Nighttime NewBo Coolness

Just between you, me and this lamppost ...

1. The good news is my knee didn’t hurt.
2. Well, MOSTLY didn’t hurt.
3. But I found myself still in the habit of favoring it as I ran.
4. Which is a good way to get hurt.
6. I just accidentally typed 6 instead of 5.
7. But I’m too lazy to go back and fix it.
7. So I fixed it this way instead.
8. MATH!
9. So ... three miles ...
10. It was pretty rough.
11. And I mean rough as in it felt like I’ve never run a step in my life.
12. I wanted to stop the whole time.
13. Especially—ESPECIALLY!—at my two-mile wall.
14. Because I have a two-mile wall.
15. Most runners have a 20-mile wall.
16. I have that as well.
17. But nobody—NOBODY!—has a two-mile wall.
18. At least I’m pretty.
19. Right?
20. RIGHT?
21. Thankfully, Rob got up in the early darkness (dark earliness?) and ran with me.
22. I haven’t seen him since the NewBo half marathon almost three weeks ago.
23. So it was nice to catch up on all our disparate theater adventures.
24. Plus it was a great distraction from all those damn walls.
25. Scott selfishly did NOT join us.
26. Because of his kids, he said.
27. His kids whom I HAVE NEVER SEEN.
28. So I have my suspicions about this friendship.
29. We replaced him with this lamp post in our selfie.
30. Because he lights up our lives.
31. He gives us hope.
32. To carry on.
33. He lights up our days.
34. And fills our nights.
35. With.
37. Song.
38. It can’t be wrong.
39. When it feels so right.
40. ‘Cause he ...
42. He lights.
43. Up.
44. Our.
45. Lives.

It’s my first run ...

1. since my knee blowout at the NewBo half marathon almost three weeks ago
2. without wearing sunglasses
3. in a shirt off of which I haven’t cut the sleeves
4. pretending to care if I end sentences with prepositions
5. sporting my new haircut
6. at

I can’t tell what’s worse:

feeling my knee explode in pain at mile 2.5, pushing myself to mile 3 which made the pain almost crippling, making the decision to actually quit a race for the first time in my life, realizing that pushing myself to 3 miles meant having to hobble 3 miles back, avoiding eye contact with all the runners who were behind me because I didn’t want their pity, admitting absolute defeat at the 2-mile water station and having the volunteers call for a ride back to the start line for me, feeling bad for sweating all over the nice driver’s car, or being so irrationally mad at myself that I’m slinking home instead of cheering for all my friends as they cross the finish line.

My pace was already over a minute slower than my goal pace at mile 3 and would have gradually gotten slower to the point that I would have probably been disqualified from the race anyway. So I guess it’s better that I quit at mile 3 and not had to hobble even farther home in a race I wouldn’t have been allowed to finish.

I’m going to continue being irrationally mad at myself for a while and then get over it and move on. But there won’t be a group finisher selfie today. Sorry, guys.

We can’t find Rob, but we’re minutes from T-Time. Or D-Day. Or whatever.

So David stood in in my selfie with Scott. And we’re off!

#HowToTurn50

Packet pickup!

Scott and Rob have trained with me all summer—ALL SUMMER!—well, ALMOST!—on their shared journey toward their first—FIRST!—half—HALF!—marathons—THONS!—. The pre-half-marathon packet pickup is like a sacred quinceañera—¡QUINCAEÑERA!—before the race—as is, of course, the selfie—SEL! FIE!—so I tried to coordinate having the three of us pick up our race bibs and T-shirts—SHIRTS! WITH A T!—together this afternoon.

But no.

—NOOOOOOOOOO!—

As with all people whose last names are at the beginning of the alphabet and who always got to sit in the front of the classrooms and be at the top of the hair-transplant lists, Scott arrogantly alphabet-privileged his way to the front of the packet-pickup calendar and PICKED UP HIS PACKET LAST NIGHT.

¡QUINCAEÑER-NO!

But Rob is my true friend—and therefore contractually worthy of up to two lobes of my liver—and he met me—a mere 15 minutes too late, but I’m sure it was because he was delayed picking out his quinceañera outfit—to pick up our race packets—and more importantly, of course, pose for our life-affirming, existence-validating, handsomeness-celebrating selfie—together at NewBo.

Unfortunately, we are both high-profile local-bordering-on-international celebrities, and we were mobbed—MOB! BED!—by our legion-scale adoring fans all over NewBo, which made it all but impossible to collect our bibs and T-shirts with any shred of furtiveness.

But!

(I totally just said but!)

(And furtiveness!)

(FURTIVENESS!)

Fortunately, we easily persuaded two—TWO!—of our slavish fans to stand in for Scott—because it really does take two men to replace him. Plus we couldn’t decide which slavish fan to ask, and we didn’t want to hurt any feelings and make things awkward on this, our joyous quinceañera.

So meet Tim, who ran the after-dark GloRun with me last summer so he’s a legitimate runner and person, and Sage, who is really just three midgets in a trench coat.

Anyway, our bibs and T-shirts are picked—PICKED!—up—NOSES!—and we’ve successfully escaped certain near-fatal mauling at the remorselessly bloody hands of our legion-scale fans and we’ve put in our miles and survived our—meaning MY—stupid injuries and we’ll all be VERY sure to poop—There. I said it. Long-distance running is a cruel laxative, and if we have to suffer it’s only fair that you get to laugh at us.—and the NewBo Half Marathon that we’ve been training for all summer is FINALLY—FINALLY!—here and we’re off and running into history and glory and bragging rights and endless endless endless Facebook posts at 7:30 tomorrow morning.

¡QUINCAEÑER-POOP!

This Mickey shirt has been the Virgil to my Dante on three Disney half marathons and more long training runs than I can count

And today is our longest run before the NewBo half in two weeks. I have one Gu for each four miles, so that adds up to lordhelpustwelve miles on yet another morning of perfect running weather.

M-I-C ...

I walked by this kick-assery last night as it was being painted while I explored NewBo to kill time before my rehearsal:

It's no doubt a part of the neighborhood's preparations for this weekend's NewBo Evolve event, and it's now my favorite new thing in all of Cedar Rapids.

CedaRound: NewBo coolness

The Renaissance of our historic NewBo neighborhood has uncovered so much architectural coolness for me:

There are adorable little lion heads at the top of the Village Bank & Trust building:

I am fascinated lately by detailing in old brick walls:

I love when delicate things like flowers are rendered in durable materials like iron:

There are so many awesome little details above your head in old neighborhoods:

The right is a modern addition to an old brick theater, but the tuckpointing on the old theater looks like it was a little TOO good because both walls here look like they were built at the same time:

Cool old things:

Cool new public art:

Cool stuff embedded in the sidewalk under your feet:

Cool stuff shining right above your head:

What have you done today to make you feel proud?

June is pride month for most cities, but Cedar Rapids has our pride fest in July out of sisterly courtesy to Chicago so they don’t lose out to us on all the good parade float rentals. (YOU’RE WELCOME.) But somebody wasn’t so considerate and beat us out on the readable-size pride-fest banner we’ve hung over our entrance. Ours may be slightly small, but it’s just as mightily jubilant.

31.12 feet

Though I was living in Chicago at the time, I was in Cedar Rapids 10 years ago today to visit my folks for their June 14 anniversary. My boyfriend at the time and I had heard stories of looming flooding, and even though the rains and the swollen rivers diverted us north from highway 30 at Mt. Vernon and sent us into Cedar Rapids on Mt. Vernon Road, we still never believed Cedar Rapids could have serious flooding. I mean, it's CEDAR RAPIDS. I grew up here. How could anything bad happen?

By the time we finally got to my folks' house late on the 13th though, the flooding had become serious enough that the city's last intact water pumping station was in such danger of being breached that the urgent call went out on the news for volunteers to sandbag it. Though we'd had a 5-hour drive we wanted to go out and help, but by the time we had a quick bathroom break before heading for the door, the news announced that they'd already gotten all the sandbaggers they needed. Which was a clear harbinger of the resilience our city would soon show. But at the time it was dark and late and we were 32 blocks from the river so all we could do was go to bed and wait.

The next morning, the footage on the news was devastating. The river had crested at 31.12 feet--19 feet over flood stage--and our entire downtown was drowning, as were 1,300 blocks of the city on either side of the river. Office buildings and banks and stores and my beloved theaters were almost up to the tops of their doors in water. All three bridges that cross May's Island and connect the east and west sides of the city were completely submerged. The Time Check and Czech Village neighborhoods were destroyed, with many houses underwater to their rooflines. The highly elevated I-380 was the only way to get across town, though all of the entrance and exit ramps in the flood zone were submerged. We--like seemingly everyone else in the city--drove slowly along the highway and peered out our windows to survey the devastation as the flood waters rippled mere feet beneath us.

As the water slowly receded, the city reeled over the destruction of homes, the closing of businesses, the undermining of infrastructure ... but never the loss of spirit. The city leaped almost immediately into action to tear down what was unsalvageable, repair what was repairable, clean up what was messy and dangerous, reimagine new life and purpose for what was destroyed, and start to recover and relocate and rebuild ourselves into a newer and better and more thoughtfully redesigned shining city on the river. We now have our vibrant and ever-expanding NewBo neighborhood, we've literally picked up and moved an entire museum to higher ground, we've creatively and beautifully incorporated new levees and berms into inviting public spaces, we've used the opportunity to upgrade and restore historic buildings, we've turned our once-desolate-after-5:00 downtown into a destination area bustling with restaurants and entertainment ... and we've salvaged and restored and improved and polished up my beloved Paramount and Iowa (home of Theatre Cedar Rapids) theaters.

The flood was awful and heartwrenching and devastating. Many businesses never recovered. Many homes and families and lives have been forever changed. And our renaissance is far from complete. At any given time there are at least three massive construction/renovation projects happening in the downtown area, and I adjust my travel to and from work to check on them almost daily. Seriously. (Currently: The towering modern addition to the American Building, whatever the hell Skogman is going to build on the just-demolished Bever Building site (don't mess this up, Skogman--build something we can all appreciate and be proud of), the multi-lot demolition on Second Street between Second and Third Avenues, and the massive condo/apartment building that's covering more than a city block on the east side of I-380 at Diagonal Drive)

Aside from the before-and-after photos of my dad's office, where he thought two levels of concrete blocks would protect his antique roll-top desk from the floodwaters that eventually submerged his entire office past its ceiling, the pictures I'm posting here aren't mine. But they show the depth and breadth of the destruction we all faced and make a great reminder of how amazingly far we have come in the last ten years.

So happy floodiversary, Cedar Rapids! May we keep our recovery and flood-protection development speeding along forevermore. (And don't forget to wish my folks a happy 54th anniversary tomorrow.)

My car is now scrubbed and vacuumed and carpet de-spotted and so pristine-as-Wonder-Bread clean that none of you gross dirty people will ever be allowed even to look at it again

Speaking of gross dirty people, I was scrubbing so much grimy-looking black stuff off the knob of my stick shift (oh, stop giggling and grow up) that I’d reluctantly come to the conclusion that my hands are environmentally toxic petroleum-sludge factories ... only to discover to my horror that I’d actually been scrubbing the entire plastic finish off of my knob (I said STOP GIGGLING) and exposing the raw, dense foam underneath, which will now no doubt start crumbling in the sun and heat.

Well, shit.

But! Once I was finished rubbing the hell out of my knob (seriously ... do you people need a time out?) I drove to Iowa Running Company in NewBo to cash in a $10 coupon I had and get some new running shoes. I was fitted for Brooks Adrenaline running shoes 15 years ago because they offered the specific stabilization and gait correction I needed, and they’ve successfully taken me at 100 miles per pair through 7 marathons and 20+ half marathons since then. I’ve loved everything about them ... except their relentless, soul-crushing grayness. Most running shoes come out in exciting new colors each season, but Brooks Adrenalines are always drearily, predictably gray with blue accents, then drearily, predictably gray with another shade of blue accents then drearily, predictably gray with (ladies, hold your children) gray accents. NOT THIS YEAR, THOUGH! I am now living, breathing proof that the world does nothing but get more exciting, because this season’s Brooks Adrenalines are ... enticingly-not-gray black with enticingly sparkly gold accents:

And that’s a shift I can stick with.

#CedaRound: NewBo Coolness