Day Somethingorother of Jane's Wondrous Training Sessions

Thus far, I have had two training sessions. The first, when I completed the now-famous 18 minute mile, was a week ago. The second was this past Saturday. T'was a three miler. THREE MILES?! WTF!!!!

Here's the awful truth I'm learning about myself: I'm a quitter. When the going gets tough, I'm like out the door licketysplit. In my current [woeful] condition, that happens at about the 10 yard line. Or maybe, the twenty--I never have been good at judging distances. I hit this wall--you've heard of The Wall you hit when you're doing endurance stuff? Well, the wall I hit says, "Waaah, no way...this is hard....I can't...oh woe...." The first week, when it was Just A Mile (!), there were lots of cheerleaders along the route with signs and thumbs up and, jeeze, I couldn't cop out in front of all of them, could I? On Saturday, however, it was just me. Me and the dust kicked up by the herd of my fellow runner/walkers who were way, way, way way way ahead of me. I thought about taking a short cut--who would know?--but I didn't. I didn't because it seems grotesque, not to mention shameful, because, really, who was I cheating but myself? I guess I must have an iota of character left.

When I got home, I checked the training schedule. Oh. We were supposed to be doing these training sessions on our own during the week. Oh.

So today, I laced up my new running shoes (which look like U-boats, I'm afraid) and did another three miles. By myself. Yes, I did. Then I came home and died.....

TTES

...and that has nothing to do with 'tough' or 'tits' or anything else you're thinking. It is an acronym--aren't we all all about acronyms these days--for Training To End Stroke. Catchy, no?
Other major fundraising groups sponsor marathons; the American Stroke Association trains you to run/walk one.

So how is it that this particular group landed such a die-hard marathoner as moi? Well, you know that ruptured cerebral aneurysm I had six years ago? That was, medically speaking, a stroke. I didn't accept it at the time. When someone somewhere in the bowels of Cedars Sinai Hospital who was doing yet another something to me, dared to call me a stroke victim, "Hell no," I shot back. "I've had a Ruptured Cerebral Aneurysm."

"Yeah," said technician answered. "Same thing."

I didn't argue out loud because, well, for one, I had a multitude of tubes and stuff poking in and out of various natural and man-made orifices. But in my mind--which never stopped working, thank you very much--I thought, No way. Strokes are what old people have, and I'm not old.

So why now am I willing to cop to it? For one, it is six years later and I have matured (although I'm still not old!). But also, well, also it just seemed time for me to train for something.

I am, as I've always made clear, a complete doofus when it comes to things physical. I don't swim because going in a pool makes one wet. I don't play sports, because they make one sweat. And I don't do exercise, because it's just so damned tedious.

Ten, twenty years ago, this was funny. Today, it's pathetic. So in a last gasp effort to master my recalcitrant body, I have signed on to Walk A Marathon in May. I shall be collecting pledges (which means I shall be hitting everyone up). I shall be out in the elements between now and then training. And I shall here be monitoring my every effort.

And won't that be a kick in the pants for those who enjoy watching others suffer....

My Olympics

...is purely a spectator sport. I watch, I don't know why I watch, I don't know why I'm so fascinated that I will do nothing for that two week period in the evening but watch the Olympic coverage. I know nothing about sports--any of them, really. What I do know, however, is that I could never be a contender. I don't have the mental wherewithal, never mind what my body would do. Actually, I've been told over the years by a number of independent voices that I do have an athlete's body. My father was a professional athlete, and I guess I inherited something from him. The body type, that is, but certainly not the mental goods to go along with it. The repetition that is the hallmark of a training regime--I could never do that. I would get bored; I would whine; I would come up with a million and one reasons why I couldn't train that day. I don't know how the world-class athletes can bear the sheer tedium of swimming laps again and again and again and then again. Or marathon running: that training schedule of endlessly plowing up hills and down hills, around the block and into the countryside. I understand the mentality that goes into that about as well as I understand Chinese, which is to say not at all.

In the '80s, I did a profile of Mary T. Meagher, the famous Madame Butterfly, who still, I believe, holds the Olympic record for the 200 'fly. As part of the profile, I went to training with her one day. Oh, god, the absolute tedium of it. On the blocks, into the water, 'fly the length, haul body out of the water, walk around to the blocks and get in line to do it all over again. And again. And again. All afternoon and well into the evening. I escaped about 8 p.m., and Mary T. was still at it.

You know, it just occurred to me that I probably could learn Chinese sooner than I will ever understand how these athletes do it. Maybe that's why I watch them incessantly even though I haven't a clue what they're doing. To try to get some glimmer of what it is that drives them--and doesn't drive me.