A very white MGM
Magnus Gluteus Maximus 50k
Bull Run, Mannassas, VA
December 14, 2013
After the great disappointment of not getting to run Massochist with Sean in November, I was treated to the opportunity to have a long, snowy run with him and Schmitty at this year’s MGM. Sean had just had brain surgery to replace the battery in the chip implanted in his brain for seizure control (hence the sportin’ hairdo pictured below). So I had agreed to run whatever version of MGM Sean had in mind. As my fibroma is still a bit problematic on trails and my hamstring was still sore from Jingle All the Way, I had no need to push for the whole 50k anyway.
sean’s bringing back 80s fashion
Sean, Greg Z, and I ran to Fountainhead together. I started out wearing my red lobster hat courtesy of Keith, but it was actually pretty warm out despite but the icy footing and I ended up dropping the hat after about a mile. MGM ended up being exactly what I want it to be: a chance to catch up with folks. It’s always a bit disorienting to notice that some people seem to think MGM is a race. For me, it was great to be able to spend a couple hours running with Sean, since I hardly see him now that he’s has moved permanently to Leesburg. After four years of religious Wednesday night runs with Sean, I now spend my Wednesdays evenings at pilates class. I like pilates alright, but there isn’t nearly as much giggling.
I was tempted to continue onto the Do Loop with Greg (who’s one of the most entertaining people to run with), but I’d told Sean I’d get him and his head wounds back to Hemlock, so I headed back with him and Scmitty. Brian and I have our differences over which hills should be run and which walked, but fortunately Brian is not in top shape after coaching cross country.
Although my whole not-driving thing can be a pain in the arse, carpooling gives me a great opportunity to catch up with other folks — like Tracy, who I carpooled with to MGM, and with Priya, who drove back to DC with me (via Wegmans!). In addition to our shared love of Wegmans, Priya and I have an uncanny list of other similarities in our upbringing/schooling:
(a) we both studied abroad at the University of Melbourne (we attended rival colleges, Ormond and Newman)
(b) we both played soccer in college (me at Amherst, she at Penn)
(c) we both went to Stanford University (she for law school, me for my freshman year of college before I transferred)
(d) Priya currently lives a block away from where I went to elementary school (Chevy Chase Elementary), where I won the mile in 6:57 as a 5th grader (26 laps around a square gym)
Priya also just ran the Kepler 50k in New Zealand’s South Island, a race I have desperately wanted to get Aaron to do (but it’s around the same time as Hellgate, so the odds are stacked against me). I wonder if Priya also loves kitties and ponies.
* Wishing everyone a great holiday and New Years, and hope to make a return to WUS in 2014! *
ps – I can’t help but include the line that my Brazilian colleague sent me today wishing me a happy holiday:
“Large tether, have a good Christmas and happy new year!”
(After some forwarding to Brazilian colleagues and discussion, we decided that by ‘large tether’ this individual was trying to mean ‘big hug’)
Jingle All the Way 8k is fast becoming a Fogarty tradition
December 8, 2013
4th, 28:50 (PR)
Floo Fighters
For the second year, Cecile, Bernard, and I braved the dire wintry weather forecasts to run the Jingle All the Way 8k that starts and finishes at Freedom Plaza. Aaron took one look at the course map (which includes FOUR 180-turns around cones, including one brutal one in the last quarter mile), and opted to just be race crew. I’ll admit that those turns suck, but the JAW run is growing on me as the Martha Version of Hellgate — wintry weather, a bone-crunching kind of pain (I ran 5:48-mile pace), but good spirits and Christmas cheer (over 6,000 people ran, donning a wide assortment of Christmas-themed costumes, weather be damned).
my favorite thing about this race is the baffling lack of port-o-potty lines
I wore my trail shoes because of the plantar fibroma that is still bothering me and limiting my trail running (god those things were slippery around the cone turns!). I wasn’t sure what to expect speed-wise. I’m still kind of a mess physically, between my chronically sore right hamstring and new foot fibroma problems. But within the first mile of the race I found myself running neck-and-neck with another female runner, a situation that I don’t find myself in much now that I’ve moved up to longer distance races.
Photo-bombing Bernard & Cecile’s post-race photo
I wasn’t so interested in getting into a dogfight, but neither of us could lose the other. We passed the 4th place woman around mile 4 but were still neck-and-neck going into the last half-mile. I was beginning to think that it would come down to the last sprint to the finish. But I got a jump on her going around the last cone, and finished 4 seconds ahead, going under 29 minutes for my first time at the 8k distance.
I’ve been deflated about my foot and missing Masochist for the last month, so it was nice to know there’s still some wheels down there and have a good final race before I wind down for the winter.
Here are some official race pics:
There were many super-photogenic runners that day.
I’m afraid I was not one of them. [Notice the drool down the left side of my mouth.]
Leuven, Belgium
Journey to ‘Sweetwater’
When I asked Philippe if there was a nice place to have a relaxed stroll, he told me of the beautiful land of ‘Sweetwater’ about 10k outside of the city. If you try to google ‘Sweetwater Leuven’ you will get a bunch of Sweetwater locations in Texas and Georgia. But I eventually figured out that Sweetwater translated to Zoet water in Flemmish. I also discovered that the route to Zoet water looked like it went through some nice areas outside of the city with lakes and trails. So I figured I would just take a backpack with some snacks and walk there. If I was too tired to walk back, there was apparently a regular bus back to the city. I had no map, no phone, but a general sense of where Zoet water lay in relation to the train line and river. Zoet water ho!
I almost abandoned my mission to Zoet water entirely when I came across a tempting sauna house with a very convincing arrow
Maps in Belgium are conspicuously lacking the ‘You Are Here’ icon
Hmm, I have no idea whether I’m anywhere close to the route to Sweetwater. But at least there are ponies!
When in doubt, follow the train lines
Zoet water, zoet Zoet water!
A dense fog rolls in…..I should really be getting home before it gets dark and misty
But wait, there are giant mushroom statues!
And pony paarden kampen!
It was a harrowing journey back through the dark foggy woods, and I was so happy to return back at my hotel room (despite the ‘interesting’ painting over my bed)
my left arch
Plantar fibromatosis
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Plantar fibromatosis | |
|---|---|
| Classification and external resources | |
| ICD–10 | M72.2 |
| ICD–9 | 728.71 |
| eMedicine | derm/874 |
Plantar fascial fibromatosis, also known as Ledderhose’s disease, Morbus Ledderhose, and plantar fibromatosis, is a relatively uncommon[1] non-malignant thickening of the feet’s deep connective tissue, or fascia. In the beginning, where nodules or cords start growing along tendons of the foot, the disease is minor. Eventually, however, the cords thicken, the toes stiffen and bend, and walking becomes painful. The disease is named after Dr. Georg Ledderhose, a German surgeon who described the condition for the first time in 1894.[2][3] A similar disease is Dupuytren’s disease, which affects the hand and causes bent hand or fingers.
As in most forms of fibromatosis, it is usually benign and its onset varies with each patient.[4] The nodules are typically slow growing[1][4] and most often found in the central and medial portions of the plantar fascia.[1] Occasionally, the nodules may lie dormant for months to years only to begin rapid and unexpected growth.[4] It need to be surgically removed only if discomfort hinders walking.[5]
~ ~ ~
In October I discovered I that a plantar fibroma had developed on my left foot. My left arch had given me intermittent pains for several months, but I had thought it was just a bit of plantar fasciitis. It only bothered me when I ran very rocky trails, giving me a sharp zing if I hit a rock the wrong way. But after running in Shenandoah with Matt, Heather, Keith, and Aaron I noticed there was a little bump in the center of the arch that was very tender to the touch. I went to see an orthopedist, a podiatrist, and my PT, who all diagnosed it as a fibroma with no real treatment options. Interventions like cortizone, surgery, and orthotics are likely to do more harm than good. Sometimes, when I’m feeling electric shocks zing through my foot waking me up in the middle of the night (I was dreaming I was walking through an electrical current until I woke up and realized it wasn’t a dream*), I fantasize about just cutting that little sucker right out. But I only have one long-term option: pain management. This injury is making the old days of IT band and plantar injuries look pretty darn good: at least with those injuries I could do things to alleviate the problem. But a fibroma is unlikely to go away, and all I can do is back off and try not to make stupid mistakes that will accelerate the hardening and eventually will make it painful even to walk. The first stupid mistake would certainly have been trying to run Masochist through the pain.
The first sign of the new order is my attendance at the Wilson pool. I am about as aquatic as my cat Leda. I’m pretty good at getting in and out of a hot tub. And I can swim enough to save my life. But I don’t do ‘laps’. When I was injured in college, my track coach tried to get me to aqua jog. After two weeks I couldn’t take it anymore and quit for the season. But Aaron and his Magic have gotten me into the lap lane for the first time in my life, and I’m getting the hang of it. Bubbles, breathe, bubbles, breathe…….
*The dream was actually a bit more detailed. In it I was trying to follow my father as we walked through this ankle-deep swirl of electricity. For anyone who has seen my father’s real feet, they’re what you’d get if you crossed the feet of an immuno-compromised ogre with a velociraptor, with thick green toenails that curl all the way around the front of his toe to click on the ground when he walks and splotches of untreated fungus on the top of his foot. In the dream my father couldn’t understand why I kept hopping and yelping in pain with each electrical yap, while his Shrek feet were entirely impervious to the electrical current.
‘B-E-A double-R U-N, Bear Run! And bear and her cub and a rub-a-dub-dub, c’mon little bear come ‘n give me a hug, bear run!’
I kept this little jingle up for far longer than Aaron could bear (pun intended), as we trotted along Jeremy’s run with Matt, Heather, and Keith. Heather was very amused that the first time Keith called out ‘Bear!’ that her instinct was to run in the opposite direction of the bear while Matt, Aaron, and I shot back towards Keith to try to catch a glimpse. The black bear of course took off like a bat out of hell, and I just caught a glimpse of its head (or maybe it was its butt).
But our second ursine encounter was amazing. Matt and Heather must be bear-whisperers because in all our running in Shenandoah Keith, Aaron, nor I had ever been able to watch a family of bears so casually as they shimmied up and down trees, rooted around in a creek bed, and balanced along fallen logs. It was a mom and two cubs, so we made sure to keep a comfortable non-threatening distance. Although black bears aren’t nearly as dangerous as grizzlies for humans, you still have to respect the aggression that a momma bear has around her cubs.
We saw one more bear in a tree — as soon as it caught a whiff of us it lumbered down with a smack, bringing the canopy down with it. Remarkable how such large animals can run so fast.
I was in high heaven — FIVE bears. Maybe the bears were so active because the park was technically closed due to the government shut-down, so humans had been scarce for the past week or so. Or maybe because it’s October and those bears are busy stuffing in the acorns before the cold weather hits. There must be a very health bear population in Shenandoah because in addition to the five live bears we saw many huge piles of bear scat of all different designs littered all along the trail. I was having awful PMS as well as a sore hamstring, so I took every opportunity to stop the group to look at more poop. I don’t know if any other women experience this, but for me PMS feels like being slammed by a bus. Each month my period can’t come soon enough because I’d way rather have daggers in my belly than have those days of droopy malaise that feels like a combination of a hangover, a cold, and what I imagine to be how the end of a 100 mile run feels. I try to be careful not to schedule races during PMS time, because trying to get that loaf to move is hopeless.
Matt and Heather are great fun to run with (and clearly good luck for spotting bears), so I’ll do my best to get them to come and liven up WUS from time to time. Each of them have come to WUS a couple times, but it’s a trek from where they are out in Virginia. B-E-A double-R U-N, Bear Run!
