So Thankful

I went on a Thanksgiving run yesterday morning before heading over to spend the day cooking and eating with some friends. The roads and sidewalks were pretty sketchy due to some early season cold weather here, so I decided to hit the track at Grover Cleveland High School rather than one of my other go to routes. Turns out, running on a track is almost as boring as running on a treadmill! So to pass the time on my quick 4-miler, I decided to start chronicling my blessings in my mind. I ran around and around that track, changing lanes after each one to keep track of my distance, counting all the things I was thankful for. I enjoyed it so much, this may become a thanksgiving tradition for me. My list:

1. My family. This has been a sad year for us, but we've grown so close as a result of Uncle Jeff's death. I love them beyond description.

2. My Portland "family". Which is growing and becoming that elusive friend group that I've always wished for. They are so great.

3. My Sunny, who loves to sleep on top of my smelly running clothes, with her nose right close to the socks. (snapped this picture yesterday morning)



4. My job! And the general direction my organization is moving in, the positive folks I work with, the beautiful place we're dedicated to.

5. John Muir and what he did for wild places in this country and by extension, the example set by the US of forming national parks, since then adopted by much of the rest of the world in places that would otherwise surely meet their demise.

6. The rain in Portland, that although it becomes depressing come April and May when all I wish for in the world is sunshine, makes this place what it is and what I love, a lush, green paradise full of waterfalls and tall trees.

7. Portland, in general, which is easily the coolest place I've even been. And I get to live here.

8. Music. In particular Sufjan Stevens, Iron & Wine and, of course, The Punch Brothers.

9. The genius of Mark Twain, who continues to delight readers and afficionados of his work by stipulating in his will that his memoirs not be released until 100 years after his death. 2010 was a great year for bibliophiles like myself.

10. My home and the fact that I refer to it as "home" rather than "house." My wonderful roommates and the peaceful feeling I get when I walk in the door after a day of work or play elsewhere. It's a haven, for sure.

11. My health, which is spotty at best at times, but has overall held strong in the last couple years and allows me to think about things like extended travels and taking on big responsibilities without worrying about dropping out due to major illness.

12. My legs. Weird, I know. But my favorite things in life, walking, hiking and running, are all made possible by these amazing appendages that get me where I want to go with very few complaints.

13. Art and the way it continues to inspire and delight me. My membership to the Portland Art Museum and the opportunities I have to visit and relish in other people's genius.

I could go on, because in the time it took me to run 4 miles at that track I didn't run out of things to add to the list in my mind. I've decided that in general, this is a great way to pass the time while running and I'd like to make it a habit. I bet my longer runs, too, could be filled to the last stride with thankfulness.

Post run, I cleaned up and headed to my friends, Ian & Sasha's, to spend the day cooking, drinking and eating (starting with raw oyster shooters and white wine for breakfast - delicious!). And, have you heard the hype about deep fried turkey? It's every bit and more delicious than you've heard! I was just a little bit hoping to have need of the fire extinguisher we had on the deck next to the huge pot of bubbling peanut oil, but Ian had things under control and the whole day, from the time I arrived at 11 a.m. to the time I left 12 hours later, was packed full of laughter, good conversation, plenty of booze and the tastiest food one could hope for.

So, long post short, I'm feeling so blessed right now. So thrilled to be undertaking this huge endeavor I've talked about for so long, so lucky to have the support of friends along the way, so relieved to have a four day weekend! My Team In Training training officially starts a week from tomorrow and I'll finally meet my teammates and coach. My first batch of holiday cards are in the post and will be making their way into mailboxes all over the country (and world, actually, with several headed to Germany as I type) in the next several days. But should you not be a family member on this list, you can still be involved. My fundraising page can be found here: http://pages.teamintraining.org/oswim/eugene11/koldani Give generously, people, tis the season!

In a nutshell:

Now playing on my iPod: Sufjan's Christmas albums, burned for me by my Uncle Jeff three Christmases ago. He loved those albums despite the fact that he didn't celebrate Christmas.

Reading: Great House by Nicole Krauss.

Looking forward to: December 19th, 9:30 p.m. when I walk out of the airport in St. Louis, MO to be met by my mom and dad and the ensuing chaos that is Christmas with the Oldani family.

WWJMD?

I am happy to report that my shin splints are gone! I rested a whole 8 days (minus a couple hikes) and hit the pavement again on Saturday, making a gigantic loop from OMSI up to the Steel Bridge and across, then down along Tom McCall Park, along the West Bank Esplanade, past OHSU, through Willamette River Front Park, then across the Sellwood Bridge and back to OMSI via the Springwater Corridor Trail.

By my sister's calculations (she has one of those cool watch/foot thingy combos that both track your mileage and speed) this is about 10 miles. Which gave me a lot of time to think. Foremost on my mind on this particular fine Saturday morning was my Opa and how he would be 90 years old tomorrow if he were still alive, buying an old barn and converting it into a house and wood working studio, how Sunny could've come running with me if her hips weren't worthless and every now and then, "Hmmm, does anything hurt?" -full body scan for pain, then- "Nope! I'm good! This is the best I've felt on a run . . . well, ever!"

It took me an hour and forty-five minutes, which is a little disappointing, but I'm hoping my Team In Training coach will be able to work with me on pace. I want to go fast! And I don't want to kill myself doing it!

In other news: I met with my team leader this week for some face to face/fundraising strategizing time. She's great. She gave me all kinds of tips. So prepare yourselves - I am about to blow up your inbox with annoying e-mails begging for money! I might even throw a benefit kegger at some point (I thought for sure LLS would frown on this, but turns out, folks fighting cancer like beer too!). I'm digesting all the suggestions right now, I'm going to see how well my family plea goes over and then I'll assess the need again after the holidays.

In other news yet: I talked with a colleague of mine about running on Friday (Colleague? That makes me sound too important. We'll go with it!) and he has offered to show me the ropes of the Forest Park Trails! This is an area of Portland I've long wanted to explore on foot, but I've always shied away from, thinking that experienced trail runners/bad-asses would scoff at my measly 6 mph on-a-good-day-and-flat-surface pace and blow by me, all the while thinking to themselves, "You don't belong here! Go put on a pink hoodie and run on a treadmill with the rest of the not-made-for-trails wimps!" (Again with the pink - there is a deep rooted issue here!)

But, I recently gave up my gym membership. This seems like an unwise thing to do, considering I'm training for a marathon, but I was having a conversation with a friend that somehow turned to gyms and he was shocked/disappointed that I belonged to one. "Kristina, no! What would John Muir do? He certainly wouldn't run on a treadmill!" And I'll tell you something, I took that to heart. Because John Muir is my dead guy crush and I would never want to disappoint him and also because my Runner's World says that running on a treadmill isn't a close enough simulation to real, on the ground running to be effective for training.

So I'm going to take my colleague up on his offer and hit the trails of Forest Park some fine weekend. I might even throw in some trail runners' lingo if I'm not hoovering wind too badly. "Man, I got some serious chub rub going on!" (Yes, Bekah, there is a word for it!) Or perhaps if I'm feeling sprightly near the finish line, I'll sprint passed and yell, "Dude! You just got chicked!" Which, by the way, didn't go over so well with one female reader, who wrote in a letter to the editor this month, "Including the phrase "getting chicked" as need-to-know vocabulary legitimizes the idea that women are inferior to men that that getting passed by a woman is something to be embarrassed about. [It is] offensive." I thought it was funny. Oops.

So on this beautiful Sunday morning, while lying in bed with the lingering scent of my new golden cypress candle still in the air, I thought to myself, "What would John Muir do?" I didn't come up with anything brilliant, but I did decide to take an amble through the woods. My hike today brought my weekend mileage total to 23. I think John would be proud.


In a Nutshell:

I have sore hip-flexors, but otherwise, I'm good. It's 9:30 now and I'm going to bed! I'm burning that cypress scented candle and with any luck I'll dream about John Muir tonight!

Oh, also, only five days left of pumpkin smoothies at Burgerville. Get them while they're hot (?).

Sidelined

I haven't run since Thursday. I've been sidelined with the shin splints from hell. Friday, while hiking around in the Opal Creek Wilderness, I noticed that my left leg was pretty sore and achy. By yesterday morning it was just plain painful. This is pretty much what my weekend has looked like since:

I picked up a couple bags of frozen peas from the grocery store on my way home from the Portland Art Museum yesterday and have had one or the other strapped to my leg with an ace bandage ever since. On the up side, it's given me a chance to write the Christmas cards - purchased at the art museum and hitting mail boxes next week - that will beg support for my marathon from my family.

While cleaning out some boxes in my closet today, in search of thank you cards to send my supporters, I came across my journal from last year. I remembered distinctly writing about Uncle Jeff's leukemia when it was first diagnosed and was curious to see what I'd said. Here's what I found, unedited, forgive my ignorance:


October 25th, 2009

A while ago I was watching "Brothers and Sisters" and Kitty was diagnosed with cancer and the thought came to me, (and it's horrible and I hope no one ever reads this) "I wish I had cancer. What a great way to get some real perspective. All my ridiculous, petty unhappiness would vanish under the enormity of being faced with my mortality." Yikes. So I've been, in the back of my mind, trying to prioritize my life ever since. What do I waste precious thoughts on? What do I allow myself to become preoccupied with?

December 7th, 2009

On October 25th I admitted to "wishing" for cancer in some inane capacity believing it would render a carpe diem mentality, unshakable, that would catapult me into an entirely new phase in life (but not of course without first having a dramatic brush with death that would garner lots and lots of otherwise unsolicited attention) in which I succeeded in fulfilling all my less practical ambitions, ones that in this reality (the non-cancer one) just seem like pipe dreams.

Well, I sincerely hope that my wish did not in some way affect reality somehow - the Friday before Thanksgiving we got word that Uncle Jeff has leukemia. And I am not okay. Actually, the strange thing is, life is going on. I'm still trying to live by the principles of positive affirmations, both for myself, and now for Uncle Jeff, although I'm not sure how I can finagle things to positively think things into someone else's reality.

He's not well. He's been in the hospital since Thanksgiving, so ill and weak that he can't feed himself. He's on round two of chemo, which will end with tomorrow's treatment, but Aunt Linda told me today they'll be in the hospital for a few weeks more according to the doctors. Linda's taken a leave of absence from work and spends her days in the hospital with him. They've been so close for years, really to the exclusion of other friends, and Linda told Mom that if Jeff dies she'll have no one. And this breaks my heart and makes it soar at the same time. It breaks because while Uncle Jeff is miserable now, I fear Linda, if she ends up alone after having to muster patience and joy while caring for him while he's dying will be utterly broken. It soars because they are proof that what I long for is possible - a relationship so close that you need no one else.

Alek apparently has a better idea than Ani of the severity of the situation. He looks things up and researches and worries and if I know Alek at all, probably feels a huge amount of the most excruciating sympathy that borders on guilt.

Ani is trying to finish her semester and just wants to hear that he's doing okay when she checks in. And I understand that too. Because what will worrying do for her? It will make her perform poorly in her finals, make her not want to complete her last semester beginning in January.

I wish I were still in Chicago so I could clean their apartment and collect their mail and cook for Aunt Linda when she doesn't stay with the Stewarts.

Family is so precious to me and I have such a love for Uncle Jeff, especially after how wonderful he was when Opa died - I'll never forget that. Or how supportive he was when I lived a few blocks from them. Why do people move so far away from their families?

I'm sure everyone has a story like this. Death is a universal experience. Everyone knows someone who has battled with, won or lost, against cancer. And blood cancers are some of the deadliest. So here it comes again - The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society aims to cure blood cancers! That's an ambitious goal and I've really grappled with my own cynicism since signing up for this program. Do I even believe there is a cure for cancer? But there is - I have to just believe that, and I have to believe that my involvement in this small capacity will make a difference.

And did I mention that if you donate to my fundraising efforts you will receive a card, snail-mail delivered in Kristina font, chock-a-block full of effusive thanks, gratitude and unsolicited flattery? I brag about few things, but Kristina font is pretty stellar. Your card might look something like this:


front


inside

Well, that's all for now. I'm going to swap out pea bags and take some ibuprofin and call it a night. Thanks for your support.

You can give online here: http://pages.teamintraining.org/oswim/eugene11/koldani

In a Nutshell:

I am still pumped, despite this set-back

Listening to It'll Happen, also a Punch Brothers song, and a very good one at that - timely, considering my current frustration.


Feeling sore, yet satisfied.

I'm Running A Marathon

First of all, friends, meet my fundraising page :
http://pages.teamintraining.org/oswim/eugene11/koldani

And don't laugh - I am already out on the mean streets of Portland several days a week kickin' ass and tearing up the pavement! A full 26.2 miles still seems a long way off, but I'm killing 8, 9, 10 and feeling really good. So with the 6ish months I have left before my May 1st event I think I will be more than ready.

I'm devoting my blog (which frankly was doomed to failure from the get go) to my training and fundraising and ultimately my completion of this event. I will then check back in from Virginia Beach, where I plan to go lie in the warm sand and celebrate Cinco de (Drink-o) Mayo with my sister when it's all over with.

My last blog post was about losing my Uncle Jeff. This past summer was hard - I spent a good deal of it grappling with my own mortality, grieving for my aunt and cousins, grieving for myself and trying to figure out a way to "make it better." I wrote then that I wanted to run this marathon. I put it out there in writing because I was afraid I wouldn't do it if I didn't broadcast it to the world (meaning all 7 of my blog followers). But I never lost interest. And a couple weeks ago I finally, officially, joined the NW Team in Training, slapped my $50 registration fee on the counter, and started tracking my miles.

Oh - and I went on an ill-advised gear binge, but I find buying fancy-pants schwag the best way to stay motivated in athletic endeavors. I am now the proud owner and wearer of a great pair of running tights, several ridiculously expensive pairs of running socks, and a smattering of sweat wicking tops with ranging sleeve lengths. I also have my eye on a really sweet cold weather running hoodie by Salomon. It's $110. And I forfeited Christmas presents in exchange for a plane ticket home. So this will probably round out the aforementioned gear binge.

http://www.rei.com/product/801532

I feel fairly entitled to this spree as the entirety of my training will be in the cold, wet months. Today's run was a particularly wet and cold one - a six mile out and back from my house to NE Fremont and back again.

Oh, and another reason I feel okay about buying that Salomon hoodie - it's white. And I read in all the magazines that one should wear light colored clothing when running outdoors in the dark (which 9 times out of 10 is what I do), but riddle me this all you gear designing geniuses - why is all running gear BLACK!?

Okay - so to sum all of this up, give me money. Also, feel free to buy me stuff that I can run in. And don't try to be cute and buy me hot pink running tights. There is a limit to my desperation and I draw it at all things pink.

In a Nutshell:

I am currently suffering from a really bad stomach ache due to the giant mocha I downed while sitting here in Crema, my coffee shop of choice, writing this post.

Listening to all Punch Brothers, all the time. I pretend to have diverse tastes in music, but I really listen to bluegrass pretty exclusively.

But I don't listen to music when I'm running. I am a bad-ass, through and through.

You might fancy
I sure do.