Nobody Knows Anything

Welcome to Diane Patterson's eclectic blog about what strikes her fancy

The downside

Posted on Written by

I’ve just discovered the downside of writing in a notebook as opposed to writing on a computer.

You can lose a notebook. I ain’t lost track of a computer yet.

Later: I decided to go out for a bike ride and retrace all my steps yesterday from the last place I am absolutely sure I had the notebook, which was at the fountain park with Simon. So I ended up taking a five mile bike ride this afternoon, which is good, but there is no notebook to be had, which is bad. Given the wind we’re having today, if the notebook was out there, it is gone by now.

This’ll larn me to enter in what I’ve fucking written down a little more promptly. Fifty to sixty pages appear to be gone.

Needless to say, I am not a happy camper right now.

20 miler

Posted on Written by

I have a new running record: 20 miles! Woot! Go me!

Mind you, it was only supposed to be 29 kilometers (18 miles). But you know me: gotta overachieve.

Rob and I ran the Santa Cruz Mountains Trail Run yesterday. I was somewhat nervous about this, down to having a race anxiety dream the night before. I told Rob when we got there: “I’m kinda scared.” Last week, when we did a 13 mile run at Waddell Creek I couldn’t finish it running because of my hip, and here I was trying for 29k? Was I completely insane?

The short answer was, Yes, I pretty much was, but I managed to finish it. Not well, mind you, or particularly fast, but I managed to run 20 miles up and down hills and I finished it standing.

You could do one of 5 courses: the 10km (from the starting area to Route 9), the 21km (from the starting area to the Aid Station and back again), the 29km (from the start to the Aid Station, then back up the hill to a separate side loop, back to the Aid Station, and then back to the starting line), and the 50km (the 29k + 21k courses).

Oh, and there was a stream to ford in the middle of it. That went up to my waist. And was really, really cold. It actually wasn’t too bad — one of those fun things to talk about! — except our shoes stayed squishy for a mile or so afterwards, which got kind of old.

The hardest part was the hill that started after the stream: straight up and down. It seemed to take forever to get to the Aid Station. Then we had to go back up the hill to the yellow ribbon that marked the beginning of the 8km extra loop. Rob said, “And the 50k’ers have to do this hill three times altogether.” The 50k’er behind us said, “Don’t remind me.”

It was a beautiful run, but I don’t think I’ll be doing again. For one thing, the incline was just too steep at too many points. I’m still having a hard time going up hills. For another thing, an equestrian event was held the day before our race. As you may or may not know, “equestrian” means “horse,” which means that the trail was covered in horse manure. Fresh horse manure.

It got to be a little much.

The funniest thing is the private joke I’ll be taking away from this race. As 50k’ers passed us, returning from finishing their 29km segment and heading out to do their 21km segment, Rob said to me, “It would take a gun to my head to get me to leave the starting area again.” This became “Gun to my head” and finally a shake of the head and “Bullet.”

When we finally finished (after our impromptu extra mile or so), I said to Rob, “It’s weird, but I don’t feel hungry.”

“Exercise suppresses appetite. In 45 minutes we’ll be knifing one another for food.”

We went to Emily’s Bakery again, because their sandwiches were so good last week. They were really good again this week. My sandwich was done first, and I sat down as Rob’s name was called. By the time he returned, I’d finished half of my sandwich already. “I’d still swear I’m not hungry,” I said, “but I can’t seem to stop eating this as fast as I can.”

Rob has said he wants to try a 50km at some point. I said, That’s completely nuts, but then I remembered: last year was my first trail run, 8km. This year, 29km. What’s to say I couldn’t add another 21km at some point?

I’ll have to get a lot better at hills though.

A hard, hard week

Posted on Written by

I’ve done much better with the No Reading thing than I thought I would. I have not been completely successful in avoiding reading. The toughest parts have been not reading blogs—under no circumstances am I opening NetNewsWires, no no no—and not reading before bed, because I always read before going to bed (and now I just lay awake, telling myself stories). On Monday we got our Entertainment Weekly and I read it cover to cover, which should have been my first clue that something odd was going on, because I have never read EW cover to cover. I mean, seriously: do I need to know that much about Michael Mann’s problems in making the big-screen version of Miami Vice*?

And I read some cookbooks last night while making dinner. I did find myself wanting to read other recipes as well—”Oooo, doesn’t that sound tasty?”

I have noticed a few things that are different. For example: I’ve been writing by hand to avoid the temptations and distractions I get from sitting at my computer too often (as I write this entry, the only applications that are open are MarsEdit and iTunes), and even though I haven’t written by hand for years and years, I’ve been writing quite a bit. In fact, the past two days, whilst the children have been splashing around in the blow-up pool in the backyard, I’ve been sitting in the kitchen a)watching them and b)writing. Know how many times I’ve managed to do writing when the kids are around? Two times: yesterday and the day before. Editing by hand is a pain, but I’ve kind of solved that by only writing on the right-hand side of the notebook, leaving the left-hand side open for any changes I want to make. I figure I’ll edit as I type it in anyhow.

My mood is noticeably more relaxed now that I don’t have the constant inflow of news and analysis that I usually check in on all day, every day. I still am jonesing to read Firedoglake, but clearly I can live without having access to my 350+ blog feeds. Maybe I should make a mini-list of feeds to check daily and keep the vast majority of the blogs for when I need something to read. Also, I bet at the end of the week my favorite blogs will have a nice backlog of stuff to read.

§

I know one person reads my blog to find out how his brother is doing, so I will catch you up to date on my exercise regime, because that mentions the brother quite a bit.

On Saturday Rob, Nina, and I went for 13 mile run at possibly the only site in the Greater Bay Area we could have done such a thing without suffering heat stroke or sun poisoning: the Waddell Creek trail that goes from the Pacific Ocean to Berry Creek Falls and is pretty much shaded the whole way. While the rest of the Bay Area was “enjoying” 105F temperatures, we were in the high 70s as we chugged along. I’ve been having trouble with my piriformis muscle/IT band, so I had to walk the last two miles because my hip was hurting and all of us had forgotten to bring our drug of choice, ibuprofen. We then went for an excellent lunch at Emily’s Bakery and Rob and Nina picked up a few chocolates at Richard Donnelly Chocolates. Given that Rob had already arranged a fancy evening out for him and the missus for their 19th wedding anniversary (!!!), I thought it was damn decent of him to show up with a box of chocolates for her as well.

Nina got the alcoholic chocolates for her and her man. I don’t know if many places have single-malt scotch chocolates, but Nina says that not only are they better than they sound, they’re actually extremely tasty.

Rob and I also went running yesterday morning, starting at 6:30 to beat the heat. (We failed. And the Creek Trail was simply jam-packed with people also trying, and failing, to beat the heat.) We decided to take it easy, and both of us reported feeling fairly ragged—I was shocked when I glanced at my watch and it said my heart rate was 136, because I would have sworn it was in the high 160s. (Yes, I’ve become one of these people who has a pretty good idea of where her heart rate is, most of the time.)

The very last stretch to my house goes up a hill, and I always record the highest heart rate of any local run on this hill. Good way to end a run, eh? Usually Rob and Nina run to the top of the hill, stretch, cool down, and play a few games of dice in the time in takes me to get up the hill. And yesterday started out as no exception: my inner voice was saying, “I’m dying, I’m dying, I can’t do this.” I thought about saying that to Rob and imagined him replying, “Thanks for sharing.” Then I thought, I wouldn’t say that to him, why am I saying it to myself? So I decided to change the tape to: “I am running fast, I am having a great time.” And it certainly felt like I had more energy going up the hill. Rob and I arrived at the same time, for instance.

I asked Rob later whether he’d noticed a difference in my going up the hill, and he said: “I had to speed up to keep up with you.”

Now, admittedly, it’s not a huge hill or anything, but damn. That is high praise coming from Mr. “I’m just going to run ahead and meet you at the top.”

I gotta try this affirmation thing more often.

* Once, during our second or third experience of the interminable preview for Terrence Malick’s The New World, I leaned over to Darin and said, “I know this is an unfortunate choice of words, but do you ever feel like Hollywood is shoving Colin Farrell down our throats?” He cracked up and said yes. If I read one more goddamn story telling me that Colin Farrell is either the next Big Thing or the current Big Thing and I should love him, dammit, I’m going to start the Colin Farrell Boycott Society. I’m sure he’s a very nice guy and very talented, but gods, Hollywood, stop it already, would you? You can’t make us love him. Three and a half years ago, when I was the Sherman Oaks Gymboree with baby Simon you had a bunch of women in their mid-thirties making fun of Colin Farrell, and I don’t think his reputation has gotten any better.