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October 30, 2007
and counting
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20,447 / 60,000 (34.1%) |
I am happy that I was able to be as productive as I was, considering I was sick as a dog over the weekend.
Posted by mryonker at 08:18 AM | Comments (1)
October 25, 2007
daily word count
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17,720 / 60,000 (29.5%) |
FYI: I'm catching some kind of disgusting bug. My throat and ears are throbbing; my shoulders ache and I'm freezing.
But still writing, dammit.
Posted by mryonker at 07:13 PM | Comments (2)
October 24, 2007
for kevin, others
So, you're going along with your life. You're doing work, school, kids, meals, writing. Grading papers, doing laundry, agonizing about the filthy dump your house is. Running maybe, talking on the phone to your mom, IMing your husband during his lunch hour. Wiping butts. Getting glasses of water in the middle of the night. Answering student email. Buying your kids McDonald's. Worrying about time. Passing mid-semester. Counting words and money.
And then Kevin Zoldan happens. He's sweet, young, struggling to figure out school? Work? Live here?
Play music?
No. Figure this out, Kevin: your heart is being attacked by infection. Your blood is filled with it. Figure this out: open heart surgery. Valve replacement. Figure this out: the cardiac intensive care unit.
Kevin is B's best friend's brother--my sister's brother-in-law. And in the weird way the Zoldan family and the Yonker family are essentially one, Kevin is B's brother, and mine.
He's 24. He's in Richmond. If you've got some love, send it on.
And take a moment to love ANYONE (and really I mean *every*one). Because it's fleeting, this being-on-earth stuff.
Posted by mryonker at 06:39 PM | Comments (1)
October 23, 2007
daily word count
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17,145 / 60,000 (28.6%) |
Posted by mryonker at 07:54 PM | Comments (0)
October 22, 2007
the weekend runner
The dumb thing I did today was leave for my writing session without the power cord for the MacBook. And no battery juice.
So I sat in Panera and wrote in a small notebook. I won't be able to report my word count until tomorrow, when I type up what I wrote. It was an interesting retro-exercise for me; I kept thinking, "Wow, when I try to write fast my handwriting is atrocious! When I write slowly, my handwriting is quite lovely, but gawwd this is taking for ever!"
Also, I must find another writing place. Their soups are good but they give me heartburn. I've sworn off their sandwiches because the bread there is so darn *hard*. It scrapes the roof of my mouth raw.
So, somehow D and J have talked me into another race this weekend, the Bruegger's Bagel Run. I have become the weekend racer. I don't ever run during the week at all anymore. D and I are supposed to meet tomorrow morning, but The Weather Channel says rain for the wake-up hour, so I might be off the hook. Not that I want to be off the hook. All that Panera is finding my middle. But being a leisurely weekend runner suits me. Anything leisurely suits me.
Ah. Leisure, I hardly knew ye.
Posted by mryonker at 10:30 PM | Comments (1)
October 21, 2007
a slow weekend
It was a slow writing weekend, in part because my brother is re-roofing the back part of our house, so attendant to that comes stuff I have to do (mostly cook him a hearty dinner), in part because I brought home 60 papers to grade on Friday (and finished them!), and in part because I spent my writing hours this morning at a race--and when I came back I felt kind of ...blah. Ah, also, we just got cable TV. So if I'm walking through the living room, and the TV is on, I end up standing in front of it transfixed like a zombie as HGTV shows me all the great things I need to do to sell my house in the spring.
Mostly, it shows me that I have to get rid of all my kids, my cats, all the books and papers that litter flat spaces...oh, and I should probably not live in the house myself at all, either. All that should be in my house is a few well-placed pieces of furniture and a nice table setting. Which I don't own. *sigh*
I now have one full-chapter drafted and another entire chapter due next week (it's well on its way, so I'm confident I'll make that deadline). I say this to ameliorate the shameful word count I generated today:
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16,074 / 60,000 (26.8%) |
Posted by mryonker at 09:24 PM | Comments (1)
eastwood autumn 5-miler
I got an email from D a few weeks ago, before the Albany marathon. She's found a new run, a 5-miler two weeks post-marathon. Do I want to run it?
Sure, I reply. Why not? At that moment, I am feeling invincible. My body is still in one piece; I cannot--and do not--anticipate the agony of Albany.
So, today, only two weeks after the marathon, D and J pile into my car and we drive to the Sunnycrest Ice Rink in Eastwood, a neighborhood in Syracuse. This run is special to D, as she grew up in Eastwood, having attended Sacred Heart and Henninger high school.
Who knew a teeny-tiny five mile race could be so satisfying? We pick up our numbers and CHIPS and the PROPER SIZE T-shirt from the table as the high school band serenades us with "Louie Louie," "Back in Black," and other great tunes.
I am now convinced that it is the Syracuse Track Club that manages the best races around here. Things are laid-back but incredibly organized; waters stops well-stocked with cups and volunteers, and Brugger's bagels and other important goodies at the end (and they had cider, too, which didn't sound very good to me at first, but after I sipped it a little, I chugged one and then another cup of it--who knew??).
The sky was blue, the trees in full color, and the weather simply fabulous--it might have actually been a little too warm. The great old houses in Eastwood (and the other neighborhood--can't remember the name?) provided great scenery. We ran past runningburro and rainbowhair's old house on Aberdeen, and then D's sisters met us on the corner of the street that D's mom still lives on. They made fun neon green signs and were cheering and happy. Aside from runningburro's lovely parents, who cheered for us at the first Buffalo marathon, D and I haven't had much in the way of personal spectators, so to have actual people we knew waiting for us was really exciting for me in an embarrassing silly kind of way (I wanted to hug them! But I resisted!).
The annual Eastwood Autumn 5-miler is a MUST run for locals. It gets three thumbs up from us!
Oh, our time? 54-something. A PR, since none of us has ever run a 5-mile race before.
Posted by mryonker at 01:34 PM | Comments (2)
October 18, 2007
shit... shit shit shit.
What happens when you read something--probably something you should have read YEARS ago--that makes you realize that your DISSERTATION TITLE is WRONG??
*sigh*
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15,884 / 60,000 (26.5%) |
I am lucky, though, that it is really only my title that needs changing, and that the major difference to the work I'll do is simply have to deal with one more argument. Which is good!! Right??
**edited to add**
I may have over-reacted. I may be able to leave my title. Maybe.
Posted by mryonker at 06:58 PM | Comments (5)
October 17, 2007
numbers are scary
November is a month for writing. It's the National Novel Writing Month, as well as National Blog Posting Month. Apparently last year November was also the International Dissertation Writing Month, and a whole bunch of people on my blog roll (but mostly this is Krista's fault) are stepping up to the plate.
There is something about being accountable to a huge public.
I am IN. My goal for the month of November is to break 40,000 words. (The overall goal of 60K words is for the end of December.) I've got several pressing weekly deadlines that will help that goal, but seeing it here will encourage me even more!
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15,137 / 60,000 (25.2%) |
Posted by mryonker at 08:29 PM | Comments (4)
October 15, 2007
prompts promptly
Monday nights for me are Blackboard nights. I spend about 4 hours reading student work, working up assignments, sending email, and posting discussion board forums, announcements, et cetera.
I spend various other hours during the week responding to work and IMing with students, but Monday night, that's Blackboard night.
Until I spend 15 minutes writing a discussion board prompt that gets promptly (sorry) eaten by the server when I try to post it. GRRR. Then Monday night becomes "blog about Blackboard disappointment" night.
Maybe I should change my night--maybe EVERYBODY's Blackboard night is Monday, and that's why the server is flaking out.
Well, it just means I'll get to go to bed early tonight. Goodnight!
Posted by mryonker at 10:46 PM | Comments (1)
October 12, 2007
where have *you* been?
I have been nostrils-deep in html, that's where.
However, as usual, my love for web-writing and creating is again renewed. I love it when stuff works, and looks like I want it to, and etc.
Two pages went live earlier this week: 1)my professional site (and no, I don't know why it's taken me so long to have one!) and 2) the still tentative article on network literacies for Computers and Composition Online.
I am happy to take comments on both. I should mention that when I put together the netlit piece into html, it became glaringly obvious how skinny the "implications" section (essentially, my final argument) is. I will be futzing with it a bit more, to be sure.
But now, I must prepare for a sleepover. H's 11th birthday sleepover, to be exact. Which means the house must be cleaned, which means I must find the vacuum. Which is ironically buried somewhere in the mess. *sigh* How's that for a conundrum?
Posted by mryonker at 02:05 PM | Comments (2)
October 08, 2007
it is albany
Yesterday I ran from Schenectady to Albany.
I will never do such a thing ever again. Ever.
We arrived in Schenectady at 630, only a half hour before packet pick-up was scheduled to begin. But the park was completely deserted, and we drove around in circles trying to find something that indicated there would actually *be* a race. We finally flagged down a guy picking up trash and asked him where where we were supposed to be. "Right here," he told us, and pointed to an empty pavilion.
Since we were early, we wandered around looking for the tell-tale line of port-o-johns that frequently mark the starting line, and slowly we realize there is none.
"There is none" becomes a kind of refrain for this race. Chips? Nope. Schwag bags? Nope. Mile markers for the first several miles? Nope. Spectators? Not many, really. Music? None. Interesting scenery?
The first half of this race, for me, was phenomenal. The fact that there were no mile markers for the first three miles meant I had absolutely no idea of how fast I was going. I found a woman whose ponytail had a pleasant, hypnotic bounce to it and I set my pace to hers. When we finally hit the 5K mark spray painted on the ground, I hardly believed it. "That can't be for this race," I thought to myself. My watch said 28 and change, which meant I ran my second fasted 5K. I felt strong and light, and decided at that moment that my strategy would be thus: continue with this pace, which was probably at about 80% of my push, until I had to slow down. Then I would slow down. Running negative splits (where you run the second half faster than you ran the first) doesn't work for me; I always always get slower, even if I try to hold back. So instead of trying to "save" anything, I figure I'd just use what I had until I didn't have any more, and then I would run on pure will.
This strategy worked fabulously for about 7 more miles. At 10K the clock said 58; at 15K it said 1:30. I constantly was running numbers in my head: if I maintain this pace, I'll finish in 4:20-ish. Holy shit. I was passing people left and right, my eyes on the leaf-littered bike trail, listening to people behind me talk about taking their teenage son for a jog in search of a connection and finding that he can run a sub-6 mile (which didn't, I gather, make for much of a conversation).
I hit the half-mark at 2:15, 6 minutes faster than my PR for a half. I was giddy that I might actually beat my last time of 4:52.
Then all at once both my knees decided to hate me, and my right hip started sending shooting pains into my glute and quad. Ouch ouch ouch ouch with every. single. step. At the next water stop I popped 2 Motrin and willed them to work.
The next mile was agony, and I began mentally composing my race report. "d.n.f...everybody should dnf at least once so they have compassion for others who must dnf." The biggest problem, though, was that while I wanted to quit, there was no one anywhere to help me quit. The only other people I saw were other runners--now most of them shuffling past me. I had no choice except to simply continue on until the next water stop, and who knows when that would be?? So I shuffled on. Ouch ouch ouch ouch.
A lone spectator on her bike was clapping and cheering around mile 14. She yelled a standard: "Halfway there! Looking good!!" to me as I passed. "I don't feel very good," I told her.
"It's all mental," she said. She was looked smart and looked like a runner. "Remind your brain that your body is a machine. You can do it."
I smiled weakly and continued on, thinking to myself that I'd broken the machine.
As I approached the next water stop, I realized I'd already covered 2 more miles, and that while my knees both still felt broken, the Motrin had helped the excruciating hip pain. I realized I felt a little better. I ate a Gu and drank some water and decided I'd press on, and take things one mile at a time.
While running the bike trail was lonesome, once we got into Albany around mile 20 things became treacherous. For about 2 miles we ran on the shoulder of a major 4 lane artery, and I was tired and woozy and afraid that if I were to trip I'd immediately be hit by a car. I began working to pass people just so that I had something to keep my mind sharp and my head up. I told one man as I ran abreast of him: "You're really hard to catch," and I meant it. He laughed and said, "No one's ever said that to me before."
At mile 22 we ran back onto a bike trail. I rounded a bend and saw J stretching against a tree. I shrieked in joy and relief. J ran that last 4 miles with me, talking to me about minutiae and encouraging me to keep going.
I finished in 5:02, which is not a PR and it's not under 5, but good gravy this race was harder and more painful than my first. J, a talented pep-talker, kept me from walking the entire last couple miles. I was probably ugly and rude to her the whole time and still she pressed on. "You want to try to pick it up?" she'd ask. "Shut the hell up," I'd respond. The only thing that got me to the end was thinking about how I'll never ever do it again.
*sigh* I always reassure myself with this promise--and I always somehow talk myself into marathoning again.
Today I feel like someone took a baseball bat to my kneecaps, and I have horrible shin splints. I can "act natural" if I'm walking, but stairs are near-impossible, and to get up or sit down is extremely hard.
As long as I live next door to D, though, I imagine I'll continue this torture, especially as her saga to qualify for Boston continues.
Posted by mryonker at 03:02 PM | Comments (4)
That Stanky Chip-Less Marathon Better Known as The Mohawk Hudson River Marathon
Deb's MHRM Race Report
M., J. and I started out in good spirits yesterday at the unseemly hour of 4:00 AM to make the trek to Schenectady. From the start line in Schenectady, J. would drive to the finish in Albany, park the car and run backwards from the finish line to meet M. around Mile 23. (J. is the newest member of Team Yonker, and an AMAZING sport to give up her entire Sunday on this crazy quest.)
Though I was initially very optimistic about this race which claims to be “one of the ten fastest courses in the U.S.”, and which every year has a record number of Boston qualifiers, my optimism quickly turned to contempt. Upon picking up our race packets, we discovered that this race has NO chip. That’s right, people – NO CHIP. This is practically unheard of, with the exception of poorly attended local 5Ks here in Oswego County. We also learned that the tech shirts that we had reserved with our registrations were available only in size large, despite the fact that M. and I had both ordered mediums when we registered MONTHS ago. The sullen race volunteer explained that the mediums had all been distributed at the expo, and so we were left with no choice but to accept the voluminous garments. As a lanky person with gorilla-like arms, the large will be just fine for me, but M. might have to use hers for a nightgown, a roof tarp or a 4-person tent. (Or perhaps all of the above – it’s a big damned shirt.)
The gun went off promptly at 8:30 AM, and away we ran. Upon leaving Central Park, we spent the better part of this race on paved bike paths which run parallel to the Mohawk and Hudson Rivers. The paths were generally very isolated, allowing for few opportunities for spectator presence. All in all, I’d say we saw far more sewage treatment plants than cheering spectators. The view was fair, but the odor was NOT. One would imagine that one would become accustomed to the vile smells emanating from the rivers, but somehow that was not the case. It’s as if the sewage from each township had its own unique stank, and so one’s nose was continually assaulted from Colonie to Cohoes to Watervliet and beyond. And I don’t know what those people had been eating, but they should really just stop.
Despite the slight nausea induced by the stank, I managed to keep up with my pace bracelet all the way to Mile 15. Starting at Mile 9, however, it became increasingly more difficult to do so. I was definitely struggling, but trying valiantly to maintain my pace so that I could finish in 3:45:59, thus qualifying for Boston. At Mile 16 I was 30 seconds too slow. At Mile 17 I was 58 seconds too slow, and by Mile 24 when I encountered J. all hopes of BQ-ing had long since been dashed. I was minutes off my time, completely demoralized and moving like a penguin with a broken pelvis. J. pleasantly inquired, “Can you go just a little bit faster?” and I belligerently responded with “Nooooo!!!” She left me, as any sane person would do, and headed back to find M., whose Southern background and sweet disposition ensure kind responses even under painful and grueling circumstances.
I walked a fair amount, and tried to tell myself that a PR, while not nearly as good as a BQ, was still a desirable and worthy goal. Some quick mental calculations, however, determined that if I did not pick up the pace I would not beat my previous best time of 3:58:24. Thankfully, it was just at that time that the Throat Clearer descended upon me. This was a woman whose face I never saw, but her maddening nose-whistling, throat-clearing tendencies made me nearly hate her, sight unseen. Alright – I’ll be honest. I DID hate her, and it was that fiery, burning kind of hatred. I have a remarkably low tolerance for mouth noises of any kind. I hate to hear chewing, coughing or even loud-ish breathing and so I knew that I needed to put some distance between me and this vile creature lest I go postal and pitch her into the shit-stank river. There must be something energizing about all that throat clearing, though, because that she-devil was hard to shake. I eventually prevailed, and crossed the finish line at 3:57:something. Official stats are not yet up (damned chip-less race), but according to both Vic (my Garmin training watch) and the finish clock, I just barely PR-ed.
Upon crossing the finish line, I looked less like myself and more like hammered shit and countless concerned strangers catered to me, offering me water and sticking straws in my juice. I briefly considered going back to find M. and J., but my traitorous legs locked up before the thought was even complete. It’s as if my entire nervous system was conspiring to keep me from even attempting movement. I went with it, and leaned against a tree while gorging myself on juice and donuts. Before too long, M. and J. crossed the finish line, M. deliriously professed her love for me (it is her sacred marathon tradition and it is not just reserved for those she truly loves but for any random person with whom she makes even brief eye contact) and we all had more donuts.
We shambled to the car like zombies from a horror movie, only muttering “Meat! Meat!” rather than “Brains! Brains!”, and following a quick shower at the YMCA, we consumed our total weight in sirloin at Ponderosa (another sacred marathon tradition).
This morning I feel as if I’ve been run over by a truck. My penguin/zombie gait is even more pronounced today than yesterday, and I’m just grateful that I needn’t do “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” with my kindergartners today as it is European Native-Annihilator Day and we’ve the day off.
I remain committed to someday qualifying for Boston, but it looks more and more as if that is a dream that is not coming to fruition anytime soon. My next marathons will likely be the Buffalo Marathon in late May, and then the Wineglass a year from now. Hopefully by then I’ll be walking upright once again.
Posted by mryonker at 02:42 PM | Comments (1)
October 03, 2007
the marathon nightmare
It's like a teaching nightmare. All the worst things that could happen, all for your dreaming pleasure, a few nights before the big day.
I dreamt last night of our upcoming race on Sunday. I should preface this by saying that D and I were looking at some logistic problems with getting to packet pick up (at the starting line) and parking the car and catching the shuttle bus (at the finish line, 26 miles away). We are not driving out the night before, like we usually do, and the race organizers did not plan well for out-of-towners coming in the morning of the race.
Coming to our rescue is dear friend J, newly anointed 10K runner, who volunteered to drive out with us and drop us at the start line so we don't have to mess with the shuttle, and then meet us at the finish.
So, even though all that is now taken care of, I still had a bizzare-o dream last night of getting to the start line late, and then finding that the marathon was part scavenger-hunt, part fear factor, part orienteer fest, part hash. I kept getting the map out and finding that yes, I *was* supposed to go into this person's house and run up the stairs, into a bedroom, out the sliding glass doors, and down the deck steps.
Plus, I was wearing my worst-est pink/purple track shorts, which I can't actually run in in real life because of their chafing properties.
I kept thinking that this would be a much better race run with a buddy.
Posted by mryonker at 02:41 PM | Comments (2)
October 02, 2007
gearing up
for the day *after* the marathon:
Here's what D and I have to look forward to in about a week.
Also, this post by Tracy (aka Iron Wil) came up in ye olde aggregator this morn.
Now I want to train for a tri.
Posted by mryonker at 08:31 AM | Comments (2)
October 01, 2007
perfunctory list
Yes. I no longer can compose an entry unless I'm given the freedom of writing an incoherent list. My apologies. I'm happy to report that I'm past the rough of last week.
I just have some little whinging to do: maybe you all can help me out a bit.
1. Somehow during my writing session yesterday, I inadvertently turned on the formatting in Word, so that I now see every hard return and there's a dot for every space, etc. I don't have any idea how to turn it off. It's not incredibly annoying, but I'd like to know how to make the CHOICE of seeing the mark-up. My geek/techie status has just lost all credibility, I know.
2. In a similar vein: any body got any opinions about writing a dissertation in Word? (I know, probably a good number of you will tell me to get out while I can.) My main concern right now is that for some arbitrary reason, I've created separate files for each chapter. So, when I streamline it into one, I'm just praying that, say, all the footnotes decide to get along and change their numbers accordingly. I've checked; the disses in my dept have footnotes that run through the entire text; they don't reset to #1 at the beginning of each chapter.
3. H is turning 11 in a handful of days. She is bugging me to let her shave her legs. This is a cultural practice that I don't particularly care for; I am hit-or-miss about whether I manage to keep my own legs smooth (more often it's miss, esp in the winter). I'm holding her off, but I'm really not finding a good argument (to her mind, anyway) for the prohibition. It is dangerous-ish? Ah.
4. Dunkin Donuts has pumpkin muffins, which are really REALLY scrumptious...
5. Runningburro is not posting often enough. While she redeemed herself slightly in the last two days, I'm still beginning a campaign to make her post more often. Please head over there and comment somewhere, and please add something in your comment that will prompt her to post more regularly.
Posted by mryonker at 06:32 PM | Comments (5)