Marathon Woman

The LA marathon was Sunday. I was not one of the participants. I was recently looking back at old journal entries and I saw in my goals for 2005 that I wanted to train for and run in a marathon. I didn't make it, not even close. It's also one of my goals for 2006. I missed the 2006 LA Marathon this Sunday. But as of yesterday I am in training.

Yes, it's been an intense two days of marathon training. Let's see, yesterday I started on my vigorous regimen. I walked up to the park by my house and walked around the track four times. I'm guessing four laps is about a mile. Today, I had to cut back on my distance. I didn't get home until it was just about dark and I was walking on the track in the dark and it was a little creepy. So I only walked two laps and then walked home. If I keep up this pace of training I'll be back to running a mile in no time. Then I'll only have 25.2 more miles to build up to be ready to run a marathon. But I can do it. I have a long way to go.

I've run three marathons in my life. The first one was in 1991. When I was in Bible College in Kansas in the late seventies I had a friend named Sheila. Sheila and I were buddies (we still are though we don't get to see each other much) and we used to run together. We would go on 10 and 15 mile "fun" runs on Saturdays, somethimes in pouring rain or freezing cold. We told each other that we would run a marathon together someday.

In 1991 I was working at UCLA and I had a friend named Beth. We both liked to run so we started to run together after work, around UCLA. We decided to take a stab at a marathon run. I think the most we ran in our training runs was 6 to 8 miles but we decided to go for it. This is a picture of me after completing the marathon in 1991. I survived and it was a great experience. I didn't take home the first prize Mercedes but it was fun. I think my time was over 5 hours. Not exactly world record pace but I wasn't running to win but to finish.

I told my friend Sheila about running the marathon and we decided we would run one togehter. Shortly after the '91 marathon, I became pregnant with Eric. He was born in January 1992. I ran the marathon with my friend Sheila in March 1993 and then the next year my husband Chuck and Sheila's husband RC ran with us. It was quite a family thing, with Eric and Sheila's four kids cheering us on. This time I think the time was pushing 6 hours, but it was still a great experience.

My favorite marathon memories are:

1. At the beginning of the LA Marathon, it's one big mass of humanity piled together but everyone is excited and friendly. Then the music starts to play, "I Love LA". With the adrenaline flowing, it takes a bit of time for the crowd to start to surge forward. With the music blaring, the crowd pushes past the grandstand with waves and encouragement from the mayor and boxing great Muhammed Ali.

2.The marathon route goes through diverse neighborhoods of LA. From the "hood" to the tonier sections, it seems the whole city is behind you, the runner. Neighbors handing out water with encouraging words, local bands playing, rock, Mexican folk music, Chinese traditional drums and dancers. It makes a person proud, for once, to be a part of this great city.

3. Breaking point after breaking point. At some point there it is: "the wall". Then a mental breakthrough and a second wind. One of the best memories I have is being hot tired and ready to quit and then after one more turn in the road, a refreshing ocean breeze comes through and rejuvenates. It reminded me of the refreshing wind of the Spirit. Just when you think you can push no further, God sends the wind to refresh.

4. Finally the finish, the best part. No matter how exhausted I was, those three times, at the sight of the finish line I would perk up and sprint to the finish. What a thrill!

I need to do this again!

Meet my avatar

Here's a fun way to spend a bit of time, design an avatar!

avatar
noun [C]
in computing, an image which represents you in online games, chat rooms, etc. and which you can move around the screen using the mouse or keys:
By typing in simple commands you could pick up objects and talk to other avatars, with your words displayed in a cartoon bubble above your head.

(from Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)

Playing Outlawed Tunes on Outlawed Pipes

Happy St. Patricks Day! Okay, so the other night I was in the kitchen and my son walked in. I asked him what he was doing and he replied, "Playing outlawed tunes on outlawed pipes." I laughed and then I realized it was a line from the movie Braveheart.

I think I mentioned before that he likes a band called The Dropkick Murphys. They play traditional Irish mixed with hard rock and punk. So Eric decided he wanted to learn to play the bagpipes. Where do you get bagpipe lessons in Santa Clarita, California? I don't know, but we're looking.

In the meantime, Chuck found a music store with a knowledgeable person to talk with. He took Eric to Santa Monica and they came home with a book and what's called a chanter. A chanter is the pipe part of the bagpipe, without the bag. It costs considerably less than a full bagpipe and you can learn to play the tunes on it. So Eric has been spending hours on end picking out tunes on the chanter. He can play the Braveheart theme song already.

I'm sure he'll be getting the bag to go with the pipe soon. If you know anyone who teaches bagpipes near Santa Clarita let me know, okay? In the meantime my son is "Playing outlawed tunes on outlawed pipes."

Happy Purim

Today is the Jewsish Feast of Purim. Actually, it ended at sundown, since all Jewish feasts run from sundown to sundown, so it started yesterday. That is unless you live in Israel, when, I believe, it's celebrated a day earlier. Ok, so what is Purim and why should anyone who's not Jewish (like me) care about it?

First of all, what is Purim? Purim is the feast instituted in the book of Esther which commemmorates the thwarting of an evil plot to annihilate all Jews in the Persian Empire. Queen Esther was the instrument God used to turn the evil plan of destruction into blessing and victory for the Jewish people. It was Esther's courage and willingness to risk her life for the sake of her people that saved them all.
Read the book of Esther to find out more about this great heroine of the faith.


Here's a fun site where you can learn more about Purim. (Be prepared for some rather obnoxious music to pop up.)

www.torahtots.com

Gymnastics Name Dropping

This is Aimee with Olympic Silver Medalist Mohini Bhardwaj at a recent UCLA gymnastics meet.

Ever since my husband and I were blessed with tickets to the 1984 Olympic gymnastics meet, I've been a gymnastics fan. We were privileged to see both the silver-medal U.S. women's team with the dynamic Mary-Lou Retton and the gold medalist men's team with Peter Vidmar and Bart Connors.

So you have to know it's a thrill to have my seven-year old daughter involved in the sport. And when I say involved, I mean involved. She trains four hours a day, five days a week and loves it. When she has a day off, she'll often be heard to say, "Oh I wish I were at the gym." This is not my dream, it's hers and I'm here to support it. I'm very proud of her, can you tell?

But, I digress, I must get back to my name-dropping.
Ever heard of a Yurechnko Vault? A Yurechenko is "a round-off on to the spring board, back-handspring onto the vault, then blocking off your hands to complete a salto in the air and land." (I just looked that up on google,I knew it was a vault but I didn't know the description. I think there's also a bars move named after her but I didn't find it in my search. Isn't the internet great?)

Well, we saw the person this move is named after, Natalia Yurechenko, now coaching in New Jersey. She was at our gym with her gymnasts for a meet that Aimee's gym sponsored at UCLA. Aimee also competed at the meet. I wouldn't have known who she was except Chuck and I struck up a conversation with one of the girls parents who happened to mention that their head coach was Yurechenko. Then I made sure I was able to get a look at her. (If it weren't for the Soviet boycott in 1984 she might have given Mary-Lou Retton a run for the AA gold, but we'll never know will we?) There's another reason to get a camera phone I guess. You never know when you're going to see an Olympic gymnast.

Please indulge me for one more name, Russian Olympic gold medalist Valeri Liukin, now the head coach of WOGA, in Plano, Texas. WOGA is the gym that produced Olympic gold medalist Carly Patterson and world champion(maybe she got second at world's, I could google again and find out but I have other things pressing right now and I want to get it out there.) and daughter, Nastia Liukin. He was also at the meet sponsored by our gym. Too bad his daughter Nastia didn't make the trip.

Anyway, these are a few of the gymnastics names that I've been hobnobbing around with lately. Of course there's the up and coming level 5 gymnast (my daughter), now being coached by two-time Olympian from Bulgaria Galina Marinova.

Hasidic Reggae?

Have you heard about Matisyahu, () the Hasidic Reggae musician? I probably wouldn't have heard of him either, had it not been for my fourteen-year old son who is a fan:

Here is a line from one of his songs:
"Torah food for my brain let it rain til I drown, Thunder! Let the blessings come down!"

Matisyahu's new album "Youth" was released yesterday. I've listened to some of his songs, and while I can't say I really enjoy the style, (to my untrained ears it sounds like a mixture of punk and reggae) I love some of the lyrics. He's so God-oriented and worshipful.

I've also recently been introduced to another of my son's favorite bands: The Dropkick Murphy's. They seem to me to be a mixture of Irish folk (bagpipes and ballads) and punk. We were listening to one of their CD's (The Warrior's Code) in the car the other day and one of the songs absolutely brought tears to my eyes. It was a ballad about a chance happening upon the gravesite of a young nineteen year old Irish boy who died in WWI in 1916.

It's so much fun being introduced to a whole new era of music. I'm glad my son wants to share his music with me. Hasidic Reggae and Irish folk punk, what will they think of next?