Becoming a Burnham Jogger

You'll be happy to know that I'm recovering from the groin injury. I can walk now. Four more days on anti-inflammatories and then, if I'm not perfect, it's X-ray time. Pray for perfect, so I can run, again.

No one, even in jest, would refer to me as athletic. Once I hit puberty, I went from skinny, active kid to endomorphic sloth before you could say, "hormones." Like Lance Armstrong, my lung capacity is beyond the machine's ability to measure. Unlike Armstrong I fell off the wrong end of the scale.

Oh, I tried. In high school, I took up gymnastics and learned faster than anyone in the group -- until week three, when I hit the wall. (A running expression.) I joined the Synchronised Swimming Club where Amazonian effort kept me afloat or underwater, as the need arose. But you still have to be able to breathe to succeed. So, I settled for looking good in outrageous swim suits and lazed into my twenties and thirties.

As an adult, I would occasionally summon up the optimisim to try again. I have spent more money on gym memberships than anyone in my salary bracket. Two weeks of calisthenics or Nautilaus machines and I would feel the irresistible Call of the Couch. With beer.

My colleagues took up running. They came to work, wittering on about their three-mile gallop along the lake at six in the morning and how great! they felt. I'd slump further behind my desk and and dial the phone for a relaxing chat with a client who'd blown up his computer in the night.

Sometimes I would exercise at home. Canadian Royal Air Force Exercises: Conquer the world and your body in 10 minutes! Somehow, it always took longer. Yoga in 28 days! Bo-r-r-r-ing. Kenneth Cooper's Aerobics. Isn't this where I came in? Running? No, thanks.

Now and again. regretting my lack of get up and go. I'd read another book. Cooper's wife wrote one just for women. She recounted how Ken had taken his own pulse (39) and then hers (78), and then explained to her that, since her heart was beating twice as fast as his, it would wear out in half the time. She wouldn't live to see their baby grow up. I'd have divorced him, but she took up running. Pushing the baby buggy. They deserve each other, I thought.

Aged 39 1/2, I moved to England. Well, it's funny when you hit 40. One day you're sylph-like in a bikini and the next you're buying women's magazines exhorting you to Look Good on the Beach This Summer and Lose a Stone Overnight on the Chocolate Diet.

The day I returned home from boarding school at 13, my mother had invoked her mantra -- "I weighed 104 pounds soaking wet when I got married" -- and put me on a diet. I was 2 inches taller than she at 13, but I bought the line and had been on one diet or another ever since. Now I just couldn't do it any more.

Ruminating over dinner one evening, I began to consider the problem. Can't diet; hate exercise; no time; wanna eat; hate exercise. Sometimes, life is just one Monday after another. (Garfield, my hero.) "So here's the deal," I said to myself. "If you run, you can eat. Any day you don't run, you don't eat." I may not be able to give up eating, but I'm very good with bargains. I am the person who gave up drinking for 5 years. I am the person who gave up smoking. Three times.

The next day, I was browsing in my normal habitat -- the library -- when I saw a notice on the bulletin board. Learn to Run! Join Us on Monday Evenings at the Maidenhead Athletic Club! Beginners welcome! Telephone Angela! I telephoned Angela.

I'll do the short version. It was a 400-meter track and I couldn't get 'round a quarter of it. But Angela was nice and her husband, Malcolm, was nice and the other people were nice, and no one laughed. They just ran and walked with me. And I ran and walked, ran and walked, ran and walked for the next two hours. I couldn't walk for the following five days, but the next week I was back, again.

After several weeks, Angela and Malcolm suggested I come to the Burnham Joggers with them. It was so neat! First you did the Social Mile -- the entire club together. You got to meet people you'd never have seen if you'd had to catch them first. And I could do it! The whole mile. I had been practicing for, lo!, these many weeks. After the Social Mile, we split into groups of like abilities and ran distances accordingly. Then we showered and repaired to the pub. Was this a good group or what?

In another month I could run two miles. (And drink more beer.) Another month and I could run six. Six months later, one of the guys took me out when my regular group wasn't there and said we'd do a new route. "We'll try an 8," he lied. When we got back to the club house, everyone congratulated me. I had completed my first 10-mile run and hadn't known it. When you run the way I do, after a certain level of misery it's all the same. All runs longer than 5 1/2 miles take forever and will probably kill you. Having made this discovery, I have always known I could do a marathon.*

A club keeps you going. There is your particular group waiting for mutual encouragement each Tuesday and Thursday. And, frequently, Sunday. And special occasions. And Boxing Day. And New Year's Day. (You cannot be serious! But they are.) You can't let them down. There are the better runners who encourage you and force you to stretch yourself. And the race organisers who force you to race (or, in my case, "race") and not be embarrassed about your time. (They have no qualms about any embarrassment you suffer by seeing your age posted on the bulletin board.) And there's the pub. And the parties. And the weddings. Where do you think I met Nick? Forget that night class stuff. Athletics is it!

But I also am happy to run alone. Running alone in the quiet -- no earphones for me -- sets your mind free: to watch the scenery with more than your usual attention; to appreciate; to think; to solve problems; to rid your mind and body of the day's stresses; to diss young men in their cars and feed your growing superiority complex.

There is this wonderful thing called a "runner's high." Running shoots endorphins from your brain into your bloodstream (or maybe the other way around). Endorphins put you on top of the world. Or so they tell me. On a good day, I get, maybe, a runner's medium. I once bought a book just for the title: The Man With No Endorphins.

So now I've been running, off and on, for 27 years. There have been lay-offs, but I have never, ever, considered, giving it up permanently. Even though, every day that I contemplate putting on my shorts and shoes, I hate it. It's hard; I'd rather read; the weather is lousy; I'd rather nap; I'd rather a lot things.

The trick is: Don't Think! Turn off your brain, change your shoes and GO! Because the days that I don't run, I feel guilty. If I see a jogger on the road, I know what he's thinking when he looks at me. "Hey, there! You can't do this." Well, yes, I can. And I know that I will feel better for it.

Medium is good enough.

Oh. And the original problem? Once I hit 20 miles a week, I could eat anything. And do.

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*But I haven't. I limit myself to halves, 10Ks and the like. I am much too well bred to inconvenience the race marshalls by keeping them there two hours past quitting time.

Fair-weather Skier Part I

As I lie in bed with a groin injury that prevents me from walking for a time, my friends and enemies question my good sense. Over the past 20 years, I have ruptured one ACL and torn the other, the meniscus in my right knee is rattling around unpleasantly, and I have a bad back as a direct result of the first ACL injury. O.K., as a direct result of my own stupidity and stubborness -- while recovering from the first ACL injury. And yet, as soon as this injury heals, I will be out running, again, and when winter comes, skiing. At my age, shouldn't I know better?

Here's my theory. There are two ways I can be crippled: I can continue to run and ski, and chance becoming physically unable to do either. Or I can stop now, crippled by fear of what may happen. The end result is the same: no running or skiing. Why not wait for the real thing?

Why I run is, maybe, for another post. But I ski because, much to my astonishment, I love it. I, who, despite the misleading impression I may be giving, am not athletic; I, who hate the cold; I, who am miserable getting up early; I, who detest standing in queues; I, who, above all, am chicken; love to ski.

All through my teens and early 20's in Chicago, I resisted skiing. When I lived in New England, I resisted skiing. When I moved back to Chicago, I resisted skiing. Then I got this new boyfriend? And he skied? Well, you know how that is. Chicken, here, didn't want to say she was afraid for fear he'd dump her.

So, one morning in Atlanta, we get up at 5:00 a.m. -- hey! I stay up until 5:00 a.m.; I don't get up at that hour -- and we get in the car to drive to North Carolina. That's right, I learned to ski in North Carolina. Looked at one way, mud has advantages. It helps you to stop. The disadvantage is that it makes you stop kind of fast.

So we're in the car and I'm sulking because I'm scared, both of skiing and of being found hopeless, but I'm sulking discreetly because I don't want to be caught sulking, either. It was a long ride to the ski area, sulking, and there wasn't enough coffee in the world to make it better.

First stop, equipment. Boots. Here's the thing: I have square feet. Literally. 4 x 4. As a child, my mother used to come home in tears after trying all day to buy me shoes. I would be in tears when my father was ordered to take me out and he bought me brown oxfords. All the other little girls had pretty little patent leather shoes with straps across the top. The maid would be in tears because she had to dress me in those brown oxfords. Even if a pretty little patent leather shoe wide enough for my feet had existed, the strap would never have reached across my instep. The arch of my foot was so high, I only made two unconnected halves of a footprint. As I got older, my father became worn out and suggested that I buy boys's shoes. Or why didn't I just wear the boxes? Salesmen cringe when I walk into a shoe shop. My friends will never go shopping with me after the first time. (The first time they don't believe me.) I moved back to the country just so that I wouldn't have to buy shoes ever again.

Anyway, boots. To get them wide enough, they had to be too long. This is not the ideal fitting for control on the slopes.

Next, skis. These days, when modern technology has made skis so easy to turn that you just step onto them, let slip and enjoy the ride, the correct length is somewhere between the height of your mouth and the height of your nose from the floor. When I started skiing, shortly after the wooden models were retired to the museums, you determined your correct ski length by raising your hand straight up in the air and measuring to your fingertips. As the skis were so much longer and so much harder to manoeuvre, this ensured that you stayed in class for the rest of your life, trying to learn to use them. Ski schools have to stay in business, too.

So here I am: booted, after a fashion, and standing on these planks, with sticks in my hands. I couldn't move. Not from fear, although that played a part; I just couldn't figure out how to move my feet, which were now almost two meters long. And heavy. And didn't bend. My boyfriend took one elbow, the guy from the ski shop took the other, together they raised me off the ground, carried me to the ski school, and plopped me down. Boyfriend says he'll be back for lunch and leaves me to it.

I am the only adult in a class of children -- a dozen 4-year-olds and two kids who turn out to be an 11- and 12-year-old sister and brother. Now I am not only terrified, I'm embarrassed.

The instructor separates us into two groups. I'm with the big kids. As the three of us wait for the instructor to sort out the babies, the 12-year-old (boy, of course) looks up at me with a malevolent eye, and demands,

"Is this going to take long?" Like it's my fault we're here.

"Why?" I answer. "You in a hurry?" (You little creep.)

"My father says," he says, "I can't go up there," pointing at the equivalent of Mont Blanc, "until I have a lesson." ('Course it's your fault. Grown-ups are all in league.)

"Shut up, kid." No, I didn't say that. But I thought it.

Finally, the instructor gets back to us and takes us to the top (top! ha ha!) of the nursery slope. I have no memory of how he got me there, because I was still incapable of locomotion on my own. But there I was, at the top, looking down the vast expanse (ten meters?) of baby slope (baby flat?), being instructed to turn my toes in and go! I think he pushed me.

I went.

And I never wanted to stop.

It was unimaginable freedom and lightness. It must be what hangliders search for, or pilots or sky divers. I was flying. No, I was floating. I was floating and flying.

Then you spend the next 30 or 40 or 50 years trying to recapture that feeling.

I Must Stop Watching CNN

For thirteen years, while living in London, I railed against the U.K. Off-line. To my English husband.

I have posted about things I find not to my liking in France. Fewer things than the U.K., admittedly.

I hesitate to write this, since many of my American friends and acquaintances feel that any criticism I level is the result of my acquired status of "expat snob." Still, a woman's got to do what a woman's got to do.

I hereby declare that my own country, the one whose passport I still carry, the one where I still vote, takes the cake. In the United States of America:

• The national debt is at record levels
• Homeland Security is a joke
• Iraq is a tragedy
• Health care is practically non-existent
• The schools don't deserve the name
• Lobbyists are running the country
• New Orleans is in ruins
• The environment doesn't bear thinking about

And what is the big story in the land of my birth? Here's what: Hillary Clinton's cleavage. (For my French and British readers, this is not a joke.) Hillary appeared in the Senate chamber in her usual severely tailored suit and what the French call a débardeur underneath. You know, one of those summery, not-up-to-the-neck, sleeveless or strappy tops. The kind we all wear. Sometimes without a suit jacket. The kind adorning my upper body as I write.

France, the country that I currently call home, has just elected a president who barely, rarely, lives with his wife. His opponent, who lost for political, not moral, reasons, has four children by the man she lived with for 30 years. They split up after the election -- they both want to be president -- but she's still a good candidate for next time. It is also worthy of note that here in the land of high fashion no one commented on her wardrobe -- at least not in the news pages. President Mitterand's funeral was attended by both his families, including children. It was the first time the wife and mistress had met. No one commented on their clothes, either.

Can we go back to that list? Can we grow up? Please?

Raw Dog Food: Make It Easy for You and Your Dog by Carina Beth MacDonald

(This mini-review was written for Rambo's Diary [see Links] and still appears there.)

If you're curious about a raw diet for your dog or confused by the all the conflicting advice and myriad "raw diets," this is the place to start.

Carina has distilled the literature into a concise and amusing guide to feeding your dog a fresh diet.

All the basics are here to get you started and keep you going. There is an excellent Resources section to further reading, suppliers and internet support. (Note that the Yahoo group, formerly known as BARF-Lite, is now RAW-Lite.)

I Wrote a Post

Good news. You remember Susie? Here she is with a cuddly rat.

Bad news. Been awhile, but I finally wrote a post today. Only it's not here. It's a response to Dolittler, a veterinarian for whom I have a lot of respect. You can read it here.

Doppelganger

I rang the friends with the rats today to see if they wanted to come to dinner on Tuesday. The friends, not the rats.

They also have Susie, the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, who is "not fat; she's just got a lot of hair." (But that's not part of the story. You may forget it.) These are the friends who kept Van-Ly and Nala when we went to Zurich a couple of weeks ago.

Steven was breathless when he answered the phone. He was holding two rats and I could hear Pat yelling in the background. He hung up and called back. He was still breathless. Or breathing hard. In addition to coping with the rats, the washing machine broke down and they were gone all day yesterday from 9 to 9, getting it fixed. (This part is important; you may remember it.) Their daughter just went back to Ireland after a week's visit, their son is home because school has finished, and they're baby-sitting, again.

We have an acquaintance, whom I may have mentioned, who got an 8-week-old Westie a week or two ago? I gave her Carina's book, suggested that carrying the pup everywhere is not good for its character, and we haven't seen her since. Now, it seems, she's gone to a quilting workshop (I think she's running it) and left the 10-week-old? puppy with Pat and Steven. It's not housebroken. It cries when it's in its crate. Her crate. Rosie.

Who gets a puppy when they're going to be off travelling? "Don't yell at me!" says Steven. "I'm not yelling at you," I say. "I'm yelling at Joan -- through you."

So the puppy is running around doing its puppy thing, which is peeing and pooping.

It prefers tile, but doesn't mind if it's indoor tile or outdoor tile in front of the apartment Pat and Steven rent out. And Pat and Steven are going nuts. I can hear steam escaping from his ears, over the phone, and she's still yelling in the background. It's pretty easy to tell she's yelling about the puppy. Or at the puppy.

"So," I said. "Put it in its crate and leave it there. Take it out to pee and poop."

"We do that," said Steven. "Then she runs back in the house to pee and poop."

"No, no," I say. "You take her out of her crate, take her to where she is to pee and poop, stay there until she does, and then put her back in her crate."

Objection, your honour!

"No, Steven, really. This is how you train them."

"We can't leave her there all the time," says Steven.

"Well, no," I say. "When she's peed and pooped, you play with her for awhile, take her for a walk, and then put her back in her crate."

Walkies. The second day they took her for a walk, Rosie got a grass seed under her upper eyelid and had to taken to the vet. We're 26 kilometres from the nearest vet. Pat and Steven are 40 kilometres. But the seed was removed and they have moved on to the antibiotics and ointment routine.

"But she makes an incredible amount of noise if you put her in her crate."

Gone yesterday from 9 to 9 with a screaming, barking puppy in the car because she's too young to leave at home? The sound on the other end of the phone is probably nerves fraying.

"She'll get used to it," I say. "That's what it's for."

I offer to take her for a couple of days. Hey! Antibiotics and eyedrops R Us. He declines, sure that I want to get her here to torture her. So we postpone dinner until the dog is gone, the kid is settled and the apartment dwellers have departed -- next weekend. We say goodbye.

I hang up and start to wonder who that was on the phone just now with Steven. Was that the person who, 33 months ago, wanted to know what a crate was? You mean one of those awful things I see at dog shows? You keep your dogs in those things? And they let you have dogs?

The person who knew that Chows couldn't be trained? The person that didn't care? If she'd wanted a dog to do tricks, she'd have got a Collie?

Has my husband noticed that this is not the woman he married and lived with for 22 years until she joined RAW-Lite? Are you people going to take responsibility for this new woman?

Whose Chow heels?

Nick wants to know.

Things About Chows

• No one knows their history. The records were all burned when the mandarins were overthrown a couple of centuries ago.
• Chows are born with 44 teeth, like bears. They lose 2 in adulthood to arrive at the normal 42 for dogs.
  
• They have blue tongues -- blue mouths -- like a small black bear from Northern China. When God was making the stars, pieces of the night sky fell out and dropped on the tongue of the Chow.
• They have straight hind legs, which makes it difficult for them to jump, but makes their cute Disney-behinds go switch, switch, switch when they walk.
  
• One widespread theory of their origin is that there was a darwinian split in a superanimal, whose name I forget, and bears went one way and dogs the other. Chows fell down in the middle. They are considered the oldest breed in the world.
• Easier to swallow, they orginated in, or migrated to, Siberia where they were isolated in an area between the mountains and the Sea of Japan. There, they evolved separately. (Think of Australia.)
• Some people think that Chows are the forebear of the Spitz; some think they are descended from the Spitz, which seems illogical. Why would a Spitz, with the anatomy of a normal dog, throw off a descendant with a blue tongue, 44 teeth and a different intestine, but all the other descendants be normal?
• They belonged, first, to the Mongolians. Not much argument on this one. They were war dogs and hunting dogs.
• The Mongolians, being traders, brought them to China, where they were pets of the Mandarins, who also used them for hunting dogs.
• After the fall of the Mandarins, they were farmed for food. I really didn't want to accept this one, but I've come 'round.
• The farmers' only concerns were to cull the troublemakers and to keep the blue tongue, the blue tongue being a sign of "prime" meat. What brought me to acceptance of the farming theory is noticing that Chows do not interact with each other.
• Item: They love other dogs, want to meet them and play with them, but totally ignore their own kind. Occasionally Van-Ly wants to play with Nala, which annoys Nala no end. More often, Nala will want to play with Van-Ly, who just ignores her. Sometimes we meet other Chows. They all ignore each other.
• Item: We took Io Jima, our first Chow, to be bred. Mme. Gondrin said, "We'll all go in the living room and chat and let the dogs get to know each other. We went into the living room with the dogs and sat down. The dogs sauntered up to each other, totally without interest, did simultaneous U-turns, and went to opposite windows to see if anything interesting was happening outside. From this, I learned why you use artificial insemination with Chows.
• Maybe they're really related to pandas.