lately, it seems that i’ve been on a mission to avoid ambiguous human interactions. i probably should have realized this when i stopped taking the bus last winter or the elevator a few weeks ago. i thought i was being anti-social, but that’s not quite it. it’s the don’t-quite-know-what-to-do judgment calls that i can do without (give up a seat? say hi? i don’t think i have the emotional bandwidth for this kind of shit). other people maybe have this issue too, i think. only they deal with it by burying themselves in sunglasses, a book, and an ipod in the way back corner of the bus and when they get to work they stare straight down when walking the halls.

anyway, i realized today that the last piece of the puzzle was to avoid eye contact while running (or anywhere else, but tonight’s challenge was to try to do it while running). mostly it’s the i-say-hi-they-say-nothing-i-feel-compelled-to-flip-them-off thing that tends to make me crabby. so now i don’t acknowledge that anyone else is alive by keeping my eyes low. i am stupid with the eye contact, btw. so this is no small feat.

my plan was going swimmingly until i was about 3/4 of the way around green lake when it 100% failed. i was keeping my eyes on the running path to make sure that i didn’t run over any small dogs when someone who i reckoned to be a chronic inebriate of some variety dropped her shorts to her knees and showed me her cooch.

two things:
1. hard livin’ tonight at green lake.
2. i need a plan b to avoid the awkward social stuff, plan a didn’t quite work out.

- woke up, felt urge to puke
- went into bathroom, realized bathroom was gross
- held in vomit while cleaning toilet
- toilet cleaned, vomit released
- ate bananas in attempt to settle stomach
- felt a little better
- ran 18.7 miles (wished i did 20)
- ran ice-cold water in the tub
- made giant fruit salad
- sat in ice-cold bath while eating giant fruit salad
- looked around, wished that i cleaned tub, too

while i’m face-up on the table, i usually stare at the ceiling as they’re putting needles into and taking needles out of me. today i looked down while the needles were on their way out and i’m not sure that i should have because good. lord. jesus. the ones in my i.t. band were sunk about two inches deep.

in a mild panic, i looked up at the acupuncturist and said, ‘dude, please tell me that the needle in my forehead isn’t in that far.’ he said it wasn’t. i don’t know if he was lying.

against naturopath’s orders, i ran 3.2 miles today. they weren’t fast, but they were pain-free. and now comes the stretching and the heat/ice. and then the beet juice. i’m so psyched. pain-free! i’m pretty sure that i’m not cured yet, but i’m definitely on my way.

i got stuck and cupped today. my knee hurt beforehand but after it felt amazing. if they didn’t tell me to wait another week (two more treatments) before running, i’m pretty sure i’d be running both days this weekend. those naturopaths and student naturopaths at the bastyr clinic are super-good.

the acupuncture had much less ache than last time, which i think is supposed to be good. the cupping was another story. i’d never been cupped before. it kind of hurt. i guess the story is that it sucks all the stagnant blocking blood out of where it isn’t supposed to be and up toward the skin where it can easily be washed away. i’m drinking a lot of water.

this is what it looks like eight hours later. the bruising is gonna be around for a few days, i reckon.

today was my first acupuncture appointment for this knee issue. i’m not exactly sure what the needle they put in the middle of my forehead was for. maybe they’re treating something else, too? i don’t know how this works. the needles in my hands were fine. ears hurt. the ones where they think the source of the problem is (a few inches north of my left ankle)? good. lord. jesus. when he put his finger where he was going to put the pin, i knew it was going to hurt. and hurt it did, like a really intense dull ache. though it also felt immobile. it didn’t feel like a leg anymore; it felt like wood with a nail in it.

in addition to the flax oil, vegan glucosamine (regular is made from shellfish), weekly cold-laser treatments, extra post-yoga stretching, hot/cold compresses, and rest, i’ll be adding twice-weekly acupuncture.

on the drive home, i noticed that i didn’t have any pain when shifting gears. is it possible that all of this is happening because of the clutch pedal in my car? i’m going to feel really lame if it is.

hoping to keep some of my scottish bike fitness, i got up a little earlier than usual this morning to do a longer ride on my way to work. i had that self-satisfied up-early-and-exercising feeling, which started dissipating when it started raining and then was completely obliterated when i double-flatted within a mile. both tires. one was a very slow leak and the other was leaking quickly. i turned around and went home so that i could run to work instead (i was too late for the bus).

i have a new running style that doesn’t hurt my knee quite as much but it still hurts some. and it’s ugly, oh man is it ever ugly: limpy, left leg a little off to the side. it’s not sustainable. i’m seeing a naturopath about it tomorrow.

to recap: flats, rain, running pain.

and then something happened that made me forget all of it. about a block from work, an old broken asian dude looked me in the eye, gave me a gap-toothed grin, and then whipped out his junk and pissed all over a pole outside of the big asian supermarket in front of a crowd of people.

i missed running so much. it’s not just the endorphins, it’s also the waking dream feeling of flying through shit like that. while you can still see the guy pissing when you’re on the bus, you don’t get to really connect with him.

after years of running i finally have my first knee problem, which has been painful and frustrating in equal parts. it doesn’t bother me when i ride or walk, but when i run it becomes completely debilitating after maybe two miles. it’s been like that for about a month. i suppose i’ll have to find a sports doc when i get home.

running in a new city is one of my favorite things, as i feel like i can cover a ton of ground really quickly. with the residual knee stiffness from last weekend finally subsiding, i went to run around holyrood park. the good news is that holyrood park and arthur’s seat are gorgeous, the bad news is that my knee started acting up and almost locked up when i stopped to ask directions.

it probably didn’t help that there was a cross-country team of 13-year-olds who i decided to race up the hill. but don’t you worry, i brought one home for the usa and for old people with knee problems everywhere.

i’m paying for it now — laid up on the couch, ice on my knee, watching the football report on bbc2. no running until i get home. all cycling all the time.

my attempt to do my own very special los angeles triathlon (shooting, surfing, running) was thwarted by an incredible mud-slide-inducing storm on friday which supposedly turned the ocean into a toilet, so i substituted surfing with massive overeating at every turn.

my baby brother had never been shooting before, so after a little forced gun-safety reading, we headed down to the los angeles gun club. the kid can shoot, i tell you what. he’s a natural. we were shooting a 9mm sig and then a .45 cal kimber, which we went to after these two dudes walked in hauling a smith and wesson 500, which is about as about as long as my thigh and twice as heavy. (btw, check out the picture of it being fired at night.)

then on sunday, i ran the city of angels half marathon with jen, patrick, john, kevin, and eileen (who i ran as last year in vegas). it went well. i set a pr with 1:28:47 (6:47 min/mile). i really love the half marathon. it’s over early, i have a ton of energy when i’m finished, and then i get to do more massive overeating (i forget how good the produce is in southern california and how amazing the veggie restaurants are).

i wound up way back at the start for some reason and spent the first seven miles picking my way through people who went off too fast (which feels awesome, though i tend to feel sad for them). then i found a guy who was just about at my pace and i sat on his heels for the next six miles before he completely dusted me at the finish. i have never been so thoroughly beaten in a sprint for the line. i congratulated him after the race. he did the same. i like runners.

takeaways:
+ i forgot that los angeles could be so hilly.
+ i maybe left a little out there on the course, since i was so bouncy at the finish.
+ i am getting old. my heartrate only saw 190 bpm during the sprint and it was really sore.
+ with a little more speedwork, i think that i am capable of running a 1:25 on the right course.

a little more than halfway through this morning’s ~6m sloggy sprint through the rain, i came upon this old fat bearded guy walking with a cane. that isn’t the funny part. in fact, that isn’t funny at all. the funny part is that the old fat bearded guy was wearing a sky-blue dirndl (like the st pauli girl, without the beer and with the tits). and the funnier part is that he saw me staring at him and screamed, “DON’T YOU DARE FUCKING LAUGH AT ME!”, which is when i lost my shit and laughed in his face.

i kinda felt like a jock asshole bully, but fuck it. dude was wearing a dirndl in the rain and screaming at me for doing nothing. what the shit was i supposed to do?

i woke up a little early this morning so that i could run ~8 hilly miles before work. it was still dark when i left the house but the sun was just about to rise.

running up madison, i got hold of an amazing sunrise. one of those sunrises that makes you feel smug because you’re up and running while the rest of the world is still sleeping.

and that sunrise was the last recognizable picture that my camera took. the rest of them look like this.

i got to work 10 minutes late for my 9am meeting. there were no free bathroom stalls to use for changing, so i ducked into my boss’s unoccupied office to swap clothes. his office doors are filled with obfuscating glass, not unlike a shower door. i figured no one could see me. later on that morning, someone mentioned that i figured wrong.

getting back to my desk after the meeting, i noticed that a bird had shat on my bag. i guess the luck there is that it missed my head.

going home tonight, i went to choose some musical accompaniment for my bike ride and instead got the sad ipod icon, with a helpful message telling me to contact tech support.

i got on my bike and had a quiet ride up the hill. when i reached the ridge, it started raining. i was happy to be only a few minutes from home. that’s when i heard: pfffff, pfffff, pfffff, pfffff. yes, i had flatted.

pushing aside beggars, i found an awning under which i could change my tube. then i realized that there was a 1″ gash all the way through the tire. changing the tube would have meant flatting again, which i didn’t want to risk on a wet descent. so i called mia, asking her to pick me up. she said she’d be there in a few minutes. then she called back to remind me that i was in possession of the only car key and that i had left my bus pass in its stead. good job, patrikios. i very carefully hoofed it home.

tonight i started the winter ritual of running home from work, since it’s too dark when i get home to embark on a run. i ran up a street that i don’t normally take and it was kind of sketchy. i mean, for seattle. this thing probably wouldn’t register in regular cities but dudes were jumping out attempting to startle me. others wouldn’t move, daring me to play chicken with them. at no point did i feel like i was in danger, i just didn’t understand their motives. it was both really confusing and really lame.

once i crested the hill and ran along the ridge toward home — past the house with the two barking pit bulls, past the house with the gaggle of yipping terriers — some kid who must have heard me coming because he turned around, got low, clenched his fists, and put on his hardest look. he looked like he was some kinda martial artist and he didn’t look like he was kidding.

i know it’s wrong for a hippie like me (who is going to start running home with his daily fruit scraps so that he can compost them instead of putting them in the garbage at work) to say but now i get why people drive to work. i don’t think it’s laziness and lack of caring about the planet. i think they just don’t want the hassle.

while running eight miles in the rain this morning (yay seattle), my shoulder hit something that was way too fleshy and firm and forgiving. it felt like i had crushed an infant’s skull. again. upon looking back, it turned out to be one of those land-of-the-lost sized sunflowers on its last autumn legs.

i must have been really deep in thought to have missed a 12″ sunflower hanging over the middle of the sidewalk. i’ve been thinking about this class war stuff pretty hard since the other day. as of now, i have no idea where it comes from. i’m sure i’ll figure out the origins but i have a lot more thinking to do.

as a side note: land of the lost was some fucked up shit.

i ran today for the first time since the portland marathon. knowing that this was going to be a run that didn’t mean anything but recovery, i brought along a camera. i was inspired by pc, who does really great photo essays of his runs in southern california. it’s like he’s the last man and/or only pedestrian in the los angeles.

while he and i think that we’re cut from the same running-is-simultaneous-punishment-and-reward cloth, we differ in our terrain choices: he prefers the concrete of the LA river, and i prefer parks and lakes and trees.

the first few minutes of every pre-run start out the same way.

there’s always a little bit of settling in and taking in how psyched i am to be running instead of doing whatever else.

i’ve always wanted to bring everyone i know running with me.

there’s a lot to see, like this awesome grass-colored toxic sludge fertilizer(?).

and man-made passages from one lake to another that are prettier than they should be.

and all-nude october maples!

i ran the portland marathon this morning. it went pretty well. i ran a personal best of 3:17:07. i know that i’m capable of running faster, but i’m ok with today’s race considering that i was treating it as a training run since i didn’t really do any kind of real buildup or marathon-specific training. my longest pre-marathon run was maybe 17 miles, which is not long. today, i was pretty comfortable until maybe mile 22, when the hurt set in. legs, mostly. some lungs. though my lungs hurt yesterday before the race so maybe i’m battling some kind of respiratory thing? dunno. i went out slow. didn’t get much faster. but the course was nice. i mean, it was fine. a non-event, really. now i’m tired.

i was kind of freaking out the week before the race. i don’t wear deodorant and whenever i’m anxious, i can smell myself. so in the days leading up to the marathon, i was somewhat smelly. after the marathon today, i smelled fine. is there an evolutionary reason for this? or does my nervousness cause my body to release some kind of toxin that i have to sweat out? maybe the latter.

either way. i’m done smelling bad now. and i ran a personal best. whee.