Sweet Madness (A story I wrote for a Short Story Writing Contest)

Sweet Madness

Intense, maybe.  Passionate, definitely.  Now, who stole Jeffrey’s donut?

Squish-crunch.  Squish-crunch.

Jeffrey focused on the sound his feet made as he walked on the semi-packed snow.  He was trying to keep his mind clear, and figure out: who had eaten the last donut at base camp?

It wasn’t that Jeffrey was crazy.  He was a little intense, maybe.  And passionate.  Yes, that was it.  Passionate.  That’s why he was here in the first place.  At work, the office assistant, John, had used Jeffrey’s stapler without asking, and Jeffrey may have heard this and then picked up his stapler and thrown it at John while screaming “you think office supplies are for everyone?!” But that wasn’t crazy.  Intense, maybe.  Passionate, definitely.  Jeffrey was passionate about staplers, and people touching his things.  Human Resources heard about the incident and recommended Jeffrey take a short sabbatical. Jeffrey couldn’t understand why there was a problem.  Wasn’t he just making sure the company’s office supplies were being used properly? Jeffrey’s neighbor Todd suggested Jeffrey “take a hike”.  Jeffrey knew Todd was only kidding, even though Todd had no sense of humor.  Like when Todd claimed that he couldn’t control the leaves of his tree landing on Jeffrey’s property, so Jeffrey let his dog take a crap on Todd’s porch.  Jeffrey thought it was funny.  Todd didn’t.  But Jeffrey took Todd’s suggestion to heart, and then did all the work and training he needed to be able to sign up with a tour group to hike up Mount Everest.  

And now, here Jeffrey found himself, hiking up Mount Everest with a group of people he’d only known for the past few days.  They had done small hikes together and rested at base camp together.  They cooked meals and worked together.  Jeffrey was frequently partnered with Duncan.  Duncan was a big guy with a bigger smile and a loud, annoying laugh.  Duncan’s voice was loud too, which is probably why Jeffrey could so easily hear him say to the Sherpas “look, I’m happy to help Jeffrey out, but it would be nice to have time away from the crazy guy.  I need a break.”  But Jeffrey figured that Duncan was talking about someone else.  Not him.  Never him.  Intense and passionate.  Never crazy.  

On the first day of the tour, someone arrived with a box of donuts to share with everyone, and passed it around during the get-to-know-each-other session (the Sherpas playfully called it “An Icebreaker on Ice”.  Everyone giggled.  That’s when Jeffrey realized he was the only normal person in the group.)  Jeffrey watched everyone take a donut, but he didn’t.  He wanted to save his for the morning of the final push to the summit.  He left it in the box and knew nobody would take it.  As they told each other a bit about themselves, Jeffrey stood up and made quite clear to everyone what stuff was his (including the last donut left in the box), and how none of it was to be touched by anyone.  Everyone just sat there except for Duncan, who got up and put his extra-large hand on Jeffrey’s shoulder and reassured him that nobody would go near his stuff.  But somebody had.  That morning he went to the cabin where he’d left his donut in the box, but it was gone.  The trek up to the summit was ruined before it even started.

 Now the group was hiking up the mountain.  One Sherpa was in front, the other in the back.  The people in the tour group walked in single file between them:  Megan, Bridgette, Claire, Frank, Duncan, and then Jeffrey.  Jeffrey thought about each of them.  Claire and Frank were a couple. Maybe one of them stole it for the other as some kind of romantic gesture before they took on the most dangerous act of their ridiculously lovey-dovey lives (at the “Ice Breaker on Ice” session, they were holding hands!  In front of everyone!)  Bridgette and Megan had been friends for 30 years, enjoying an adventure together.  Jeffrey couldn’t understand staying friends with someone so long, so clearly there was something wrong with both of them.  One of them must have taken it.  It was Bridgette, Jeffrey decided.  Definitely Bridgette.  She was shorter.  It all made sense.

The Sherpa in front stopped and turned around. “Let’s take a quick break,” he said.  This was Jeffrey’s chance to confront Bridgette, that donut stealing bitch.  He wasn’t going to do anything.  He just wanted to talk to her and remind her to stay away from his stuff.  Maybe he’d yell.  Maybe he’d throw his oxygen tank at her.  He was keeping his options open.

As Jeffrey walked past Duncan, he heard Frank ask him, “Hey, Duncan, is that blood on your parka?”  Jeffrey turned.  Blood was always interesting.  Duncan looked at the back of his arm and then let out a booming laugh.  Jeffrey’s eyes darted up the mountain to see if it had set off an avalanche.

“Hah, look at that,” said Duncan.  “Nope, not blood. Jelly from that donut I found in the cabin at base camp.”

“DONUT?” Jeffrey asked.  Was he screaming?  No, probably not.

Duncan spun around at Jeffrey’s voice, and then smiled.  That stupid, big smile.  “Oh, hey, Jeffrey.  Yeah, I needed a little time away – from the group – so I offered to clean up that cabin we were hanging out in.  There was one donut left in the box, so I threw it out. Must have gotten some of the jelly on myself.”

Jeffrey glared.  Duncan noticed.  “Hey, man,” he said, “I forgot you were saving it.  No need to get crazy, though, right?”

“Sure,” said Jeffrey, as he felt his heart beating in his ears.  “No problem.”

The Sherpas called out that it was time to continue.  Everyone lined up again.  Jeffrey stared at Duncan’s back.  Duncan was right.  No need to get crazy.  Intense, maybe.  Or passionate.  But not crazy.  Jeffrey pulled his ice axe out of his pack and put it in his hand. His stapler throwing hand.

It's Been A While -- Blame A Full Hamstring Avulsion

I know; it’s been a while.  Over a year in fact.  I used to blog weekly, and then I just – stopped. 

There was no reason or message behind it.  I just felt like I was writing the same things over and over again; work hard, make good food choices, admit you’re not perfect, and pick yourself up when you fall down.  Been there, said that.

So, why am I back?  I’m not really sure.  It’s not like I’ve started mountain climbing or running ultra-marathons (and you read it here first; neither of those will ever happen).  Now that I’m thinking about it, I’m probably writing again because yesterday was the NYC Half Marathon.  No, I didn’t run it.  In fact, I haven’t run one step since the NYC Marathon on November 1^st, 2015.  

No, I haven’t given up.  If I did, I certainly wouldn’t blog about it.  Who’d want to read that?  No, the reason why I haven’t run in over 4 months is that I’m injured.  I mean, VERY injured. 

Now that I think about it, the injury started last year in the middle of the 2015 NYC Half Marathon.  No, that’s not true.  The injury started at about mile12.6 of the 2015 NYC Half Marathon.  But before I get into it, I need to give a quick run-down of the relationship I have with that race.  Frankly, it’s poisonous.

Like every reckless relationship, it started off great.  In 2010 I ran that race for the very first time, and got my half marathon PR (for you normal folks, that’s runner speak for “Personal Record”) of 2:11:11.  But things started to go south the following year when I missed that PR by a measly 8 seconds.  Then, during the NYC Half Marathon in 2013, at about mile 6 I thought “Wow, I’m rubbing a really bad blister.”  Well, that “blister” ended up being a stress fracture (and proof that I really don’t know how to read pain correctly), which landed me in a medical boot for 13 weeks.  In 2014, I had an OK race, not great, like when you’re still with this person but the relationship is over and you just don’t want to deal with the breakup.  Then last year was the final straw.

The NYC Half Marathon takes you on a tour of Central Park, then down 7^th Avenue to Times Square where you bang a right, run to the Hudson River, then turn south and just keep going until you cross the finish line.  Somewhere after mile 12, you run into the Battery Park tunnel, where it is dark and REALLY ANNOYING PEOPLE start shouting so that it echoes and cuts your brain in half.  Well, in that damned tunnel, I was busy cursing out the REALLY ANNOYING PEOPLE under my breath, and didn’t see the pothole before I stepped in it and pulled my hamstring (or so I thought).  I screamed out, but everyone probably thought I was joining the echo game, so people looked over and nobody stopped even though I had stopped and was holding the back of my right thigh.  I tried to run again, but basically just limped the last half mile or so, ending with my very worst half marathon time at that point of 2:30:35.

I spent the rest of the spring and much of the summer with back issues that also started at that race, and times that were about a minute slower than my usual slow pace.  My hamstring would talk at the end of long runs, but nothing I ever thought much about.  On August 1^st, my running partner, Rita, and I were going to do a 12 mile long run, training for the 2015 NYC Marathon.  Before we started, she asked me if I wanted to cut it to 9 miles and I said no, wanting to do the whole thing.  It was Hades hot out, so at about mile 4 or 5 when we saw a trail head and Rita asked me if I wanted to try trail running, I jumped at the idea.  And what a great idea it was.  It was a good 10 degrees cooler and all shade.  Ahhh.

Then it happened.  A second or two after my watch beeped the 9 mile mark, I suddenly went flying.  I’d love to say I caught my foot on a rock or something, but we all know that with me it’s possible I tripped over a big shadow, or an ant jumped into the path and threw me off.  Whatever it was, all I knew is that one minute I was vertical and the next I was testing gravity (which was working just fine).  I flew out like Superman minus the powers to fly, and slid a few feet down the dirt trail.

And, I didn’t get up.  I couldn’t.  Not at first.  Poor Rita had no idea what to do to help me, and the slew of swear words coming out of my mouth weren’t giving her any direction.  I knew I had done something to that same damn hamstring, but this time it was bad.

I didn’t want to scare Rita, so I forced myself to stand.  It took several minutes before I could put any weight on it at all, and finally I could limp enough to move in a forward direction.  We both knew our run was over for the day, and even laughed that Rita actually got the 9 mile run she had wanted instead of the 12.

Now, here’s the problem with injuring yourself at mile 9 of a 12 mile run: you’re three fucking miles from home, and your fucking leg feels like someone snapped it off your body and then tried to glue it back on.  Rita and I called our husbands, but neither was reachable, so off we trekked (well, Rita trekked;  I hobbled).  After about 2 miles, Rita reached her husband Phillipe, and he came to our rescue, picking us up and dropping me off at home.  It was late; that last 3 miles took longer than the first 9, and the last time I had been in that much pain I at least had a child to show for it afterwards.

For the next 3 months I did my weekday runs in the pool, which didn’t feel real great.  On the weekends I did my long “runs” but definitely earned those quotes I put in there.  I’d walk for one minute, and then “run” for two, and repeat.  Ad nauseum.  Usually I had to give that up after the first few miles and just walk.  My hamstring was killing me, and I always felt like I was going to fall.  I knew what that felt like, so I was slow (very slow) and kept myself upright.  I finished up the 9 races I needed to qualify for guaranteed entry in the 2016 NYC Marathon, going so slowly that I got swept off the race course twice and gained an even slower half marathon time of 3:24:57 for the Staten Island Half Marathon (and if you ever want to completely destroy a runner’s self-confidence, just drive up alongside of them and say “the race is over and we’re opening up the roads to traffic. If you want to keep going, you’re going to have to move to the sidewalk”.  Trust me, that’ll do it).

I actually did the marathon, against the opinion of every single person who felt like giving me one.  I had gone to some quack – I mean, doctor – a few days after the injury and he said I had a moderate hamstring pull and would be fine in a few weeks, so I figured I was fine though I knew that there was no way it could be.  I finished the marathon in 6:50:55, actually thrilled that I had done it in under 7 hours, and still with about 1,000 people behind me (and the NYC Police tried to sweep us off the course at about mile 20, but every single runner just ignored them and kept going.  That was by far my proudest moment as a New Yorker).

A few days later I went to a new doctor.  I actually went for my back (didn’t want to get into it all here, but throughout all of this I was having major back issues), but I casually mentioned my hamstring, and after asking me questions she said, “Umm, Alison, you do know that regular hamstring pulls don’t take 3 months to not heal, right?” She sent me for an MRI for my hamstring and a few days later called me with the news: I had what was called “complete hamstring avulsion”, with the tendons for all three hamstring muscles completely torn off the bone they were supposed to be attached to.  And not only that, but the hamstrings had retracted and were 5 cm away from where they were supposed to be.  Not good (though in hindsight, that 6:50:55 marathon time didn't look so bad considering I did the whole damned thing with no functional hamstrings in my right leg).

That phone call led to a date with a surgeon in mid-December, who had to pull those hamstrings up and sew them back into place (by attaching them to anchors she drilled into my hip bone, but I didn’t want to write that so that you didn’t get grossed out ).  Not only that, but since it had been months since the final injury (and many months since the start of it in the NYC Half Marathon), my hamstring and sciatic nerve had scar-tissued themselves together and she had to dissect them from each other. 

The brace

After one night in the hospital I was sent home in a brace that went from just under “the girls” all the way to my knee.  It wrapped around my waist and my thigh, holding my hip at a 10 degree angle.  I was allowed zero weight on it for 2 weeks, and then an increase of 25% body weight over the next four.  I slept on the couch for a month, took sponge baths via the kitchen sink, and was at the mercy of my husband and kids for food and clothing (and quick sidebar: my family rocks.  The three of them pitched in and did everything, from making my food to putting on my socks, feeding the cats and cleaning the litter boxes.  If I learned one thing through this, it was that I am one of the most blessed people on this planet).  The first time I left my house in 2016 was January 29^th, and that was just to go to the doctor.  For the first two months of the year, I think I wore shoes 4 times (and they were always tied by somebody else).  

I’m out of my brace and back at work, but I still can’t do anything.  I go to physical therapy twice per week (and since the physical therapist is not at all hard to look at, I don’t mind that part that much :-), but can’t really do much else.  One day I swam for 10 minutes and it set me back for a week.  When I come home from work I am exhausted and just lay on the couch like a lox.  It hurts to sit so I stand most of the day, and now my bad back is jealous of all the attention my leg is getting and it’s letting me know it.  And yes, I am the same person who has finished 6 marathons.

Now, I’m down, but I’m not out.  No, I will never run the NYC Half Marathon ever again.  Let’s call it like it is: that race makes me its bitch every year.  I hope to be running by June, and doing the NYC Marathon on November 6^th.  My PT is not as optimistic. Regardless, I will be back to running, whenever that is.  I am taking it slow this time, though, so that hopefully this will be the last injury I ever write about. Oh, stop laughing.  It could be true.

I don’t know when I’ll write another blog entry.  But when I do I hope I help you out, give you some encouragement, and make you laugh along the way.

All The Work, One Step At A Time

Today I want to talk about two separate incidents that occurred over the last couple of weeks.  The first was at my gym.  I had finished getting dressed and was packing up my stuff to head off to work when a woman came up to me and said, “I love your six pack abs. I was checking them out while you were getting dressed.  How do you get a stomach like that?”  As her comment was extremely flattering (yet mildly creepy), it took me a minute to find my voice, but at last I got out one word: “Crunches.”

The second incident happened at my Weight Watcher’s meeting this past Friday.  There is a new member in our group who was explaining how she did on Thanksgiving.  Generally, she did great; she doubled up only on vegetables, passed on the stuffing, and even went for a walk with her family after dinner.  But before she could give herself credit for her work, she said something about how she did have a small portion of pie, so she wasn’t perfect and therefore didn’t really get it right.

So, these are the two things I want to talk about (no, not my abs and Thanksgiving dinner).  I want to talk about effort and knowledge.

When you’re given a task at work, do you just tap one button on your keyboard and the project is magically done?  No (though if it is, I would really like to borrow your keyboard). To produce results, you have to do the work behind it.  Want to build up your cardio endurance?  Start running.  Want more defined abs?  There’s one answer: crunches and planks until you want to die.  Yes, it’s hard to do.  But it’s not impossible.  If you put in the work (and I mean really put in the work; going to the gym once and then stopping for a burger and a beer on the way home and then never going back doesn’t qualify), you will see and feel the results.  It takes a bit of time, but it can be done.  And that brings me to my second theme: knowledge.

That woman in the Weight Watchers meeting was upset because she wasn’t “perfect” on Thanksgiving.  But I believe she was at her second meeting.  Now, have you ever seen or participated in a martial arts class?  If so, you may know that they have a ranking system that is illustrated in class by the various color belts that people wear with their uniforms.  Black belts are masters, white belts are newbies, and those in the middle are all the other colors depending on skill and experience.  The instructor of the class would NEVER expect a white belt to do some of the moves that a black belt can do, or at least not do it as well.  And you can’t go from newbie to master in a day.  You have to learn how to perform the moves, and practice.  A lot (said the woman who reached the belt level just below black belt twice in two separate schools in two different states).  The woman at Weight Watchers is a healthy eating white belt.  She doesn’t know how to avoid seven different desserts all staring at her after Thanksgiving dinner, especially when everyone around her is tucking in and enjoying themselves.

So, that’s my lesson for today.  Do the work, and take it one step at a time.  As something gets easier, move yourself up a belt (or a notch in your belt that’s getting bigger), and make it a little harder and then practice that.  Do the crunches, and as they get easier, add on some more.  Learn how to eat a healthy holiday dinner, and once you’ve gotten that down, learn how to get desserts to stop talking to you and calling you by name.

And finally, take credit for your hard work.  If you work your ass off on a project at work and the boss says, “Wow, this is fantastic!  Great job!”  Do you say, “Thanks, but I had a really hard time getting that analysis right”?  No.  You take the credit for your work and move onto the next item on your to-do list.  So take the credit for the gains you make in your personal life.  Don’t say, “well, I went to the gym 4 times last week, but I was really lazy on those other 3.”  Celebrate the 4 days (though not with a burger and a beer :-), and plan your next step.  Before you know it, you may have a random stranger give you an extremely flattering (yet mildly creepy) compliment to start your day.