A thrilling spook

We’ve reached that time of the year again. Although the days are lengthening, opportunities for decent rides are as fleeting as the evening sun.

A year ago at this time, and the year prior, Limerick was calm. “At last, she is older and calmer,” I thought back then. I realize that I was wrong. She wasn’t older and calmer—she was sore. The arthritis creeping into her joints didn’t allow her to be silly.

Fast forward to now. January was bitterly cold. On the warmest days, I would groom Lim and turn her loose in the indoor arena for a blanket-free roll. On the coldest days—the days I had to dress in three layers on bottom and five on top, with two pairs of wool socks (and Toastie Toes!) in muck boots, my head wrapped in a scarf, hat, and hood, the air painful to inhale, my eyes watering, my fingers quickly going numb within my holey winter barn gloves—I could only hurry to the barn, kiss her on the nose, feed her, and hurry home.

She was turned out most days.

February was a bit better, temperature-wise. But the cycles of warm(er) and freezing temperatures created many slick spots and lots of frozen mud in the pasture. The horses didn’t go out as much.

In the past, Limerick was only ride-able in the latter stages of winter when she was both turned out daily and ridden often. Even then, each ride was a potential adventure, especially when the wind howled or melting slates of ice slid off the barn roof.

For the past two years this did not hold true.

And now, it is once again the case.

Two weeks ago, the temperatures were fairly warm (low 40’s) and Lim had been going out daily for some time. It was a perfect evening for a ride! The wind blew hard as a warm front moved in, and although I couldn’t hear it, I could sense that there was a month’s worth of snow and ice sliding off the metal roof of the indoor riding arena.

As I groomed and tacked her up, Lim was extremely alert. The barn owner’s daughter was working a horse in the dark outdoor arena, and from where Lim stood as I got her ready, she had a fuzzy view of the outdoor arena. Horses can see much better than humans in the dark, but not if they are standing in a lighted barn looking outside.

Lim’s head was up and her eyes were enormous. I offered her a treat and she took it between her lips but did not chew. I realized that a calm ride was not in the cards but how bad could it be? When Limerick was young and spooked, in less than the blink of an eye, she would bunch her Thoroughbred muscles into a mighty ball and explode forward with such a startling display of power that

(fortunately I, too, have cat-like reactions and during these tremendous spooks, was able to reflexively sit tight and hang on. By the time Stop this mare went through my head, Lim would be far away from her starting point—usually partway into one of her fatal 90-degree turns at a dead gallop)

there was really nothing I could do.

But she was older and calmer now, wasn’t she?

In the indoor arena, Lim bravely held herself together. The wind howled and the ice skittered off the metal arena roof, and she trembled in my hands. Her muscles were tightly-wound wires. I was gentle. I soothed her with my hands and voice. I thought of what I wanted to do, rather than doing it. And you know what? It worked.

Until a cat jumped down from the short arena wall by the viewing area and the taunt wires of Lim’s muscles snapped and suddenly, explicitly, our centers of gravity were not aligned and I realized that I was falling (but my core, and my own cat-like reflexes, were ahead of me and righted me) and she, we, were flying sideways into the air, her head so high, her long black mane a whirlwind before me. I was back on the four-year-old filly I first sat on almost thirteen years ago, her lean powerful frame narrow between my legs, her body like a finely tuned string instrument.

And then she was standing in place, forty feet from where we were a half second prior, blowing hard, snorting at the wall the cat had jumped down from. Her heart hammered between my knees, her muscles tensing up again.

I need to get off now, I thought. Now. She’s ready to explode again.

We were near the door at the back of the arena and it began to bang in the wind. I could see it banging. Lim’s head—pricked ears, wide eyes, snorting nostrils and all—swiveled towards the door. I could feel the roaring fire rage harder within her and knew we were

thisclose

to another spook. She swiveled her head back towards the arena wall and snorted at the long-gone cat. She wanted to save us both from the monsters but we were cornered.

I let the reins drape—loose, but not so loose that I would be screwed if she took off again. I stroked her furry high neck, my hand easily going to her poll.

“It’s okay, sweetheart, nothing will hurt you. It’s okay, we’re okay,” I said. I was calm. I had to get off but I knew that at that moment, the action of swinging my right leg over the saddle could set her off again, and I’d be trapped with one foot in a stirrup, one foot on the ground. I had to get her calm first and that could only be done if I was relaxed. I stroked her neck and talked to her. Her heart slowed. Her breathing slowed.

Finally, I was able to carefully swing my leg over and dismount. I walked her back to the arena wall (at the sight of it, she snorted in alarm until I touched it). I put the lunge line over her bridle. I wanted to end the ride on a good note, but it would have to be on the ground.

She was okay. She moved freely. Her head was tucked low. But I could see her eyes rolling to and fro, and one ear—the outside ear—flicking about even as her inner ear remained on my voice. I could not hear what she was hearing but I knew it had to be spectacular. Howling wind and sliding ice. Maybe random sections of the arena—the doors, a loose board—creaking and banging.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the orange tabby fur of the cat.

I didn’t blink but I barely saw it. One second Lim was lunging before me—tense but okay—and the next second she was twenty feet away, the lunge line long and taunt between us, her legs splayed, her head high, her wide eyes and nostrils quivering.

Wow!

A decade ago I would have been dismayed by such behavior. But now? I’m thrilled! After all the pain, all the heartbreak and worry, I am downright thrilled that my 18-year-old (per the Jockey Club) mare can move like the fleet-footed filly I knew so long ago.

Gone is the creaky, thin, arthritic mare of a year ago. In her place is a spirited, sleek, muscular thing full of Thoroughbred spirit and power.

I am thrilled!

But I’m not riding her without caution until she has been turned out consistently…and the temperatures rise for good!

George's Story

As you may know by now, I am not ignorant of the beauty that nature offers. Everything—from a single elegant blade of wild grass to spectacular lightning storms—can, and will, take my breath away. And I have observed hundreds of sunsets—from the iron balconies of New Orleans, the desert of New Mexico, the mountains of Colorado and Utah (the most beautiful state in America, in my opinion) , and the streets of New York City and yes, Chicago.

But on Friday evening, February 6th, as I was just another commuter sitting in traffic in just one of many Chicago suburbs, I saw the most beautiful sunset that I’ve ever seen in my life.

It began as bright pink streaks in the sky and I remember thinking that it was the kind of color that only looked good in nature. I looked forward as the car in front of me moved. When we stopped again, I looked back at the sky.

As I watched, another world materialized before me. In the distance were mountains—all pink, orange, and red, all sharply defined. I realized that these mountains were actually tremendous sand dunes, and a vicious sandstorm was raging on one side of the mountains. There was a purple valley between the sand dunes and I, the type of purple that the Rocky Mountains become when you see them from afar. I realized that we commuters were on another mountain, and that the reverse was true—if you looked down from atop a mountain, the land below would look purple. The wild sandstorm raged on in the distance. I looked deeper and deeper. The car in front of me disappeared, the stores by me disappeared. The sand dunes had startling clarity. I could see every wave, every shadow, even the grains of sand. The sandstorm was so huge that, had it been real, it would have stretched hundreds of thousands of feet into the air.

Then the brake lights of the car in front of me disappeared and I realized the light had turned green and for the first time in my life, I was disappointed that the traffic was moving.

When I looked again, the tremendous sand dunes with the enormous sandstorm and the purple valley in between us had disappeared. We were back on flat earth. There were only subtle streaks of pink against an encroaching midnight blue blanket of night sky.

Then I thought about George. I had just seen the most beautiful sunset of my life and George, in his feline way, was not here to experience it. The sadness was sudden and hard. He was one day too late…or was he?

It was the winter of 1998-1999. The snow had, over the past weeks, accumulated by the foot and the bitter artic air had settled in to stay.

Early one morning, my dad told me there was a black and white cat on the deck outside. In this weather? The deck was a maze of pathways dug through the deep snow—more for our four indoor-outdoor cats rather than us humans—and it took me a few moments to find the black and white cat among the piles of snow and sharp early morning shadows.

He—and it was definitely a tom—was not on the deck but beside it, beneath the large picture window I was looking out of. He huddled against the cold. I tapped the window glass and he looked up at me.

He was a large black and white ‘tuxedo’ cat and possibly the thinnest, sorriest-looking thing I had ever seen with my own eyes. He could have been handsome but his face was mangled and swollen. One ear looked more like black cauliflower than a cat ear. The thick tomcat cheeks and neck were instantly recognizable but the rest of him was all bones, with missing patches of fur and black lumps of scabs here and there. It was obvious to me that he had been in many fights…and had lost most of them.

But his eyes had no hint of fight within them. They were large and soft and worried. They pleaded with me through the glass.

Strays had come and gone over the years. Our cats seemed to attract them. We did our best to not feed them but occasionally there would be one that visited time and time again over the course of a few weeks. Only then, and rarely, would we consider giving the cat food and water. We did not want to encourage them to stay, but we were not cold and could not turn a blind eye to an animal in genuine need. In the end, the alpha cat of our resident tribe would eventually scare the stray off for good.

Within the eyes of this black and white tomcat, I recognized not just need but urgent need. He was not here to fight. He was here to survive.

I had a strong urge to feed him and provide him with warm water, so I did.

And the next morning, before school, I fed him again. And again the following morning. My dad, who was often up before me, would eye me in a “Your mom won’t approve” way but I knew that he, my dad, did approve.

Every morning the black and white tom would be waiting either beneath the picture window or at the far corner of the deck. He would wait patiently and not approach the food and water bowls I set out until I had retreated back into the house. Somehow, I knew that he was really not afraid, but respectful.

Before long, my dad was feeding the cat as well. My mom did not but she would watch the cat through the window.

“Don’t feed him!” my mom said, but with a hint of a smile. My brother stayed out of the whole affair but he, too, felt sorry for the cat. The beat-up, starving tom had won us all over.

And the strangest thing? It’s something that we still talk about, something we still marvel at. None of our four cats seemed to mind the presence of the black and white tom. The most flabbergasting thing was our alpha cat, Connie. Connie was all business. She was notorious for instantly disliking any other cat besides herself (and Tiger, remember Tiger? But that’s a story for another day). She did not hesitate to fight for her territory and her orange tabby ears had the chips and scars to prove it.

It was her custom to be let out the first thing every morning. She would return a short while later then ask to be let out again. Initially, we worried about what she would do when she came across the black and white tom huddled among the huge piles of snow and refused to let her outside when he was around. But she protested—loudly. Once we realized that the tom probably didn’t have a single aggressive bone in his body, we let her out. She trotted outside, paused to look at him, and trotted on. We were astonished. Normal Connie behavior was to hiss, to chase, to throw a tantrum. When the tom saw Connie, he respectfully creeped back to the far corner of the deck.

It’s your territory. I don’t want to fight you for it, he seemed to say. And he kept his word.

The snow thawed and we continued to feed the tom, who slept beneath the deck at night, no doubt in a nest of old leaves. While no longer a bag of bones, he was still skinny. It also became obvious that he had a raging infection in one leg, which was grossly swollen down to the foot and very painful for him to move. No wonder he had come to us for food. Even if he could find small animals among all the snow and in the bitter sub-zero temperatures, he would have had no way of running after them. We knew that if we did nothing more than feed him, he would become extremely sick.

By then my mom had long resigned to feeding the tom, and even fed him herself. She worked as a receptionist at an animal hospital and we decided that she should bring him in and have his wounds looked at.

None of us had ever touched the tom—he always maintained a respectful distance—but my mom reported that she had no difficulties whatsoever getting him into a carrier.

Of course, you cannot have a family of dedicated cat lovers take a stray, wounded cat—a kind one that they had been feeding for months, no less—to the vet only to put him right back outside. He was tested for FeLV, guessed to be about five years old, neutered, vaccinated, had various abscesses drained, and was sent home with antibiotics and a name. The staff of the animal hospital, who were smitten by the tom’s laid-back charm and handsome two-toned face, took note of his massive shoulders and neck and named him George, after the boxer.

When I arrived home from school that day, I found George laying in a pool of sunshine in the family room, one white paw stretched out, looking at the deck outside the glass sliding door with relaxed, half-closed eyes. At last, he was on the inside looking out. At last, he was home. I put a hand on his head and he looked up at me, happy. It was as if I had petted him a thousand times before.

Where had he come from? We had speculated on the question when we first discovered George outside, and we speculated again. He was so kind, so gentle. There was no way he had been a stray his entire life. Maybe he had gotten lost as a kitten. Maybe he had been neglected and decided to just leave. Maybe his prior owners didn’t care to neuter him but were tired of him marking his territory in the house and kicked him out.

Whatever the reason, with us, he was where he belonged. And he knew it.

George was a gentle giant. He wrestled with the other cats but let them win. He was always good to hug and hold. He did surprise us on occasion, however. We quickly found out that he loathed dogs with a burning passion when he climbed up a horrified neighbor’s leg to get at the Labrador puppy in her arms. He chased the Jack Russell terrier next door until she was whimpering and crying. And I’ll never forget the time I saw a usually-placid George jump four feet into the air to catch a dove in mid-flight. And that handsome face! It was impossible to not fall in love. George was beloved by my family. On February 5, 2009, at the estimated age of 15 years old, he passed away in the arms of my parents.

Looking back to a decade ago, I now know just how dire George’s situation had to be. Realizing that his life was at sake, he went against his unintrusive nature and asked us for help. We gave it to him, and in turn, he gave us ten wonderful years. So thank you, George, for taking a chance with us.

And maybe, just maybe, that gorgeous sunset was his thank-you to me.

A couple weeks after taking him in,

George enjoys the sunshine outside,

worry-free.

A month later, he returned to the vet for
some plastic surgery on his cauiflower ear.
Cats are not allowed on the table in
our house, but here, one look in poor George's
eyes forgives all.

Receiving one of countless hugs in 2001.

Lim judges a jump

Post-Pennsylvania ride time: 50 minutes

I was looking forward to a ride today; it was supposed to be a tropical 29 degrees, after all! But of course, Old Man Winter wanted to make us suffer another day. By the time I left for the barn, the actual temperature was 9 degrees and the perceived temperature was -2.

Sure, I could ride Lim now. She is healthy and sound. But you know what? She, and almost every other horse at the barn, is on a short fuse. And not only that but I know she will be difficult to handle when it is so cold.

Instead I groomed her and turned her loose in the indoor arena. After she had run and bucked around for a few moments I had a bright idea.

Since writing the blog post about how I started running, I have been daydreaming about hurdling again. I truly miss it but I have no idea how I'll do it again. My gaze went to the jump blocks and poles stacked neatly in one corner of the arena. Well, why not? What if someone saw me? Oh, everyone there knows I run. I'll just say it's another aspect of my training. No big deal, right?

And so I got two jump blocks and a short jump pole and set up a small hurdle. Lim looked on, baffled. She actually moved her body away from the arena wall and watched me instead of cribbing. I jumped it a few times and she continued to watch.

Mom, what on Earth are you doing?!

After a few rounds she went back to cribbing.

"Lim, come here!" I said. She walked back over to me.

"Now, I'm going to jump this again and I want you to judge me. Give me a score, okay?" And indeed, she stood and watched me hurdle the jump once more. When I landed I threw my hands in the air and said, "ta-da! How'd I do?"

She gave me a look and went back to cribbing.

Later I had her pose by the hurdle. Gotta love it!

The runner and the dog

In the early afternoon on Sunday, I planned a long running route. Warrenville to Herrick to Butterfield to Leask, with a stop-off at the barn, and back to Warrenville. It went all the way around Danada, all the way around Herrick Lake Forest Preserve. With the stop at the barn, the route was 9.5 miles long.

It terrified me.

Not the length. Not quite the fact that I would be running the entire route along roads—some well-traveled, some not so much. No, it was the weather. It was sunny and clear, 7 degrees Fahrenheit with a -5 wind chill. Really, it wasn’t bad if you were properly dressed.

But the weekend prior I had gone on a shorter run in similar weather along a similar route—west on Warrenville—and two miles into the run I realized that my arms were numb. I had gripped them and the shock of my own touch had almost hurt. I rubbed my arms through my sleeves with my gloved hands but they remained cold. I peeled back my sleeves to look at the skin and it was bright red. Instinctively, I knew I was seeing the fetal stages of frostbite. Not wanting to cut my run short and head home, I re-routed out of the headwind. In the end, my run was cut down from a hoped-for 8 miles to 6.6 miles but my arms were much happier out of the biting wind, which had somehow gone through layers of wicking fabric to my skin.

This time I was determined to go on a route that would take me much further away from home. If I had problems with the cold, well, what would I do? I pushed the thought out of my head and added an extra layer on top and bottom. I covered my face below my eyes with a polyfleece face wrap. Last week’s snot still stained the nasal area of the wrap but I didn’t care. I had nasty sinus issues and I knew I would be snottier than ever on the 9.5-mile run.

(When I run, my nose does, too—year round! I’ve mastered the art of blowing built-up snot onto the ground two feet in front of me, mid-stride, without touching my nose. If I’m running on a sunny, lovely day with many other people out and about then I do my best to wait until I’m relatively alone before clearing my nose.)

I was also a little worried about the road shoulders. They had been quite iced-over the week prior but I was thinking, hoping, they would be clearer after the few hours the temps went above freezing earlier in the week (imagine that!). Either way, I planned to run on the left side of the road, facing oncoming traffic. It is particularly important for someone who can’t hear. If a car swerves towards my back then, well, I would never know it until I find myself impaled into an icy snow bank, head-first, limbs mangled and bloody. If I am facing traffic when a car swerves towards me (and who would do that, anyway?) then at least I’ll have the chance to jump away and impale myself into a snow bank, minus mangled and bloody limbs.

And so, layered-up, hydrated, tummy full of banana, nerves twanging in my gut, I set off. The day was beautiful and bright and I wished for a visor to keep the sun out of my eyes. My eyes watered over in the stinging cold and I wiped the tears away, feeling them instantly freeze on my lashes. But as expected, my eyes soon became used to the cold and stopped tearing up. I was visible so I expected cars to see me and stay out of my way, and they did. But I was ever watchful.

One mile into the run, my hearing aid began issuing the much-dreaded warning beep of a dying battery. Only I can hear the beep, which is fortunate for you. It is like any other warning beep—a smoke detector, an alarm clock—but much more shrill and erratic in timing. I can hear one beep then not hear another one for several hours. I can hear one beep then hear another right after it and POOF, just like that, dead battery! On this occasion, it was more like the latter. My hearing aid beeped once, then twice, waited a few beats, gave another weak beep and then, like a flicked switch, total silence.

I couldn’t hear a single thing—not my feet touching the asphalt, not the cars whizzing by, not my breathing. I considered turning back to get a fresh battery—I was only two miles away by now, after all—but I decided not to. I’ve had my hearing aid battery completely die on me during runs before but this was the first time it had happened while I was running on the side of a road. More than ever, it was important for me to stay on the left side, facing traffic.

They say you run better when you listen to fast-paced music, that you have more encouragement to keep on going, more determination. What does that say about me? Here I am, on mile two of 9.5, and everything is stone silent. Does it slow me down? Do I get bored?

Not in the least. Instead, my brain’s focus switches totally over to the two senses that matter the most to me right now—sensation and sight. I am suddenly listening to my body. Every fiber of my being sings out as I stride over the asphalt. I listen to my feet within my Asics—I note how my mid-foot lands smoothly. I note how my foot rolls within the shoe—just a little bit. I note how the shoe moves on my foot (it is not 100% ideal but, for training, will do). I listen to the asphalt resonating through my ankles, up through my calves and shins, into my knees, up my thighs and through my glutes. I listen to my back and abs, my upper body, my shoulders and arms and hands. I note my breathing—steady and deep. I note my heart. Everything feels great; my body is working like the well-oiled machine it is. The voice of my body hypnotizes me.

At the same time, I am more observant. I note the deer, rabbit, and canine tracks in the snow to my left. I note the clouds in the sky, as well as chimney smoke. I watch the ground for patches of ice and large pebbles. I sense rather than see cars driving by. If I am wary about a car I look through the windshield and into the driver’s eyes and make sure he or she sees me. They gape at me.

Look at that crazy woman! their eyes say.

I am running along; I am deep within mile four. The high sun is to my left, to my back. I was a little cold on Warrenville, going into the headwind, but I am warmer now that I am going north. I am peaceful and content within the total auditory silence. Really, it’s a beautiful day.

I sense the shadow before I see it. It comes up on my right, on the road, and I—normally easily startled—am not at all surprised to see it. It is a small shadow and when I twist my torso to see its owner, I note it belongs to a small poodle-like black dog of the same color as its shadow. Black but not night-black; more gray-black. Of course the dog is barking at me and of course I cannot hear it—not at all. It runs and barks, runs and barks. I stop and face the dog and run a few strides towards it. Guessing the dog came from a house I had just passed on the left, I point back at the house.

“Go home!”

This was a bad idea, the dog says. I shouldn’t have chased this person. Bad, bad idea. It’s tail tucks between it’s legs and it barks again. I am afraid it will get hit by a car so once again I run two steps towards it and point at the house. It gets the message and runs for home as fast as it’s little legs can carry it.

I turn again and am surprised to see a minivan stopped on the road, patiently awaiting the conclusion of the runner/dog drama occurring before them. I am grateful; if the dog, brave and funny and annoying all at once, had gotten hit by a car I would have felt bad even though it wasn’t my fault.

I run on. On Butterfield road there is a lot of traffic returning from the Danada Square shops. Car after car after car whooshes by; the road is a conveyor belt of cars. Drivers stare, flabbergasted, cozy within their down parkas and heated interiors. I stop at the intersection of Naperville and Butterfield. I wait and walk back and forth, back and forth, on the edge of the right turn lane. Just another vehicle.

I stop at the barn, get a quick drink, look at Limerick (she has just been brought in from turnout and is eating her supper—she looks up at me, hay in mouth, eyes wide—Hey, what are you doing here?).

I run the remaining mile and a half home. My I listen to my feet, to my legs. They are strong and good, ready to run on. I am proud of myself; I feel accomplished. I have faced the weather and not only did I beat it but I thoroughly and fully enjoyed the process of beating it. It’s not as good as my 7-mile jaunt over rocky, icy, hilly single-wide dirt trails in Pennsylvania but it comes very, very close!

Foiled again

Well, my post-Pennsylvania ride time remains at 50 minutes and will until the weekend, most likely. Sometime yesterday, no doubt while out in the pasture, Miss Lim Bean had a nice 2” x 5” chunk of hide scraped off the back of her upper left hind leg. The exposed flesh looks like a dried-up version of Freddy Krueger’s face but the wound is not bleeding, nor did it look like it bled much (if at all), and is very shallow—basically just all the layers of the skin torn right off. There is no swelling but the area is kind of hot.

I slathered on some wound cream and will monitor the heat over the next few days. Yeah, she’ll keep going out…stall rest will do so much more harm than good. Even though I don’t think the wound hurts much (in the dim light of the barn I actually brushed over it before noticing it, and she didn’t even flinch), I know Lim is smart enough to protect that area of her body until it heals.

I took a couple pictures. For you morbid types--sorry, I didn’t get one of the wound before I covered it with cream! But you have a nice idea of the size here.

"Am I cute? Why yes, I am!"


"Being a horse is a dangerous job!"

The beginning of running and etc.

This will be a post with three topics.

The inauguration! Whether you are red or blue, you have to agree that today occurred one of the most historical moments of the century. I dearly wish I was able to see the inauguration live on television. I tried to watch it at work on CNN.com and MSN.com but I, and the rest of the office, had problems connecting to a consistent live feed video, especially as the time of the swearing-in grew closer. I did get to see the motorcade though, which was really cool.

A co-worker tried to connect to the live video of the inauguration on the large monitor in the conference room but was unable to. Instead the office listened to the inauguration on the radio. Of course, not I. In fact, I didn’t even know they were listening to it until another co-worker asked if I could find Obama’s speech in a signed video online because they were listening to it on the radio. As she spoke, her face grew more and more strained and I realized she felt sorry for me. Until that moment I thought everyone was standing around still awaiting the video! Oh.

“No, I wouldn’t be able to find that. That’s okay, I’ll watch it tonight,” I said. She threw me one last strained look and went back to the conference room.

It was a potentially embarrassing moment but I brushed it aside and kept myself busy. I’m pretty good at that. I think it’s the Brit in me.

Riding. My total post-Pennsylvania 2009 riding time remains at 50 minutes. I wanted to ride last night but the indoor arena is incredibly dusty. The poor pasture horses spent a good chunk of time in there late last week and over the weekend, and their bored hooves stirred up a permanent dust storm. It is way too cold to settle the dust by hosing down the arena so there is nothing we can do but throw open the arena doors and wait for the dust to clear. Blah! I’m not about to sacrifice Lim’s respiratory health (nor mine, particularly now that I’m running more…yes, big words for a former smoker) for a ride or two.

I guess I’ll need to wait a little longer to try out the lovely new green, blue, and black plaid flannel quarter sheet I got for cold rides. (For the non-horsey folks: It’s a blanket that covers the horse’s butt and haunches and the rider’s thighs and attaches in front of the saddle. I guess almost, sorta, like a regular equine fleece sheet except with a hole cut into the middle of the back for a rider!)

Running. I said my first post of ’09 would be about how I started running. I guess post number…what is it, five? of ’09 will need to do.

Many posts ago, when I wrote about my beloved Tiger, I mentioned that I was a solitary kid. I was a solitary pre-teen, too. My life was school, homework, horseback riding and myself. I had friends at school—deaf friends—but since they lived quite far from me (or far for one who cannot drive), I rarely saw them outside of school. I liked to read but became bored with books for kids my age, yet was not allowed to read many books written for adults. Always full of energy and inspired by the horses I rode, I liked to venture outside, set up homemade hurdles consisting of trash cans on their sides, cardboard boxes, and other odds and ends, and run and jump over them. I would set up “courses” around the yard, or a string of them in a long line, and try to jump everything as fast as I could, or for as long as I could. I tried to make the hurdles as big as possible but that proved difficult with my limited resources. I never stopped looking around the basement, yard, and garage for new materials or ideas.

(And in fact, this tireless search led me to break my right pinkie finger at the age of nine. I thought a horse blanket in the concrete aisle of the barn was an ideal hurdle but mistimed the jump and tripped over the thing, breaking my little pinkie in two places).

I found jumping these hurdles exhilarating and would do it for hours every day, rain or shine, in the cold of winter and in the heat of summer, in dusk to night and sometimes even shortly after I woke up on the weekends, which was about 11am to noon. The more I jumped over these hurdles, the stronger my legs became and the higher and faster I could jump, which led to higher hurdles, more challenging courses, and even stronger legs.

One spring after I began jumping over the shrubbery in the yard (no doubt breaking a few branches here and there) my dad made me some hurdles. They consisted of two wooden poles with nails at measured one-inch increments, the measurements carefully marked, with another, smaller, loose wooden pole to lay across these nails as I wished. One hurdle was painted brown, the rest were plain. I think there were about five sets total. Oh, I was in heaven!

The highest marked nails were at exactly 48”. At the time I was five feet even (I am 5’3” now). Prior to these homemade hurdles, the highest I had jumped was about 3’6” but it had been quite a feat. I could not imagine reaching four feet even but I was determined to, nonetheless.

And so I set these hurdles up on one side of the house and began jumping them with fresh enthusiasm (not that it had soured before, but, you know). Rain or shine, in the cold of winter and in the heat of summer, in dusk to night and sometimes in the late morning on the weekends, I was there. I would run a lap or two around the house, set a hurdle at two feet, jump it, add another hurdle at two feet, jump it, and so on so forth. Sometimes I made “oxers” and put two hurdles very close together and tried to jump both at once. I quickly found that if I set the first hurdle at three feet and put another one two feet behind it and set it at a higher height, it was easier to jump that than the higher height all by itself. Why? I don’t know, but it was the discovery of the year!

I would like to clarify something here. When “hurdling” I didn’t actually go into a virtual split over the hurdles like, say, Lolo Jones or any other track star. Go ahead, do a little jump. Your knees just lifted up a bit there, together, didn’t they? That’s what I did. And sometimes when I jumped the higher hurdles, my knees were tucked so high that I hit myself in the chin with them, or when I knocked the pole down it wasn’t my legs doing the knocking—it was my butt!

It must have looked funny but that’s how I did it.

One late summer afternoon, for the heck of it, I set the brown hurdle at 48”. Was I ready for it? I didn’t know. The hurdle stood by itself. I could barely see the pole in the lengthening shadow of the house. I went to the end of the “runway” and faced the hurdle. It stood a dozen yards away. The path to the hurdle was so worn that the grass wasn’t growing in spots. (Sorry dad!) A little shiver went down my spine and I dug my Converse sneakers into the dry ground and ran. I ran and ran and, in a spot that I thought, at the last second, was a little too far from the hurdle, made the jump. I pushed off as hard as I could and tucked my knees as high as I could. They floated somewhere around my cheeks for a split second. I expected my butt, or even a small flap from the hem of my shorts, to knock the pole down.

I landed and immediately looked on the ground for the pole. It was not there. I looked at the hurdle. There, in the ever-lengthening shadows, sat the pole, still snugly nestled on the 48”-height nails.

I was twelve years old and the astonishment I felt at that second has really never been matched since.

I was only able to jump that height once more. It was winter and there had been snow on the ground for a couple weeks. The ever-present “runway” down the side of the house was now a two-foot-wide path of packed snow. It was hard to jump. Sometimes upon landing I would slip and fall on my butt. Sometimes I would lift a foot, ready to jump, and the other foot would simply slide me forward into the hurdle instead of over it. But ever-determined, I kept at it.

One cold wet gray afternoon I set up an oxer. The first fence was three feet and the second was 3’6”. I jumped it several times, and quite easily. Hmm. I raised the second fence to 4 feet. The first time I tried it, I knocked the higher pole to the ground with my leg. The same thing happened on the second and third and fourth and fifth tries. Sometimes it was my butt that knocked the pole to the ground, and sometimes it was the baggy sweatshirt I had on. Once it was my foot, which sent the pole flying a couple dozen feet. I laughed. But I remained determined.

Once again at the head of the “runway”, I felt that little shiver down my spine. I dug my Converse sneakers into the packed snow and ran. Not wanting to slip, I placed my feet tidily at the jump spot and pushed off from them as hard as I could, straight up. Over I went. I felt nothing but that didn’t mean anything—when my clothes knocked the pole down, I rarely felt it. I landed. Slipped. Fell hard on my butt. The wet snow soaked my jeans, which were already damp from previous falls. Still sitting, I looked behind me. The poles remained. Somehow, I didn’t believe it. The hurdles were set on top of the snow so there was no cheating. But there it was.

I never again repeated that feat. At thirteen I gradually stopped jumping the hurdles and by fourteen I was done. At fifteen I—naïve freshman that I was—initially wanted to join the track team in high school but I quickly realized that the other girls that were to be on the track team were not nice and would not make me feel welcome. My high school was overflowing at the gills with smug, superior types, and unfortunately they ruled all the sports teams in the school.

And so running fell to the wayside and I focused on horseback riding. I loved riding, of course!, but a part of me was jealous of all the runners I saw. I would see the cross country team, donned in the orange and black of my school, running after school hours heading for who knows where, the coach following on a mountain bike. I would remember all the times a gym teacher told me I should join the track team. In 1992, when I beat the boys at 100 meter races. In 1993, during the same. In 1995. In 1997, when I fell during a difficult obstacle course, suffering four instant hematomas on my legs, but got up and continued on in good time.

“You’ve got guts!” that teacher told me. Mr. Schaefer was his name and he had the legs of a runner. I’ll never forget that compliment.

Running never even crossed my mind during college but the 30 pounds I gained from bad eating habits and beer did.

One day I took a harder look at the Lake Shore Drive path running along Lake Michigan in Chicago. I lived only a quarter mile from it. I watched the runners gliding along. I watched the muscles working within their legs and that old familiar runner’s envy erupted within my heart. I remembered the exhilaration I once felt. I remember the amazement at myself. I remembered what a mighty machine my body used to be. I used to run. I can run.

It was April of 2005 and yes, I did. I began running again and I never looked back.

Run with the Horses

You know how I said, only two posts ago (or something) that if I feel like I am ready, I will run a marathon? Well, I’m ready. Or more accurately—I know I will be.

On January 3rd, as we waited in the terminal for our flight to Pennsylvania, I picked up the January issue of Runner's World at an airport magazine kiosk.

(Yes, my husband has given me a subscription for Christmas but I had yet to receive my first issue, and knowing how long these things take…well!).

I flipped through the special Jet Blue section advertising marathons they fly to. For fun, I checked to see if there were any marathons on my birthday--August 22nd. Not only was there one, but its very title made the heart of this life-long horse lover skip a beat.

'Run with the Horses' Green River, WY

Run with the horses?! I assumed wild horses. I have been around horses for 22 years. I have seen all breeds and types of horses, including mustangs. But never have I seen wild mustangs running free, in person, live. As a closet romantic whose heart just swells at the sight of any form of natural beauty, seeing wild mustangs—the very symbol of the American west!—running on the high plains, kicking up dust in a great cloud, would probably make me faint with gratitude at the very sight of their rangy, spirited selves. Okay, probably not an ideal reaction to have during a 26.2 mile footrace but..

Run with the horses!

The very name of the marathon was a song in my head. Despite my “disability”, words and sayings can and will take on lyrical qualities and impale themselves within my brain.

Initially I thought to myself, "Wouldn't it be fun to do this? But Wyoming? I'm sure I can't do it." Then I thought about it some more. I have a 10k lined up for March and I am planning to register for the Chicago 13.1 in June. But a full marathon this year? Maybe next year...or...but really, why not? Why not 2009, and better yet, on my 29th birthday? With some research I found out the following:

The marathon is 5 hours away from Denver by car. My aunt, also a life-long horse lover and mom to a teenaged Thoroughbred, lives in Denver.

Yes, you can and do see wild horses during the marathon.

Yes, the scenery during the marathon is to die for.

There are no spectators (Hooray! I am so solitary it isn't funny, and did not relish the idea of people watching me during my first marathon.)

The marathon is one of the toughest in America. Especially for us flatlanders not accustomed to the elevation.

Say what?

But after conversing with the race director by email, my aforementioned aunt, and my husband, I have decided to go for it. I will train properly and if I feel like I am not ready, I will switch to the half-marathon also running that morning.

But I’m 100% sure that, if all goes well, I will be ready. What a birthday it will turn out to be!