A Roadmap of My Days

The scar on my thigh looks like a little bug, a souvenir of a bite from a dog that "never bites" more than 30 years ago. I got stitches and ice-cream, and then more stitches when I ripped the wound back open playing with my Grandpa's lawn mower.

Here is the ruffled potato chip on my right knee. Blood seeped through the holes in the band-aid for a week after the cross country meet, and the nurse at the camp infirmary mused, "Maybe we should have gotten stitches for that." Two round scars circle it like moons, memories of an encounter between my bike and a car decades later. Me and the bike lost.

A tiny round scar on my right temple must be from chicken-pox, though now it makes me think more about my bout with shingles. (Get the vaccine, seriously.) Its closest neighbor is the tiny scar on my forehead from when Jaime threw a rock and hit me. After I punched him in the nose, the teacher had to run two bloody children back down the hill to the Van Gorder Walden School's farmhouse. Later he gave me some of his celery with peanut butter and raisins which made me throw up, so maybe he got the last laugh after all.

There are two lines of scars, symmetrically placed on my chest and lower back, marking many many cases of chafing during races. Another scar on my left shin memorializes the stick that lay buried under fallen leaves during an autumn trail run. Anybody who says running is not a contact sport is fibbing.

The sickle moon on my left knee is a surgery scar, earned after a tumble down a flight of stairs. We kept the damaged door in place for years and friends got to leave class with me five minutes early to carry my books while I struggled on crutches. It still feels funny to scratch there since the nerves all got cut in half.

There are the scars you can't see without a guide. Like the faint perfect circles on my shin where I burned myself on my motorcycle muffler, over and over. Or the spot on my wrist that was burned by the iron, leaving a mark that made people avert their eyes for a year wondering why a twenty year-old girl would want to die (even as she sometimes asked herself why she wouldn't). And the many places where my heart shattered over unrequited teen aged love.

I'm only now reaching middle age, and I'm not getting any more graceful. I may need to find some new real estate for the next phase of scar tissue topography.

Top 10 Reasons to Bike to Work During National Bicycle Month

It's National Bike Month, wherein we celebrate all things on two wheels. I kicked it off early yesterday by volunteering for a few hours with Bikes for the World, but now it's time to get serious about getting back onto my bike after a long winter of sluggishness. So, as part of my campaign to convince myself to commute by bike again, here are my Top 10 Reasons to Bike to Work:

10. Carbon offset!

9. It only takes 5-10 minutes longer than going by train, and I get a workout in at the same time.

8. It'll give me an excuse to buy those really cute riding knickers I saw in the Terry catalog.

7. The feeling of glory and smugness that comes with weaving in and out of standstill traffic in Georgetown.

6. The bleedin' escalators at the Dupont Metro station are seriously never working.

5. It's easier to stop off at Trader Joe's on the way home; have you tried their Espresso Pillows?!?!

4. It gives me an excuse to maintain my one-a-day Green Tea Cake habit at Yola, and if I can shave a few minutes off my time I'll totally have earned a daily dairy-free PB&J smoothie too.

3. Walking around in padded biking shorts/skirts is really good practice for the not-all-that-distant-future when I'll have to wear adult diapers every day.

2. Super hot looking calf muscles.

1. During the morning rush hour, somebody always farts on the Metro, usually when you're stuck for an indeterminate time between stations.

3,000 Miles, Baby!!

We just got news that over the course of our first year, Blair House has gone 3,000 miles together. THREE THOUSAND miles.

That's like running from Blair House to see the Space Needle in Seattle, or to sit on the beach in LA. We could have reached Vegas with energy to spare, or done four round-trip runs to Chicago. We could have run to Spain! (OK, so that last one would also entail some swim training, but you know what I mean.)

But Back On My Feet is about so much more than just the running, even if that's the easiest thing to count. How many smiles does 3,000 miles equal? How many hugs? Here's my attempt at an equation to quantify Blair House's first year, feel free to check my math:

3,000 Miles = [Daily hugs x (high fives/words of encouragement) + the pride of crossing a finish line to the power of good luck wishes for a job interview] x (lasting friendships + having somebody to catch you if you fall) all to the power of multiple smiles.

So here's to 3,000 miles with my BOMF family. And guess what, it's only another 6,700 miles to Sydney, Australia. I've always wanted to go there...

An invitation to our esteemed neighbors at the Capitol Building

There is a lot of talk this time of year about suffering, redemption, rebirth and liberation (and allergies, but that's neither here nor there). For the past couple of years there's also been a lot of talk about the need for "shared sacrifice" and "belt-tightening" and "getting back to basics." I think about all that talk, talk, talk a lot when I'm out running with the guys at Back On My Feet.

As part of the much anticipated federal budget deal, the nation's capital played a starring role as the proverbial sacrificial lamb; in the style of all good epic dramas we have offered up some of our flock for slaughter. $7 million in federal funds were cut from from a local program to help the chronically homeless. And the Easter Bunny isn't bringing the critical federal funding that came down as part of the stimulus anymore. As a result, the DC Fiscal Policy Institute estimates the Mayor's budget will shrink homeless spending by as much as 25% in 2012. And all this comes when the annual estimate of the number of homeless in DC shows the population up nearly 10% over the course of this economic downturn.

Maybe we should invite some of these lawmakers to come run with Back On My Feet one morning. Maybe they should see for themselves how people respond to friendship, hard work and, yes, financial support to begin to turn their lives around. Maybe they should hear how when given a chance to dream, people experiencing homelessness express hopes for themselves and their children just like everybody else. Maybe they should watch how B always dances around trying to keep his balance during quad stretches, or how A has built up to the point where he can pound out 3 miles like it's nothing. Maybe they should hear N's laugh, or learn from B how many hours he works busing dishes to keep his tenuous grip on his newly independent life. Surely men like these are worth investing in. Surely it's time to sponsor some new stories of suffering turning into salvation.

Hey, Lawmakers! Blair House is less than 1.5 miles from the Capitol Building. We'll even map you a route that avoids the hills (although as the guys will tell you, it's the hill work that makes you stronger).

If you want to help despite what the lawmakers say, please consider donating at: http://www.active.com/donate/4thAnnual20in24/AChrist292

Metrication Prohibited Before 6 a.m.

Back when I was a kid--you know, before we had electricity, and we walked uphill both ways to school--we were told that America was going to go metric! Somehow, I always blamed Jimmy Carter for cluttering my head with liters and centimeters, but it turns out it was Gerald Ford who signed the "Metric Convertion Act of 1975." (Thanks, Google!) Like so much of the elementary school curriculum, any knowledge I ever had of metrics has dissolved (along with what we need the pluperfect tense for and the detailed rules for "Foursquare"). All, that is, but for two distances: 5k and 10k.

The other day at Back On My Feet we were discussing our next race, an 8k being held next month. "How far is 8k?" N asked me. "Ummm...like 5 miles?" I said uncertainly. "A little more than five miles, or a little less?" Dude, it's 5:45 in the morning and I don't have Jimmy Carter on speed-dial. But this is important to the guys, they've only done a 5k (3.1 miles) so far, so the jump from 5 to 8 sounds a little daunting. We assured them we'd get them there: we'll train for the next month together, do some hills together, do some speed work together and in the end we'll toe up at the starting line together and talk each other through. Because that's what we do.

Oh, by the way, 8 kilometers is 4.9709695 miles. (How did we survive before Google, anyway?)

April Showers

A Saturday run is on the schedule. Gray-tinged light from the window, one gutter overflowing. (Nice, it's raining.)

Feed the cat. (It's raining.)

Sip coffee and skim the news. (It's raining.)

Start some laundry, make the bed, scrub last night's cooking pot, put away the dishes. (It's raining.)

The text says, "Work on your running and your willpower."

(But, it's raining.)

Hit the road, soaked within seconds with the wind pushing rain under my hat. (It's raining.)

Sounds of water roaring through the creek, birds singing in the trees. (It's raining.)

Robins stalk unwary worms, a man with an umbrella pleads with his dogs to walk faster. (It's running.)

A cat hides under a porch, bikes and a baseball lie abandoned in a wet yard, tulips stretch and open for the water, lawns turn green almost before my eyes. (It's raining.)

A little boy in a rain jacket stomps through puddles, houses with their lights on in the middle of the day, an old man standing looking out his living room window. (It's raining.)

Up the hills, down the hills, up the hills, down the hills. Clothes stuck to my limbs, shoes like lead weights tied to my feet. (Still raining.)

And then, suddenly, I'm done. Six miles? Already?
Dry, warm, in a cozy armchair with the cat purring next to me and a mystery novel nearby. (It's raining.)

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

Sometimes volunteering with Back On My Feet makes your heart sing. Other times it makes your heart break. And sometimes, both things happen on the same day. Today we learned that two of our long-time friends at Blair House, W and K, are both moving into permanent housing. K will cut his commute to work from two hours each way by bus to about half an hour. W found an apartment big enough to allow him to live with his son again after too long apart. I remember both of them on their first days, panting at the end of their first mile and shaking their heads in disbelief at the very idea of setting a 6 mile goal, and today I couldn't be any prouder of them both.

But today we also learned that another of our members, also a K, has stumbled. Consistently sunny and filled with joy every morning, K was struggling alone with his frustrations and went AWOL after a weekend away from the shelter. His absence has been felt keenly and all of us worry where he might be on this drizzly evening. This is what happens when a person experiencing homelessness goes from a statistic to a friend: you know their name, you know their history, you know their favorite color and what super hero power they would have if they could choose. They become family and you worry like crazy when you think of what could be happening to them right now.

People tell me all the time how impressive they find my work with Back On My Feet. They tell me how great it is that I give to others, or how admirable it is. But that's not true; people like W, K and K give me inspiration, determination and strength, but also remind me about forgiveness, gentleness and love. They're my family, and they're why I keep setting my own new running goals.

In three months I'm joining two of our other members to run for 24 straight hours. It's going to be hard, yeah, but you can be sure we're going to get it done. If you can support us with a donation it would be greatly appreciated.