Weird stuff… and good stuff

Submitted for your approval: biker shorts that “imbue average people with superhuman walking abilities.” I can see the therapeutic possibilities for restoring mobility in people who have lost it, which helps to redirect my thoughts from their otherwise inevitable trajectory to “The Wrong Trousers.”

Moving right along…

I don’t know how I missed this in April. Joan Benoit was one of my female marathon heroes in the early 1980s, before I eventually determined that marathoning was not in the genetic cards dealt my knees. Earlier this year she announced that she would be making a 40th anniversary “run” at her record-breaking 1979 Boston Marathon win (her first attempt at Boston, in which she shattered the existing women’s record; her record held up for 11 years). Her goal was to come within 40 minutes of her 1979 time of 2:35. She crushed it, coming within 30 minutes of her original record. Forty years after her record-breaking debut, now age 61, her Boston Marathon time was 3 hours and 4 minutes.

Meanwhile, 71-year old Jeannie Rice – who broke the world marathon record for 70+ year-old women last fall – has gone and broken the world half-marathon record for 70+ year-old this summer! She ran the Akron Half Marathon in 1:37:07.

Alright, y’all. I almost let August get away without a post. But I’ve managed at least one post a month for two years, which is kind of phenomenal for me. Every time I think of shutting this blog down, I get inspired by somebody, and I let it live another day. Next month I’m going to have another athlete interview. And I’ll be walking a half marathon with some good friends. I bailed on the October 50-miler I signed up for, and will be revisiting the idea next spring. For now, I’m going to concentrate on calming down and working out. I just came off a 7-day experiment, following Rip Esselstyn’s Engine 2 Seven Day Rescue Diet, and darned if my joints didn’t move better at the end of it. I know because as soon as I reintroduced cheese (I wasn’t intending to, but was served quiche at a lunch meeting; then – figuring I’d already gone off plan – I ate pizza with friends the next night!), my knees yelped like I’d spent a day crawling on a tile floor. I’ve been dancing around this for years: dairy – especially cheese – is not my friend. And in combination with tomatoes (as in pizza and pastas), it’s even worse. NOW will I finally go vegan? After saying I will for ten years?