I Ran Today

I promise I won't go on too much more with the whole Jim Rice thing. But I do want to show some pictures.


Last summer, Peter and I went to a Sox game. Before the game, we got to see the taping the pre-game show on a stage set up outside of Fenway. Jim Rice was one of the analysts for the show. The picture to the right shows Peter leaning on the stage, behind the cameras, watching the action. The man in the red shirt in the middle is Jim Rice.




Here's a close-up of the action, as they're shooting the show. Nice picture of Rice. He's still a monster -- could probably hit a ball 400 feet even at his age. The man with the microphone is Sox President Larry Lucchino -- a Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma Survivor. Two World Series rings for him -- talk about your Nodes of Gold!



Peter and I really enjoyed the game. We had gotten him tickets for his birthday last year. This year, we have promised a weekend in Cooperstown to see the Hall of Fame, which he is very excited about.


Peter's birthday was yesterday, in fact. He knows the harrowing story of his birth, and knows that he was born about 9:30 at night. Isabel and I were in bed early last night, exhausted from a weekend of baseball games and practices. But at 9:30, we heard Peter call out "Yes! It's Official! I'm 11!" And then he went to sleep.


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OK, enough about Jim Rice. Back to the cancer thing.


Friday afternoon, I attended a Research Seminar at Southern. (I actually went there not to see my colleagues talk about their research, but to track down a Dean and Vice President to talk to them about something I needed an answer to that afternoon. I ended up chasing the VP across campus when he tried to sneak out of the seminar. I'm told he returned a little later to see the rest of the event.)


Anyway, I chatted some with a friend who teaches in the Public Health Department. She was presenting a research project on exercise and breast cancer patients. She and some colleagues did surveys and interviews of some women undergoing breast cancer treatment and some who have finished treatment. Fascinating stuff. She found that, of course, doctors encourage these women to excercise. But women who are going through treatment, who weren't already regular exercisers, did not get much benefit from exercising. Basically, they had so much going on in their minds and bodies that scheduling a workout just added more stress, and was counter-productive. Those who were done with treatment took to exercise much better; they had more energy and more incentive to stay healthy.


Very interesting, and a nice reminder that there is really no one-size-fits-all approach to any part of this experience. I love research like that, research that challenges conventional wisdom. Keep that in mind when you read stuff online about NHL. Some stuff just feels right, even if it seems wrong. Like that whole "watch and wait" thing.


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I, on the other hand, am still running, and enjoying the physical and psychological benefits. In fact, this morning, I ran outside for the first time (other than the races and the Florida runs ) since the fall. It felt good. I like the treadmill well enough; I usually watch movies while I run, and I can play with speeds and inclines to keep me interested. But being outside is really a little nicer. More challenges, better scenery.

Even nicer -- I took Strudel out with me for the first time. I've wanted to run with her for a while. Our vet said we should wait until she's at least 9 months old before taking her on extended runs, maybe a little older, to make sure her hips are fully developed. I wanted to start running with her in the fall, but then I started with the weird breathing problems that eventually led to the NHL diagnosis, and then the weather got colder, so she and I never did get to run together.

She does love to run. At the dog park, she has some buddies that will play chase with her. So I thought I'd tap into her natural doggy desires to run.

I was a little surprised at the results. She couldn't keep up with me. Seriously.

My plan was to warm up for about 5 minutes, and then do some sprints, which are her specialty -- you should see her go at the dog park. Our neighborhood is set up in a grid, so for a workout like today's, I usually run around the perimeter of the neighborhood to warm up, and then do half a street in a sprint (takes about a minute), and then jog or walk the second half. Then I'll go over to the next street in the grid and repeat.

So today, I did my warm up jog around the perimeter of the neighborhood. But by the time I got to my first sprint, Strudel was having none of it. She didn't stop dead, but she wasn't sprinting along like a demon, the way I expected her too. More of a slow jog. So I did a sort of half-speed-sprint, dragging her behind me. That kept up with the rest of the sprints. By the end of the workout, I was mostly jogging along, with her about six feet back, looking back at me with a little scowl on her face. This was clearly not how she had planned to spend her morning.

So we probably did about 2 miles total, nowhere near as intense as I had planned. With the way she was behaving, I figured she would collapse in a corner when we got back to the house. But no.

Instead, when I let her off the leash, she ran into the living room and sprinted around the coffee table, then ran to the dining room and sprinted in circles there. Every time I tried to bend down to pet her and calm her down, she went down on her front legs, in that "play with me" pose, barked at me, and then took off again for another sprint around the house.

Why was she so lazy on the run and then so energetic afterwards? Either she's nuts, which is a real possibility; or maybe she hates running with me and was happy to done with it; or maybe she had achieved the elusive "runner's high." The "runner's high" usually happens to runners about 20 minutes into a workout. As I understand it, running is fairly punishing to the body. After a while, it starts to hurt. The brain, at that point, says, "Well, if we're going to keep this up, I better do something to make it feel better," and signals the body to send out "feel good" hormones called endorphines. This results in a sudden rush of feeling good -- the "runner's high." Not all runners achieve this state -- I sure as hell haven't -- but apparently Strudel has. Either that, or she's nuts. Or she hates me. Whatever.

The endorphines didn't kick in for her right away -- not until we got into the house. Before that, she was obviously hurting. Personally, I felt great; it was a fairly easy workout for me. But poor Strudel was doubled over, clutching her side, panting, and saying, "You...must...let...me...blog...ab...out...this...."

So I assume you'll be hearing from her soon.