up the “bonus room” where I do my drawing and blogging, in preparation for Denise’s relatives gathering at our place near Christmastime, and I found this picture:

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This was the last footrace I was in that I did any running in. The picture was probably taken close to the finish line. More than an hour and a half had elapsed from the opening horn, and my lower legs were in agony, and I was telling them that relief was soon at hand and please don’t wilt on me. My fellow runner and friend’s boyfriend John was waiting at the finish line, and his car was parked mercifully near. When I got out of his car I could not walk the 50 feet or so to the restaurant we’d agreed to eat at after, so John took me home, where I literally crawled around for the next day from the bedroom to the bathroom, of necessity. Thus the runner in me died. Knee surgery in 1999 merely nailed the coffin’s lid more firmly.

Now, however, I am starting to feel the strength and the urge returning. This week I treadmilled briskly, though not runningly, for a solid hour one session. I’m heading south toward Sub-200-Poundville, and am on track to get there by April. If I do, I’ll start running again, sensibly and modestly. Wish me luck!