Running Skirt Photos

Oh my god, it took me forever to post these photos. Very tired - can barely keep my eyes open. Will write more later, but as you can see, one can run, jump, and bound in the skirt (New Balance - they should pay me a commission!) in complete comfort.

Close-up: The skirt, and nothing but. The waistband dips into a V, and it sits a little lower on the hips. Flattering. Also more comfortable than shorts, which tend to bunch up on me (can you say camel toes?!), which makes me yank them down every so often.

Long strides ... I'm looking back at D., the photographer, wondering, "How many times do I have to run up and down this damn trail? I still have a track workout tonight!"

By the way, nobody at the track that night blinked an eye when I showed up in the skirt. Of course, they were running too fast to notice. I was just a blur in blue and red ....

Back view. I let my hair down for this one. There's a small inner back pocket in the skirt, with just enough room for a key and a credit card.

Right about this point, I'm getting hungry. I remember thinking, "A big 'ol hamburger and fries. Mmmm..."

I think I'm getting the hang of this ...

Sprinting ...

The girl in the background gave me a funny look as I ran by her. She looked at my skirt and probably thought, "She sprinting to a tennis match?" The best part: No chafing around my mid-section, which tends to happen when I wear shorts.

You can still see the lingering bruising and scrapes from falling hard on my right knee in the National Marathon last month ...

Look Ma - shorts underneath!

Skirting the Capital Crescent Trail

Well, homies, a colleague took many photos of me sprinting in my running skirt down the trail near our office yesterday afternoon.

Ran 25 meters south on the trail, then north, then south again, dodging the occasional walker or cyclist as D. followed me with a telephoto lens. Jeanne was there for moral support, too.

He didn't have time to download and send me the photos yesterday afternoon, unfortunately. So he'll show them to me today. Hopefully, there will be one or two where I don't look like a complete dork.

Sorry for the delay - stay tuned.

Rounding the Track: It was my first time back at the track for my running club's weekly track workouts. Lots of hares there - folks who often place in regional races. I did an abbreviated workout- wearing my skirt!-as I'm running a local 10K this Sunday: 4 strides (wind sprints) of 100 meters each with 15 second cool-down in between, then 4 X 400 sprints with 400 rest in between.

My times for the 4 X 400:

1st: 1:37
2nd: 1:33
3rd: 1:33
4th: 1:34

Not sure how good/bad those are. That was the first time I did that particular workout ...

Just for the record ...

I got my running skirt from New Balance last week in the mail. Dark blue with white piping on the sides. Inner back pocket. Que lindo.

I've worn it twice so far. And I like it. Better than shorts.

I also got thumbs-up reviews from both men and women.

A review and photo will come tomorrow.

I Feel Drugged

Wait a minute, I am drugged. I took an over-the-counter antihistimine this afternoon to counteract my sneezing fits. Damn allergies. Damn pollen. I left work earlier than usual - 5:30 - and drove home, feeling quite drowsy. I patted the dog, said hello to E., then went upstairs and crashed for an hour. And I'm still groggy.

Ah, spring.

So I didn't get in my 6 mile run today. I was also going to do 4X800 interval-training to spice things up. I'll do that early tomorrow morning. I've also got a noon cardio/weights class. A calorie-killer day.

Running Skirts: What's wrong with running skirts?! Especially if they have shorts/briefs underneath for keeping one's privates, er, private?! NYCFlygirl and Mark started the discussion, and some folks weighed in on the negative.

You can move in athletic skirts. Just ask women tennis players. When I played tennis a lot, I wore skirts rather than shorts. Less constricting. They had attached briefs or shorts, so I could slide, jump, run or dive for a ball without giving onlookers a peep show.

So I, for one, like the look of them. I followed Flygirl's lead and bought the Andare run skirt by New Balance just now. In black. I may get one from RunningSkirts.com as well.

Live Chat on Beantown Marathon Today

Join Jim Hage today at 2 pm EST on washingtonpost.com for a live chat on the Boston Marathon. Hage is a well-known runner here in D.C. - he's won both the Marine Corps Marathon and the Cherry Blossom 10-miler twice, and has qualified for the Olympic trials three times. Go ahead, pelt him with questions and comments. I know I will.

Running helps ...

you get one of these (from Salon's Broadsheet):

How Scientifically Perfect is Your Butt?

So, suppose that after years of hard-won wisdom -- or just the luck of finding a pair of jeans with amazing lifting properties -- you have made peace with your behind. You may not love every dimple, but when you catch a rear view, you can say, "It's me. I'll take it." Now comes news from the Sunday Times of Australia that threatens any bit of body self-acceptance. A British psychologist has come up with a mathematical formula that evaluates the relative perfection of any given female butt.

David Holmes, a psychology lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University in England, came up with this mathematical gem: (S+C) x (B+F)/T = V. (S stands for shape or droopiness; C is for how spherical it is. B represents wobble or bounce, and F is for firmness. V measures hip-to-waist ratio, and T is for skin texture and cellulite.)

"The perfect female derriere has firmness to the touch and a resilience that prevents undue wobble or bounce, yet looks soft with flawless skin," Holmes told the Times. "Slender thighs and a hip-to-waist ratio of 0.7 will frame the perfect bum, well perfectly." According to the formula, singer Kylie Minogue apparently has an ideal specimen.

Read the rest here.

Reinventing Yourself

I keep thinking about my old high school classmate who's now marathoning in a wheelchair (see below). Not sure why. Perhaps because of the way he's faced adversity and reinvented himself.

I just found out that he finished the Los Angeles Marathon last month, and I saw a picture of him online: Wearing sunglasses and a dark blue micro-tech shirt, he looked very determined, yet cool, while crossing the finish.

I'd like to talk to him and catch up - and compare marathon notes, natch. But we ran in different crowds in high school. And it's been eons since then. We went to a huge Southern California high school - about 3,600 students - and I'm not sure he would remember me.

Speaking of reinventing oneself, here's a 200-word personal essay on just that in the Health section of today's Washington Post. These essays are submitted by readers who are baby boomers (at least 42 years old).

I just helped a friend, P., write his. I'll let you know if it gets accepted.

Big Wheels Keep On Turnin'

Note: I've been meaning to change the title of this little 'ol blog for some time to more accurately reflect what this is about. But it's still me. On to the show ....

I got an email from a friend I haven't talked to since high school. We were kinda-sorta good friends in elementary school and jr. high. But I sensed a cooling-off and a growing resentment from her in high school.

Anyway. She updated me on her life: A house in a Southern California desert town. A job as an accountant for a medical center. Two teenage kids (she had her first at age 19). A husband who works as an equipment operator for Cal Trans. All very "Roseanne."

I sent her a brief account of mine. And I haven't heard from her since.

But I've buried the lede. This post is not about her. It's about someone else I went to high school with. After my old friend emailed me, I Google'd a few random high school classmates out of curiousity.

I discovered that one, a good-looking kid in my honors classes who wasn't just brainy, but also athletic, popular and nice, has finished a handful of marathons, the most recent in January 2005. He has impressive times: From 2:37 to 3:13. He was a scholar-athlete in college, so I wasn't surprised.

Then I saw what division he raced in: Wheelchair.

My heart sank. I remember him as a golden boy with an easy smile and a long stride. Now, he's paralyzed from the waist down.

I emailed another high school friend and found out that our former classmate had been in a car accident years ago, and some people had even thought he'd died.

I found a photo of him in his wheelchair. It was taken in 2001, when he was inducted into his college's athletics hall of fame. His hair was no longer blond, but brown. He wore glasses. He smiled faintly. A wheelchair framed his lean body.

But he still looked like an athlete. Of course, he is. Anyone who can fly through 26.2 miles in a hand-cranked wheelchair - using just one hand, I kid you not - is a major stud.

Crossing the Finish Line

You love me! You really love me! Okay, I'll stop channeling Sally Field at the Oscars. Thanks for all of your encouraging comments to boost me out of my post-marathon and work-burnout blues. I really appreciate it.

Here I am just before I crossed the finish line at the National Marathon. Disregard what looks like a heel strike. And the exhaustion etched on my face. I'm willing the finish line to COME TO MAMA!

You Still Here?!

You may have been wondering where the hell I've been over the past week. I've been in a funk. Work takes my time and energy, my dog tore his achilles tendon, so I'm spending a lot of time tending to the injured (but curiously, happy) canine, and E. and I have been sniping at each other recently. Or rather, there's been some long silences between us.

You know. Normal stuff.

Plus, I feel no one reads this anyway, so why bother finishing my marathon debriefing? I know, I know, if I post more regularly, readers would be more likely to head on over this way. I just feel like recently, blogging takes up a lot of time for little reward. I haven't even read my emails or comments re this blog for the past 7 days. Not that I don't love you commenting and emailing. I do.

As far as running, I was gung-ho last week, the immediate week after the marathon. I think perhaps I ran too much - four times, between 4-6 miles each. This week, I've been in a rebellious mood, and although I've exercised three times this week so far (and will take a weight-lifting class this afternoon), I've only run twice.

Here's the end of my race report: P. rejoined me somewhere between miles 21 and 22. He kept up a constant chatter, and I grunted in reply every once in awhile. Mile 23 was the last Gatorade/water station. Approaching the aid station from about 50 yards away, an ambulance raced by on a street perpendicular to the marathon course.

It turned out that someone driving an old Mercedes lost control of the vehicle and plowed into a lightpost close to 40 miles per hour. The car - with the person still stuck inside - was smoking as we passed by, its front end crumpled and windshield broken. Yikes.

E. was at Mile 23 with a digital videocamera. He zoomed in on me. "How're you feeling?" he asked.

"I feel like hell!" I said in reply. But I smiled. I was glad to be almost done with the race. I took my last few sips of Gatorade and kept running.

At Mile 24, I saw RFK Stadium and the Capitol dead ahead of us. A beautiful sight. No one was talking at this point around us except P. We were a sorry sight.

At Mile 25, we headed into a tunnel, and as we emerged into the sunlight, a man on a bike was urging us on. He was telling us to smile, to keep running, and tried to get a woman near me to stop walking and start running. He was well-meaning, but irritating. We tried to ignore him the best we could.

"I'm going to punch him," I said to no one in particular and tried to run towards him. But my legs rebelled. I felt as if I was running on two dead logs. Forget it, I was too tired.

The woman finally began a painful trot to the finish just to get him to be quiet.

I could see the red, white and blue balloon arch at the finish line ahead. At mile 26, I turned right. Less than a quarter-mile to go. P. was talking a blue streak and told me to run as fast as I could. The noise filled my head.

As he turned off, I yelled at him, "SHUT UP!"

Then I high-tailed it to the finish. I willed my legs to turn over as fast as they could. I thought I was running smoothly, but when I saw the video of me later, I was running with a hitch in my stride.

That's because my right knee was throbbing painfully, and bolts of pain shot through my right leg every time my foot touched the ground.

Afterwards, I went to the medical tent to get some ice for my knee. The medics insisted on pulling up my tights, even though I said it was no big deal, that I'd just bruised it.

That's when we saw the 2-3 gashes on my knee. "I thought it was more than just a bruise," said the doctor with satisfaction.

Final net time: 4:15:48.