tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41732901881829440572013-05-21T16:02:10.643-04:00Run Home Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13394064430195728410noreply@blogger.comBlogger154125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4173290188182944057.post-47652363583763883672012-08-30T20:25:00.002-04:002012-08-31T07:21:36.941-04:002012-08-31T07:21:36.941-04:00

I'm starting to notice a pattern in the careers of many (though certainly not all) ultra-runners, the famous and infamous as well as the mid- to back-of-the-packers. You discover the sport through a friend or blog or magazine article, run your first 50K, and fall instantly in love. You are, for most intents and purposes, a fairly laid back person with a seldom revealed, more intense dimension

Run Home Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13394064430195728410noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4173290188182944057.post-76416970663343244322012-06-06T08:07:00.000-04:002012-06-06T08:22:17.895-04:002012-06-06T08:22:17.895-04:00

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Run Home Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13394064430195728410noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4173290188182944057.post-9589626553898851822012-05-26T11:45:00.002-04:002012-05-26T12:17:27.353-04:002012-05-26T12:17:27.353-04:00

After my last post whining my way through long injury, making dire deals to run less, run smarter, run better when(ever) I was able to run again, I have started running again more or less, though many fewer miles and hours than I used to, and I am very happy about it. I am running smarter (I think), definitely less, and I'm enjoying it. I'm trying to keep it to 3 times per week, although as I

Run Home Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13394064430195728410noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4173290188182944057.post-15904357765757802082012-04-17T07:11:00.000-04:002012-04-17T07:12:18.173-04:002012-04-17T07:12:18.173-04:00

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Run Home Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13394064430195728410noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4173290188182944057.post-87891424858187156852012-03-09T04:58:00.005-05:002012-03-09T07:04:51.327-05:002012-03-09T07:04:51.327-05:00

Or perhaps the word is de-volve. According to Danny Dreyer's Chi Running book, I am supposed to be trying to recapture the joyful and effortless manner in which I ran as a child. I was a child well before the era of omnipresent video technology, so I'll just have to take Danny's word for it that the younger, lither, more innocent version of me did indeed run with perfect posture and perfect lean,

Run Home Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13394064430195728410noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4173290188182944057.post-17723267946148131732012-02-11T05:56:00.003-05:002012-02-11T06:27:45.847-05:002012-02-11T06:27:45.847-05:00

I'm about a week into my ChiRunning adventure and I'm liking it very much. It seems to be all I talk about these days: posture, mid-foot strike, swivel hips. I'm preaching the gospel of Chi! (Actually, I'm just thrilled to be running again on a regular, if painfully slow, basis.) After 45 years of running on my heels, I feel sort of reborn. A mid-life re-birth of running.The basic idea of

Run Home Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13394064430195728410noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4173290188182944057.post-85053709642477865642012-02-07T17:35:00.007-05:002012-02-07T19:00:50.108-05:002012-02-07T19:00:50.108-05:00

Brian's outside in his socks watching me run circles in the street until he's too dizzy to do it anymore."Back straight!""Back straight!""You're sticking your neck out too far.""Back straight!""Look down."It's my very first time Chi running and there's way too much to think about. But it's kind of fun. I'm running poker slow, mincing really, keeping my neck straight, hitting the ground with my

Run Home Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13394064430195728410noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4173290188182944057.post-77666367957970921912012-02-04T19:43:00.002-05:002012-02-04T20:12:38.567-05:002012-02-04T20:12:38.567-05:00

It's 5:45 on a Saturday night, but it feels more like 10. I swam for an hour and a half this morning, a lifetime ago. I spent the day at my kids' swim meet, in a hot, crowded, echoey pool ushering 8-year old girls to their many and varied events. I have been loudly upbeat and encouraging all day. I have smiled and high-fived and accepted several soaking wet hugs. It was a great meet.But I have to

Run Home Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13394064430195728410noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4173290188182944057.post-24283920762702059032012-01-16T05:55:00.003-05:002012-01-23T04:45:49.531-05:002012-01-23T04:45:49.531-05:00

That's a good question. With absolutely no running in my life for almost two months, what have I been doing with myself? I feel like I have been through Elisabeth Kubler-Ross' five stages of grieving in miniature. 1. Denial. Well, of course. Deep, long seated denial was what got me into this mess in the first place. "Oh, my foot feels okay. My knee is basically sound. Those little

Run Home Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13394064430195728410noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4173290188182944057.post-77232377898669542572011-12-31T05:23:00.005-05:002011-12-31T06:45:07.398-05:002011-12-31T06:45:07.398-05:00

Everyone tells you this, but you don't really believe it until you yourself come face to face with your own aging tendons and muscles and bones: It sucks to get old.I think I have finally come to a place in my life and in my running (or, more to the point, lack thereof) that I must acknowledge my age. I'm 44, and it's time to change a few things. Gone are the days when I can simply head out the

Run Home Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13394064430195728410noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4173290188182944057.post-49333163740242507342011-10-16T05:40:00.004-04:002011-10-16T07:07:05.579-04:002011-10-16T07:07:05.579-04:00

You gotta love TARC, a.k.a. the Trail Animals Run Club, a group of trail runners (I'm not sure if they are exclusively ultra runners) up around Boston. They are finally bringing more races to our area. And these are just my kind of races: low key, low entry fee, no schwag, and everybody contributes to the aid station tables. They are more like Fat Ass races than big, produced ultras, commonly run

Run Home Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13394064430195728410noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4173290188182944057.post-4711232143597525112011-10-01T09:22:00.009-04:002011-10-02T10:54:57.932-04:002011-10-02T10:54:57.932-04:00

I love this race. The Pisgah Mountain Trail 50K was my first ultra back in 2007 and I've run it twice since. It's a quiet little race up in Chesterfield, NH, just across the Connecticut River from Brattleboro, VT. The course is soft and pine-needly through a primordial enchanted forest, mostly runnable, and the hills (at least as I remembered them) are friendly -- just long and steep enough to

Run Home Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13394064430195728410noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4173290188182944057.post-20332447830691656592011-09-12T04:43:00.004-04:002011-09-12T06:59:07.635-04:002011-09-12T06:59:07.635-04:00

I guess the official term is Hurricane Season. Though we haven't seen much in the way of apocalyptic destruction, we have had our share of Mother Nature this month.Hurricane Irene, later downgraded to Tropical Storm Irene, took out a bunch of trees and put us out of power for almost a week. That was a trip. Camping at home! Luckily we had running water. Folks on well water did not, and that

Run Home Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13394064430195728410noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4173290188182944057.post-46805645272744393072011-08-25T05:32:00.014-04:002011-08-26T05:07:02.785-04:002011-08-26T05:07:02.785-04:00

Brian goes back to teaching next week and the kids and I go back to the way-more-hectic-than-summer homeschool lifestyle. I'm not sure I'm ready. It really has been a great summer. Brian's parents (his mom, mostly) offered to take the kids for a couple of nights earlier this week so Brian and I could take a few moments to catch out collective breath before plunging back into the fast shallow

Run Home Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13394064430195728410noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4173290188182944057.post-85144983088260497212011-08-15T14:03:00.007-04:002011-08-15T15:35:58.289-04:002011-08-15T15:35:58.289-04:00

(I didn't win this, but it sure is a cool award.....) From what I can tell here in my remote location deep in southeastern Connecticut, it seems that the Trail Animals Run Club (TARC) up in Massachusetts is starting to do some moving and shaking on the Northeastern ultrarunning scene. They have lots of small, fat-ass type races planned spanning all four

Run Home Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13394064430195728410noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4173290188182944057.post-87631135550484724122011-08-08T06:13:00.008-04:002011-08-08T08:13:53.571-04:002011-08-08T08:13:53.571-04:00

I woke up last Monday, finally feeling better, with a yen to get out of town. We deliberately set up the summer for this very thing: being able to hit the road at a moment's notice. No regularly scheduled camps or classes for anyone. We all needed to get off the schedule treadmill. We all needed to take a breath. The only glitch to our get-up-and-go lifestyle this summer is the pets. With a dog

Run Home Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13394064430195728410noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4173290188182944057.post-24379248079796137222011-07-21T06:16:00.007-04:002011-07-21T08:26:27.772-04:002011-07-21T08:26:27.772-04:00

If anyone's still out there, I apologize for the long silences here. Most of my writing energy has been taken up with my Patch job, which, if you're interested, you can read here.At the beginning of the summer, my running had been going well. I was starting to incorporate a little (very little) speed work and more hill work. I signed up for Escarpment, a tough 18-miler in the Catskills, somewhat

Run Home Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13394064430195728410noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4173290188182944057.post-3383016017969749162011-04-26T05:20:00.006-04:002011-04-26T12:00:27.133-04:002011-04-26T12:00:27.133-04:00

Actually, more like Traprock 52 or 53K, but who's counting? I ran a race!! Holy bejoly, I actually, for the first time since last October, ran a freaking race!! No injury, no issues, no problem.I met Bob Buckingham in the New London Staples parking lot at 6:45, and we drove the hour or so to West Hartford/Blooomfield in Bob's truck. We have so few local ultras here in Connecticut, it was a joy to

Run Home Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13394064430195728410noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4173290188182944057.post-78948499048895496422011-02-21T05:41:00.004-05:002011-02-21T06:04:10.270-05:002011-02-21T06:04:10.270-05:00

It has been two and a half weeks since I last ran. My ankle is still a bit achy, but I think it's getting better. I think, I think, I think.Alas.I see my PT later this afternoon and I am expecting to get the okay to start up running again later this week. Here's hoping I don't go out and run 20 miles off the bat and undo all this healing on the very first run. So tempting.....I have been cross

Run Home Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13394064430195728410noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4173290188182944057.post-35178177454164850002011-02-08T08:01:00.004-05:002011-02-08T08:20:17.646-05:002011-02-08T08:20:17.646-05:00

The minute I decide to run 100 miles, my foot and leg go all wonky. I'm beginning to think it's all mental. I'm beginning to think I'm psychotic.Literally the day after I upped my registration from 100K to 100 miles, my right foot and ankle started to feel a bit squishy. Of course I went ahead and ran too far anyway, and now I'm downright injured. Not terribly so. I have hope that this is a

Run Home Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13394064430195728410noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4173290188182944057.post-36682341297496095642011-01-31T04:28:00.005-05:002011-01-31T04:59:16.122-05:002011-01-31T04:59:16.122-05:00

First, the wishy-washy runner.A month or so ago when I decided to downplay my ambitions and sign up for the 100K rather than the 100 Miler at the New Jersey Ultra Festival, I was greatly relieved. We were right on the cusp of the most busy crazy-busy time of the year at our house.My husband, Brian, is the coach of the robotics team at his high school, and January/February is the Build Season.

Run Home Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13394064430195728410noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4173290188182944057.post-26775947248142065592011-01-19T05:30:00.004-05:002011-01-19T06:55:45.222-05:002011-01-19T06:55:45.222-05:00

Okay so yes, I did go out and run for two hours yesterday afternoon while the kids had a class at the Mystic Seaport. Perhaps I need to be committed to some sort of mental institution? I think my husband would gladly drive the padded white van. After I came home from my first run of the day, in the early morning dark, glazed in ice, he thought I was nuts. When he saw me suiting up to head out

Run Home Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13394064430195728410noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4173290188182944057.post-79078386172931870252011-01-17T05:05:00.004-05:002011-01-17T05:18:03.415-05:002011-01-17T05:18:03.415-05:00

I usually get up at 4 in the morning, work at my desk for about an hour and a half, then go for my morning run. In winter this means piling on the layers, including a reflective vest, pulling poor Eddie from his warm dog bed, and pushing off into the cold, dark outdoors.It has been a wonderful gift both this winter and last to have Tolstoy in my ear during these early morning excursions. I am

Run Home Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13394064430195728410noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4173290188182944057.post-1559072143800795732011-01-11T07:14:00.001-05:002011-01-11T07:18:09.162-05:002011-01-11T07:18:09.162-05:00

It has been snowing here in Mystic, and we're due for another big dumping tonight. The world is so beautiful. I have been loving my early morning runs and watching the world go from black to cobalt to blue.I wrote about it in my weekly column. Enjoy!

Run Home Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13394064430195728410noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4173290188182944057.post-76555120032330175962011-01-07T05:23:00.002-05:002011-01-07T05:36:05.996-05:002011-01-07T05:36:05.996-05:00

It has been difficult recently to make time to write in this blog. I just took on a new job writing two monthly columns as well as a weekly column for a local news website called Patch. It's more work than my old newspaper job, but much more interesting and fun. This job allows me to stretch my wings and write about stuff other than parenting. After six years, I was getting a little sick of

Run Home Pamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13394064430195728410noreply@blogger.com2