Runner’s High
The Cathedral at Bryn Athyn
It is autumn. That means beautiful foliage. I love leaves, even the raking. I was born before the ban on burning leaves (which happened sometime in the 1970s) and remember helping to rake and burn leaves and drinking hot chocolate afterward at my grandparents house. Where I live now, there are limited leaf burning permits and the scent in the air always takes me back.
Leaves are the bane of the railway. Short of netting all the rail lines there’s nothing to be done about it; leaves on the rails are and remain a fact of life for a number of weeks every year and they’re trouble. There are even “wrong” and “right” kinds of leaves. The wrong ‘uns cause serious problems apparently and I’m guessing the right ones cause less of a hassle. I didn’t used to be able to tell the difference between right ones and wrong ‘uns but became intimately acquainted with the wrong kind of leaves on while on a run last week.
Cool Jules and I took a week’s break to visit friends back in Philadelphia. The running has been going pretty well, so I brought my shoes and some sweats, thinking I might just tear up a little tarmac in Jenkintown while we were away as I was not going to get in any Crossfit training that week.
Cool Jules
There I was, that first morning,coming down Florence Avenue hill in the walking phase of my run. I stopped before crossing the street, checked for traffic, put my foot down on the crosswalk and suddenly I was eating blacktop. There were no obstacles in my way, no potholes, no sticks, no stones, my running shoes were in order… I’d slipped on the wrong kind of leaves! I stood up and did a quick recon to see if anyone was filming me on the cell phone for a new season of “Street Crossing Fails” but it was just me and the birdies out early that morning. Whew! My knee got scraped up a bit and I got road rash on the palms of my hand, but I shook it off and was good to go. As the 5K Runner app tells me incessantly, I AM AWESOME! A few scrapes and bumps were not going to put awesome me off this run.
The second run went better.
It was a great trip. We went on a pilgrimage to the Rocky Statue which is once again just outside the Museum of Art. It was the day after my fall, so I was not going to run up the stairs like Rocky, although I saw some Crossfitters doing just that.
The Mutter Museum was next on the list. It is a museum of medical oddities– not for the faint of heart. After 45 minutes I’d had enough and went to the gift shop while Cool Jules and the World Traveler checked out the shrunken heads. When those two got to the museum shop, Cool Jules went right for the plush toy display, picked up this one and yelled across the store: “Hey WT, it’s a testicle!” Everybody in the store cracked up. Some mothers do have ’em, and I guess I’m one of those mothers.
We walked all over town that week. From Jefferson Station to Independence National Park on down to our old haunts on South Street. We even did a 2 hour ghost walk the night before we left for home.
Our plane arrived in Dusseldorf early on Sunday morning and despite all sorts of flight changes, our bags were there too. I was feeling pretty good though jet lagged.
Yesterday I was still too jet lagged to get to the Box. I was loading the dishwasher after dinner when Vince came into the kitchen and I knew by looking at him, something was wrong. Our dear friend, JKD had just passed away. It was too much. I could have cried me a river, but that wasn’t going to do anyone any good, so I just cried me a small creek or two. Woke up this morning full of plans but feeling hungover from all the grief.
Did stuff around the house, waited for the chimney guys, had lunch then decided to go for a run. I started out walking and sniffling and crying (on back roads, no one could see me) but once I got to running, the mood lifted. Breathing, body alignment, focus, was all I could think about. Is this the “high” runners talk about? By the time I got home, my emotional housekeeping was in far better order than when I left. I wasn’t feeling awesome, but I wasn’t crying or even about to cry anymore.
World Champion Heavyweight Worrier
That’s me. Hands down. I can worry for the nation.When I run out of things to worry about regarding my nearest and dearest, and this happens occasionally, I can concentrate on the big stuff: Pollution, Global Terrorism, The Economy, World Hunger, Gun Violence, Will Sheldon and Amy finally do the deed?, THE SINGULARITY…
What the hey? You may be wondering at this point what THE SINGULARITY is. Wicki-Icky tells us:
The technological singularity is a hypothetical event related to the advent of artificial general intelligence (also known as “strong AI”). Such a computer, computer network, or robot would theoretically be capable of recursive self-improvement (redesigning itself), or of designing and building computers or robots better than itself. Repetitions of this cycle would likely result in a runaway effect – an intelligence explosion[1][2] – where smart machines design successive generations of increasingly powerful machines, creating intelligence far exceeding human intellectual capacity and control. Because the capabilities of such a superintelligence may be impossible for a human to comprehend, the technological singularity is the point beyond which events may become unpredictable or even unfathomable to human intelligence.[3][4]
Cool stuff. In reality not so sinister. If you want to know more about this, look here: Singularity University. My husband attended a Singularity conference last year and got to take a gander at the Tesla factory. I wasn’t allowed to go so I bopped around San Francisco for three days mostly on my own. I would like to have seen the Tesla Factory, but City Lights Bookstore has its charms.
More to the point, I am worried about my health at the moment. I’ve been experiencing some weird auto-immune symptoms including extreme tiredness, skin discolorations that look like leopard spots on my arm, a red rash on my neck that won’t go away no matter what I schmeer on it, no resistance to colds, asthma out of control, feeling feverish and then shivering like it’s 10 below,which could be hot flashes at my age, but I’ve had those before and these are different; they make my head swim…
Since discovering that following my husband’s strict paleo diet was making me even more tired, I’ve been working with a sport dietician. Adding carbs has improved my energy level some, but there are days when I fall over into a deep sleep in the afternoon and wake up way past dinnertime. What the hell? I bunked off from Crossfit for 3 weeks claiming flu. Could be flu, but you never know.
The worrying started when I consulted Web MD and Wicki-Icky. My mother had a particularly nasty form of MS and I’ve lived my entire life in fear and dread of developing that illness. Yep. Tiredness is on the list of symptoms for MS. A few sleepless nights further and I’ve decided the brown spots on my arm are a variation of Karposi’s sarcoma. Although I don’t fall into any HIV risk categories, I am convinced of this. Maybe I have Lupus? Did I pick up Dengué somewhere?
The other day I finally took myself to an internist who informed me right away that he could hear that my asthma is out of control. “What about the auto-immune schtick?” I asked. He says he thinks it may be a thyroid problem. Get out of town!
Every overweight dimwit I know (I don’t know many) has a self-diagnosed thyroid problem. Apparently the thyroid has a lot to do with the body’s immune system as well as being a (sometime) cause of weight gain.
So they stuck me like a pincushion at the hospital and sent my blood away for analysis. Meanwhile I’ve been making all kinds of PRs with my worrying, running with more rest days in between than I usually plan and I have two Crossfit WODs under my belt since last Wednesday. Today I found the decrease in my strength in doing even seriously modified (arthritic geriatric style) handstand pushups alarming. I kept my deadlifts at 45 kg when a few weeks ago I was deadlifting 60 kg during a WOD with no problem. Tomorrow I’ll hear what’s what. That gives me just under 24 hours to do some serious worrying. 3-2-1 GO!
Nuckin' Futz 
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