Miles of decorating progress

Since my stupid owie is preventing me from doing load-bearing things like moving furniture and crawling around on the floor touching up baseboards, I’m focusing my bedroom-redo energy on artsy-craftsy projects like découpaging LiveLaughLove cutouts on my ceiling and making an art installation of my running hats, bibs and medals. I had the brilliant idea of carrying that stupid Captain America shield—mostly hidden here under my Mickey-ear ball cap—on my arm for an entire 13.1 miles in the Disney Avengers Half Marathon, so it’s staying fully enshrined among my endurance running souvenirs, no matter how cheap and out of proportion it looks.

Flashback Friday: Granny Socks And Abs Edition

You know how when you get old and lumpy you feel compelled to show everyone how lithe and nubile you once were? It's a good thing I didn't put that into words here because what my cover story for reposting this picture is remember that one time I had to wear granny compression socks to keep my shin splints from exploding out of my legs when I ran a half marathon in epic EPIC heat and they were itchy and hot but they did their job and I managed to finish in a medal-winning time? (And don't listen to those losers who say that EVERYBODY gets a medal for crossing the finish line. We don't need that kind of negativity in our lives.)

When you should be asleep but you realize if you don’t haul out all your Christmas crap now it’ll suddenly be Easter and you’ll wonder why the hell you spent $23 on clearance tabletop trees last January

So here are the Stations Of Christmawesomeness, in order:

1. The Enchanted Forest Of Silver Shimmers And Crisp Aspen Whites

2. The Gold Medal Glen

3. Red As A Reindeer’s Freshly Expressed Glands

4. Evergreens And Bluish-Green Wannabes That Maybe Could Be Called Mrs. Peacocks If I Could Get Those Naming Rights

5. The Sad Land Of The One Lonely Blue Reindeer Who Is Probably Dying Of Frostbite Or Something Just As Unsightly

6. Tons Of Fucking Reindeers Because I Can’t Fucking Stop Buying Fucking Reindeers On January Clearance But At Least They’re All In A Metallic-Shimmer Palette And Yes Those Are The Same Paint Chips That Were Stuck To The Bookshelf Last Year Because I Can’t Decide What Shade Of Old-Money-Rich-People-Blue To Paint My Bedroom It’s A Big Decision So Don’t Rush Me Shut Up

So Disney races are built around being all-Disney-all-or-at-least-a-lot-of-the-time,

and yesterday’s half marathon didn’t disappoint, taking us through three of Walt Disney World’s four parks. Since the parks don’t butt up against each other, there are long stretches of roadways we slogged along, but every half mile or so there was a photo op with a Disney character or a rockin’ DJ or at the very least a screen showing a Disney movie. I’d planned to stop for many photo ops with the Disney characters since I was so unprepared for the race, but the lines were huge and I wasn’t getting tired and it’s REALLY hard to resume a long run after a prolonged stop so I just kept slogging.

The course took us through what felt like most of Animal Kingdom in the misty pre-dawn, which was just as magical as you could hope ... except Animal Kingdom has narrower walkways than the other parks, so we all had to focus more on dodging and weaving and not slamming into each other than on the abundant Disney magic.

Fun fact: The backstage areas behind the parks that we ran through are almost 100% gray trailers and golf carts and dumpsters with nary a trace of colorful Disney magic among them.

We also ran through a bit of Hollywood Studios, with the usually dour and ominous Tower of Terror bellhops screaming enthusiastically for us in their dour and ominous uniforms. Which was cool.

And our final mile ran from a backstage entrance near England in EPCOT, circled clear around the lagoon past every country—where I yelled “mange tusen takk!” to all the Norwegians cheering us on in their bunads—and then through the front of the park past the early (and cheering!) EPCOT guests and into the finish line by the entrance. It was truly glorious.

My GPS watch was faster than the official mile markers right away, which was just—for the lack of a more relevant term—goofy. And it got faster and faster by the mile, so my watch says I ran .37 miles farther than the standard 13.1:

But it gave me a half marathon badge when I synched it to the app on my phone, so there’s that:

I’m a little miffed that the New York Times covered the dinky New York Marathon instead of my epic Disney victory over my catastrophic lack of training, BUT I HAVE TWO MEDALS AND YOU HAVE ZERO, NEW YORK TIMES, SO THERE.

I also have more chafing in unmentionable places, but let’s not mention that.

Oh—and I got TONS of compliments and conversations from my Summer Of Running Away From Being 50 shirt as people passed me, which is an enthusiastic spin on saying TONS of people passed me. But I passed lots of walkers and drunks and staggering zombies, so I’m still a total rockstar. Right?

HECK YEAH I took selfies with both medals and my new I DID IT! shirt

I even full-teeth smiled in one because my mom said I need to stop smiling with my mouth closed even though I think my open-mouth smile looks kind of devious and creepy. Hide your children and valuables as you see fit.

MOUSEDAMNIT!

I was all emotionally prepared to just somehow get through today’s run and make it my last—and probably most painful—half marathon ever ... but I FREAKING LOVED EVERY SECOND OF IT. And I ran the whole thing without stopping (except for water stations, which all runners get a pass on because running + drinking = spilling + wearing)—which is so huge to me that I’d maybe get choked up and cry if I had any moisture left in me.

SO PUT A 2020 GROUP DISNEY HALF MARATHON ON YOUR CALENDARS AND IN YOUR BUDGETS, RUNNER PEEPS. BECAUSE WE’RE GONNA ROCK IT TOGETHER! AND I’M NOT MOUSING AROUND.

Also: I have pictures! And funny things to post here that I thought up while I was running because what the hell else do you do for three hours with no distractions except the crap in your head? But I need a shower first. And 13.1 shovelfuls of food. And maybe a nap. I’m not sure yet whether or not I’ll post-race crash or post-race bounce off the walls. Stay tuned ...

Goodbye, Mickey 5K costume!

It’s been fun, but even in the 5:00 am Florida coolness, it’s also been hot. There’s a very good reason I never run in hats and long sleeves unless it’s below 50°: I’m a furnace.

Also: Hello, plastic box of morning and night bipolar meds that I just noticed are on the counter in front of me in my selfie! You make me a wiggly furnace.

Also: Our route this look morning looks like a laughing Muppet. Or a melting toilet with a plunger left in it:

Ladies and gentlemen, mouses and mouseses, goofs and goofeses, ERIK IS NOW A DISNEY MEDALIST!

(And the crowd goes wild woooo woooo woooo!)

Well, THAT was awkward

We were running along at a nice pace down the Cedar River Trail, the sky started thundering at us, the rain started ... and I started having my own flashes of light. And the gray sand washing down my face that I feel when I’m about to have a blackout episode. Because bipolar meds are fun.

This happens multiple times a day when I stand up too fast. But it’s never happened when I’m running. I tried to slog through it, hoping it would pass ... and I got about half a mile before I noticed I was zigzagging so I wisely let what little common sense I had left prevail and I stopped. It was mile 3.12, which was almost our turnaround point. But it WAS a complete 5K, so I deserve a medal.

You know who else deserves medals? Rob and Scott, who stopped their run and insisted walking the 3.12 miles back with me. I kept insisting I was fine. I kept insisting that they run ahead and get their miles in. But they kept insisting on being awesome friends and not leaving me. Those jerks.

I feel normal now. The flashes of light and gray sand are gone. But I’m frustrated and a little concerned and totally embarrassed about the whole thing. And very soaked from the rain.

Shit.

Flashback Sunday: 13.1 Edition

I apparently ran a half marathon six years ago today wearing tall compression socks that did nothing for me but itch and ruin my finisher photo. I remember the day being oppressively hot, which didn’t help in the please-stop-making-my-shins-itch department. But I also remember it being a pretty awesome run.

50 Things About My Fourth Of July:

1. I ran my 8K this morning with 99.76% NO PAIN. 
2. See what I did there?
3. I said .76 because of 1776!
4. Because I am nothing if not mathematically patriotic.
5. I hadn’t realized how defeated I’d gotten over my stupid hip injury and the fact I hadn’t run a step in 10 days, and the fact that the pain is gone has filled me with near euphoria.
6. WOOT!
7. As the cool kids say.
8. Rule No. 1 for running is to NOT try something new on a race day.
9. No clothes that you’ve never worn before.
10. No foods that you’ve never eaten before.
11. Because that’s DUMBASS.
12. But I’m a total dumbass.
13. Because I bought new compression shorts yesterday to hold my brittle, aging hip parts in place at the advice of a Facebook friend.
14. While I was at it, I also got some new running socks that have padded collars in the backs to prevent my super-cute patriotic running shoes from sanding away my Achilles tendons like last time.
15. Plus I dug out my long-overlooked patriotic sunglasses that I don’t remember fitting very securely.
16. Because why not?
17. Oh! I also dumbassedly chugged a never-before-introduced-into-my-body Rocktane(R) Ultra Endurance Gu(R) Energy Gel before the run.
18. But everything worked out perfectly and didn’t give me any problems.
19. Except.
20. Ex. Cept.
21. EX! CEPT!
22. Compression shorts—which I’ve never worn until this morning’s race—not only don’t feel noticeably compressiony but they do nothing to keep the seatbelts fastened for the bumpy ride.
23. NOTHING.
24. So after bouncing around in their slippery, unsupportive pouch for 4.97 miles this morning, my Margos are what we will politely call Channinged.
25. Ouch.
26. Ouch ouch ouch.
27. Also: They’re made with the same Super Slippery Slipperiness(R) as gym shorts.
28. Super Slippery Slipperiness(R) + Super Slippery Slipperiness(R) = MY GYM SHORTS WOULDN’T STAY UP.
29. I’m sassy!
30. After the race, I foam-rolled my hip even though it didn’t hurt.
31. Because I’m responsible hip owner.
32. While I was on the floor rolling my hip, Bridget sat down next to me to keep me company.
33. Just look at this picture of us.
34. LOOK AT IT!

35. I. Love. That. Dog.
36. Then I fell asleep sitting up in a chair.
37. Because the Rocktane(R) Ultra Endurance Gu(R) Energy Gel had clearly worn off.
38. I was still wearing my finisher medal.
39. Yes. I’m THAT guy: The douchebag who SLEEPS IN HIS DAMN RACING MEDALS. 

40. I ran into so many—SO! MANY!—wonderful friends before and after the race this morning.

41. Including—but not limited to—my training buddies Rob and Scott and my saintly friend David, who patiently ran at my old-injured-man pace with me through all 4.97 miles.
42. Even when I had to stop and walk.
43. Which I’m thrilled to announce was because it was insanely hot and not because my hip hurt.
44. WOOT!
45. Again, as the cool kids say.
46. So—unless this morning was a fluke—my Summer Of Running Away From Being 50 is BACK ON!
47. With super-slippery compression shorts if Margo and I feel like I need them.
48. Plus real, ACTUAL support from Bridget.
49. And that’s #HowToTurn
50. #50!

Finished! And my hip feels great! Seriously!

OHMYGODYAYYAYYAY! 

But now we’re stuck behind a damn train on the way home.

36:39! Fourth in my age group, yo!

You have NO idea how hard it is to take a black-light post-Glo-Run-5K bro selfie in the dark with clammy hands that shows your medals, looks reasonably in focus and makes me look like catnip to the ladies.

This project ran way longer than I expected

Unlike normal people with social lives, I spent my holiday weekend evening making a wall of my favorite running bibs and medals, which looked way cooler in my head than it ended up looking in this cacophony of color and shine and WHY ARE THERE NO DAMN GOVERNMENT STANDARDS MANDATING THAT ALL RUNNING BIBS BE THE EXACT SAME SIZE? SERIOUSLY.

Note: Hanging a medal rack in drywall when you've forgotten to charge your drill so you use the bad-idea-man's pound-n-pull-nail method of "drilling" holes instead only results in creating bigger and bigger holes in the wall. And in your heart.

Also note: I have NO idea what I think of that lamp. I keep deciding it's ugly and then I find a beautiful visual dialogue between the austere, confident architecture of its base and the ornately lined florals of its shade. And then I get distracted by show tunes and SQUIRREL!

Also note: There may or may not be a couple disco-ball necklaces from my sordid past as a Chicago pride parade float dancer hanging among my medals.

Also note: "Don't Forget Me" from Bombshell was playing on that super-cute little speaker when I took this picture. Actually, it still is as I write this. Because I -- again -- may or may not have been playing it on auto repeat for the last hour.

Also note: Yup.

Why are his trousers vermilion?

After work tonight I made a trip to my packed-to-the-rafters-with-everything-and-I-mean-everything-I-owned-in-Chicago-when-I-moved-home-two-and-a-half-years-ago storage locker with the faint hope of opening a handful of 30+ boxes and stumbling on four long-buried things: my passport, my running medals, my running bibs and some sort of documentation that shows the cost basis for some meager investments I made 30 years ago with a man who's no longer alive at a company that no longer exists.

Do NOT get me started on the cost basis documentation ... or the fact that it doesn't automatically follow your investments on their inevitable journeys through endless cycles of portfolio selloffs and acquisitions and companies that cease to exist. DO. NOT.

But! Look at everything I DID find:

• My passport!
• My running medals! Which may or may not be jumbled up with a few random disco-ball necklaces!
• My running bibs!
• Plus! Clockwise from the top:
• Cards Against Humanity!
• A little figurine I bought in Barcelona 15 years ago of a folklorical boy squatting over a tiny, fresh pile of childish bad taste! Because why not!
• A $25 IHOP gift card!
• The abovementioned bibs and medals and disco balls and passport and let's get back to the fun stuff
• Long-forgotten-but-still-very-gay Broadway CDs!
• A dented York Peppermint Patty!
• BONUS! A pair of so-gay-they-make-their-own-obscure-Sondheim-references vermilion jeans that can't possibly have ever fit over my hips because right now they look like they won't even fit over what's left of my pride

There's also a massive unopened box sitting right next to me AS WE SPEAK labeled "summer clothes and shoes" that holds the promise of overflowing with something magical and/or even-more-pride-crushing since it was packed and sealed over two years and two waist sizes ago. I'd tell you I won't open it until later when it's not late and I'm not tired but we all know I'll be ripping into it before I even finish writing this po

Many marathon musings!

The New York City Marathon cost me around $2,000, which includes the entry fee, airfare, hotel, cabs, food, a commemorative shirt and three pair of shoes for training during the summer. Plus maybe one Broadway show. Which might have been La Bête. Which I actually didn’t like. But I was a little excited about finally running the New York City Marathon so I had a hard time focusing on things like theater the whole weekend. Add to that the $2,500 we just spent on the bathroom renovation. And the roughly $12,000 I spend a year on my addiction to working out with a personal trainer.

So my disposable income and I decided that the elfin photos I stole off the NYC Marathon website are just as good as the huge, high-resolution images I’d get if I forked over $99 plus the inevitable handling fees even though I’d be doing the downloading so handling fees my ass.

But!

I do have an actual photo to start my marathon photoblog. It features me and a dear family friend who flew in from Iowa to stay with her son and daughter-in-law in Brooklyn and cheer me on in the marathon. And also to take me out to dinner on Friday.

We ate at the up-to-the-minute trendy restaurant The Breslin in the hipster-cool lobby of the hipster-cool Ace Hotel. And our waitress, who was a little too perky to be plausibly human, took this lovely picture of us as we were busy digesting our warm olive-oily beer bread and lamburgers:

To welcome me to New York, The New Yorker also ran a commemorative cover that clearly shows me leading the pack of runners on my way to victory in the 2010 New York City Marathon:
(Again, since you read that I was the winner of the NYC Marathon here on my blog, there’s no need for you to waste time reading any of the official results. You’re welcome.)

So on to the marathon.

The NYC Marathon had a staggered start, and I don’t know how I got so lucky but I got the primo starting time. While other marathons send everyone over the start line at 7:30 or 8:00 in the morning, I didn’t even have to be at the Staten Island Ferry to be shuttled to my starting gate until 8:00. So I got to have a leisurely shower and a big, hearty, unrushed breakfast on my way to the ferry. And with the whole country falling back that morning, I got even more sleep!

My marathon wave took off from Staten Island at 10:40 am, once the sun was up and the sky was clear and the beautiful brisk day was as warm as its 50º would ever get. We ran the first mile up the soaring Verrazano Bridge and the second mile down it. Which was exhilarating and beautiful, but two miles of hills right off the bat? Ouch.

Anyway, this is what we looked like from the sky:

And here we are in closeup:

And here we are spreading out as we leave Staten Island and enter Brooklyn. If I’m in this picture, I’m somewhere on your left in a white disposable coat and sunglasses that reflect reds and yellows in pictures:

Can you stand one more picture of runners on a bridge? Here’s what we looked like flooding our way into Brooklyn:
Notice the throng of runners on the ramp coming from under the bridge. Those poor souls had to run their first two miles on the lower deck of the bridge, which may have been less hilly but it was also certainly less glorious.

I don’t know shit about the boroughs of New York, but this picture looks like what I remember Brooklyn looking like as we ran our first 12 miles through it. So we’ll say it’s Brooklyn:
Brooklyn, aside from being open and roomy enough for lots of runners and packed with screaming fans (aside from the mile-long-stretch of funeral-like quiet where it ran through an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood), is also the only place I had to focus on finding people I knew in the crowd. My dinner companions from Friday were there to scream and cheer me on around mile 5, and it was a fabulous emotional boost to launch me into an even more fabulous emotional day.

The rest of the marathon is a blur of excitement, hills, screaming fans, hills, bridges, hills, brisk sunny weather, hills and the occasional hill. And aside from hills, the key word in that last sentence is blur. So I have no idea if these photos are in order. Except the first one, because I’m still wearing my disposable gloves, which I ditched around mile 6. Though I don’t remember walking in the first six miles, so this photo must be a hack Photoshop job designed to undermine my macho street cred:

The other hack Photoshop jobs on the marathon photo site include making me look fat with matronly legs:

And making me look fat with a rabid-dog face:

Thankfully, one photo actually makes me look kind of macho:

And after blurring my way through five boroughs (and right alongside the Citi corporate office building in Long Island City where I used to make endless business trips long before it occurred to me that I’d even ever want to run the NYC Marathon), huge always-curiously-uphill swaths of northern Manhattan, endless throngs of screaming fans, and three painful but beautiful final miles in Central Park (where Jared of Subway weight-loss fame actually passed me, surrounded by his retinue of hunky trainers), I finally crossed my last marathon finish line with my head held high and my freshly reactivated stress fractures in my feet screaming unflattering expletives at me:
See that woman in the black zip-up and white shirt in the bottom left corner? I met her on the Staten Island Ferry and chatted with her for a bit as we sailed our way (past the Statue of Liberty! which I gawked at like a tourist!) to the runners’ starting village. We parted ways when we docked but then randomly reconnected in one of the village warming tents. And as we walked to the starting line we decided at the last minute to do one final pre-emptive pee as we passed a bank of port-a-potties. Which made us quite literally the last two people to cross the starting line in the last heat of the marathon. And we ended up running pretty much the entire marathon together (and never needing to stop to pee). I, a veteran of six marathons, helped calm her apprehensions about running her first marathon, and she, a New York City native, told me all kinds of great stories about the boroughs and neighborhoods we ran through. She was an awesome running partner and a delightful addition to an already super-mega-fabulous-glorious day.

But.

The NYC Marathon was my best friend from the moment I received my “I’M IN!” welcome kit in the mail last summer all the way through the NYC packet pickup, the shuttle to the start line, every thoughtfully organized point along the marathon route, the finish line, and the delivery of our goodie bags and finisher medals:

But then suddenly the hospitality was over. I was forced to shuffle along with thousands of freezing, exhausted finishers on a death march past at least a mile of trucks lined up with our checked bags and then dumped out into a barricaded street with no place to sit down, no shuttles to transportation, no cabs and enough of a traffic clusterfuck that I ended up walking what I estimate to be at least three miles to my hotel. It was a disappointing way to end a fabulous experience, but it is really my only quibble about the entire day.

Except for the next day at the airport, where I saw a good hundred people in their marathon shirts—which is cool—and a good 10 people sporting their marathon medals—which is not. Maybe it’s the stoic Norwegian in me talking here, but wearing your medal the day after a marathon is as garish and desperate-looking as wearing your homecoming queen tiara to your 10-year reunion.

My medal was tucked quietly in my carry-on where nobody needed to see it. And as soon as I got home I hung it on my sturdy Gargoyle o’ Medals Plus a Few Disco Ball Necklaces … which holds court discreetly on the inside of my closet:

I may be done with marathons, but I’m already signed up for the Rock ’n’ Roll Half Marathon in Chicago next summer. And I kinda want to do the Disneyland Half Marathon in Anaheim next fall. But traveling for another race involves money, and I’m currently on a spending hiatus … just in time to navigate my personal budget through the upcoming holidays.

In any case, I finally got to run the New York City Marathon and it was every bit as awesome as I’d hoped it would be. And looking back at it through grainy, elfin pictures actually matches the blurry memories I have of running past cheering fans through neighborhoods I'll probably never traverse again. My marathon phase was a fabulous part of my life, but it's done and I'm more than happy now to enjoy it through my memories and my blog archives and my grainy elfin pictures. And my Gargoyle o' Medals.