Author: Sara Puotinen

july 26/4 MILES

72 degrees
90% humidity
dew point: 69

Did I go for a run or a steam bath, just now, outside in humidity so wet that it dripped off the trees? The dew point was high too, but it didn’t feel thick, only moist. Felt pretty good on my run. My knee didn’t hurt and I could handle the humidity and the dripping sweat. Briefly walked twice to make sure that I didn’t run too fast and that I was recovering and not racing.

Yesterday, I started work on something about Monday’s long run:

Almost

Almost three hours.
Almost one hundred and eighty minutes.
Almost one fourth of my waking hours.
Almost sixteen miles.
Almost two thirds of a marathon.
Almost the age I got my driver’s license.
Almost too much.
Almost too long.
Almost too tired.
But not quite.

july 25/XT

Open Swim: 1500 yards

Thunder storm hit right after I made it to the little beach. Had to evacuate water and walk/run back to the big beach. Oh well.  It’s the first time that open swim has been cancelled this year.

This afternoon, I started work on a story about why I’m training for/running the marathon:

WHY AM I TRAINING FOR A MARATHON: 26.2 Reasons

Attention, as in paying, not asking for,
Adventure, 
facing Adversity
Absorption: more time outside to take in the world.

Breathing in and out,
reclaiming a Belief in myself and in possibility,
Because I want to and I can.

Commitment,
Conservation of energy, sanity, exuberance, joy,
Care of soul/body/intellect.

A desire to be Dedicated and to redefine Discipline.

a way to Experiment,
Escape,
Endure.

Form: a Focus, a Form for my creative explorations,
improved Form in running,
a stronger, healthier Form.

an expression of Grief and evidence of surviving it,
Gravity: defying it by flying.

Humility: practicing it, confronting it, learning to embrace it.

Inspiring, as in inhaling and feeling motivated to create and to Imagine new ways of being.

Joy!

Knees that I used to believe couldn’t, but now know they can, run for hours without stopping.

Limits, pushing at them, playing with them, accepting them,
for the Love of running.

Mind/body split: proving it doesn’t exist,
Mom: a runner for many decades, dead now for almost one,
Mystery: in the woods, on the long runs,
Magic: in the movement.

Nihilism-avoidance,
No excuses,
Nostalgia for an athletic childhood.

Opportunities: to open up, to commit to something important, to try something new.

Prayer,
Presence,
Playlists,
Podcasts,
Purple toes,
a big fuck you to Pancreatic cancer, the disease that killed my mom and that made me question how much I could trust a healthy, strong body.
Questions! So many Questions about running, training, enduring, the body, breathing, injury and more!

Runner’s High,
Rituals,
Repeated practices,
Routines.

Student: to be one again, learning new things about the body and creativity,
Something to Share with Scott,
Seeking the Sacred.

Triumph,
a lack of Traffic
ignoring, surviving, resisting Trump.

Unrelenting,
Uncomfortable,
Undulating grasses and waves to watch and admire.

Victory,
Vision: new ways of “seeing” the world without relying on diseased eyes.

to Wander,
Wonder,
acquire Wisdom,
celebrate Winter and
examine the Wind: how many versions can I name while I run?

Xerxes Avenue: I don’t want to train for any marathon, I want to train for the Twin Cities marathon. The marathon in which I can run through my city, by places I haunt, places I’ve lived, places I love, including right by Lake Bda Maka Ska (Lake Calhoun) as it intersects with Xerxes Avenue.

a Yearning, 
Youth revisited, 
Youngins: a role model for my kids.

an expression of a Zeal for living and being present/alive/healthy/active/energetic.

(æ)
æthereal or ethereal: an airy, other worldly, dream-like state that can be achieved during long runs and that makes me feel calm and peaceful and relaxed and removed.

(∫ long s)
to ∫tretch and
∫tay upright.

july 24/15.4 MILES

67 degrees
mississippi river road path, south/minnehaha falls/minnehaha parkway/lake nokomis/minnehaha creek path/lake harriet/return

My longest run ever. Slow. Difficult. Lots of walking. But, I did it. And, I’ll do it again next week. It was a beautiful morning for a run. It started to feel really difficult on the way back. I have no deep thoughts. No brilliant insights. No interesting observations. Just fatigue and relief.

Technically, I should count these miles in this week’s total, but this long run is for last week. I didn’t have time to run it any sooner because 2 of my college friends (and favorite people!) were visiting. So I’m adding the miles to last week.

Hover over entry to reveal the erasure poem

july 23/XT

open swim: 2 loops, 2400 yards

A beautiful swim. The water temperature was nice and warm. Had difficulty sighting the buoys, but I’m used to swimming without seeing, so it didn’t bother me. Some day soon, I’d like to write more about how open water swimming has helped me learn how to function (in the water, out of the water) without being able to see.

july 21/8.2 MILES

72 degrees
86% humidity
dew point: 70

I had originally been planning to run my 16 miles this morning, but when I got outside and felt how thick and heavy the air was, I knew it wasn’t happening. So I did my 8 miles instead, with several walks. At about 5 miles, I had to stop and create a make shift band-aid for the blisters on two of my toes. I ripped up the paper towel I had and wrapped it around the toes. It worked pretty well. Note to self: always put band-aids in my pack!

july 20/TRI TRAINING

75 degrees
82% humidity
dew point: 69
Run: 1.55 miles
Swim: 100 yards

Another training morning with Ro. Our first run, we did .66 miles. The next, 1.32. This one, 1.55! Slowly but surely, we’ll get there. I’m hoping to convince her to run a 5K race in the fall.

Here’s our walk/run breakdown by minutes:

walk 1/run 2
walk 1/run 2
walk 2/run 1
walk 2/run 1
walk 2/run 1
walk 2/run 1
walk 2/run 1
walk 1

It was a beautiful morning at the lake. The water was glassy and smooth. At first, there was a haze, but soon the sun came out. I wish I could have stayed at the lake all day, but all be back there tonight for open swim!

open swim: fail!
bike to lake nokomis: 8 miles

I was all set to swim and then I dropped my nose plug in the water. The minute it dropped, I put on my goggles and looked for it, but couldn’t find it. Oh well. After my awful experiences last summer swimming without a nose plug and then staying up all night with a stuffed up nose, I wasn’t willing to risk it. Met up with Scott at Sandcastle and had a beer instead. Worked for me.

july 19/3.3 MILES

71 degrees
86% humidity
5K race/downtown minneapolis

This race was supposed to be a 5K (3.1 miles), but they measured it incorrectly and we ended up running extra. This error was very upsetting for Scott because he would have achieved a great PR, but not for me because I didn’t care. It wasn’t my fastest time and I was just happy to have only briefly stopped once and to be done. My time ended up being decent: 27 minutes for 3.3 miles/8:10 pace. I’m very happy with that!

Things I Remember From the Race

  • It was really cramped and uncomfortable in the starting line. A young runner (in high school) was standing/stretching/jumping up and down right in front of me. I was afraid he might land on my foot.
  • Hennepin Avenue was in bad shape. Lots of manholes and deep impressions that could twist an ankle.
  • For much of the first 2 miles, I ran near a mother and son. The mother was wearing a red clown-hair wig; the son was probably 9 or 10 years old. The son kept bolting ahead. The Mom kept saying, “slow down!” until she gave up and said, “Go ahead. I can’t run any faster.” He stayed with her while I ran ahead. They passed me again around mile 3.
  • Running on the Stone Arch Bridge, not quite near the end, I heard someone’s timer go off: “You have run 3.1 miles.” I was confused until later, when I found out that the race was long.
  • Hearing “Whoot there it is” playing as I passed two male runners who were blasting it as they ran in daisy duke shorts and no shirts.
  • Listening as one runner ahead of me thanked every volunteer and police office as he ran by them.
  • Nearly getting hit by a clueless, speeding biker who was biking recklessly on the race route.
  • Nearly twisting my ankle on the cobblestone right after exiting the Stone Arch Bridge.
  • Just as I was passing one runner, another runner approached and called out, “Hi Sara.” I looked over and then quickly realized that he was greeting the other runner, who must have been named Sara too. I wonder, does she spell her name the right way, without an h?
  • Usually it is very hot at this race. One  year: 95 with a heat index of 99 or 100! This year, only 70 degrees. It still felt hot to me. I really dislike running in hot weather.

july 18/4 MILES

75 degrees
87% humidity
dew point: 70
mississippi river road path, north

Yuck! Uncomfortably thick and heavy. The first half of the run was okay, but my legs started to hurt and my pulse started to race after the turn around. I stopped to walk a few times. I really don’t like running in the heat. I’m not looking forward to the Torchlight 5K tomorrow night.

It seems fitting to post a collage version of my humidity/dew point fragments that I’ve been working on in this entry.

Bad Air! Bad Air!

“What is it exactly that I find so totally unbearable? Something which I cannot deal with on my own, which makes me choke and feel faint? Bad air! Bad air!”

unpleasantly warm

It was hot. It was not a good idea to run this morning. Only 7:30, but it was hot. Already, the day shot. No more running, biking, gardening, just hiding inside. We should have left earlier. Maybe 6? Before it was hot. I forgot how miserable 77 can be when there’s humidity and a high dew point. And the wind, it was hot too. We only ran a few miles before we stopped. It’s too hot, I said to Scott. And he agreed.

damp

The dew point is the temperature at which water condenses. The closer the dew point is to the temp in the air, the longer the sweat will stay in your hair, or any other part of your body, because the air is too saturated and your sweat can’t evaporate, which is how your body cools you down.

muggy

Oh you! You muggy, buggy thing. So thick it makes me sick! Why can’t the water you contain be refreshing like the rain? Why must you make me feel so moist, a word I detest hearing almost as much as I despise feeling its effects: sweat that drips and sticks, heavy air that presses down on my body, sinking me deeper into the ground and making it almost impossible to fly or even to lift my legs up off the damp earth.

moist

How many cups of sweat can fit
Under the brim of my baseball cap?
More than 2?
It’s hard to
Determine but
I keep
Trying to figure it out while I run through the thick air. I think my cap has
Yielded at least 3 ounces of water per mile.

thick

When you mix up the words in dew point you get: not wiped. Not wiped? I guess if the dew point is low. Anything under 50 would work. Otherwise, it should be totally wiped, but those aren’t the letters in dew point. You also get: wit open’d. Really? Could more miserable conditions = more wit? I suppose for some comedians, this is true. And you get: owed pint. Owed pint of what? A pint of blood that traveled to the surface of your skin to help cool you down instead of flowing to your heart? Or the pint of beer that you owe your body for putting it through the misery of running in the heat and humidity?

oppressive

The Index of Human Misery, the Dew Point Version:
<50: very comfortable
50-60: manageable
65: uncomfortable
70: so thick and hard to breathe.
75: ugh!
80+: stay home, it’s not worth it.

wet (blanket)

Have you ever said,
Under your breath, in the
Middle of your run,
I really don’t like humidity & humidity heard you & replied: Well, I
Don’t like you either!
I am going to make you even more miserable because of your
Thoughtless comment!
Yesterday I think that happened to me.

stifling

The effects of heat and humidity on your body as you run:
increased sweat,
depletion of electrolytes,
flagging energy,
dehydration,
the pumping of more blood to the skin and less to your heart or your muscles,
sweat that can’t evaporate to cool your body,
elevated heart rate.

sticky

It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity. It’s not the humidity, it’s the heat. It’s not the heat, it’s the atmospheric moisture. It’s not the warm temperatures, it’s the moisture in the air and in your hair, on your skin, in-between your toes, on the back of your neck. And it’s the stickiness between your fingers as you rub them together, trying to keep your hands relaxed. And it’s the fibers from the cottonwood seeds, the catkins, that fly into your eye or your mouth or get stuck in the sweat on your face.

relief

86 degrees. Hot! Difficult! Some success, some failure. A hot wind, blowing in my face, which is already bright red. The sun beating down. My pulse heating up. No running playlist to distract me. And no memory of the running chants that I created to keep me going. What am I thinking about, other than: when am I done? why am I running in this heat? will I make it to Lake Nokomis for open swim? I stop and walk several times. But then I’m at the lake and it’s cooler, with a breeze coming off of the water, and I’m almost done and I’m trying to get past two other runners that are running just a little bit slower than me so I speed up for the last half mile. It feels good.

open swim: 2400 yards
bike to open swim/back: 8 miles

A great swim and a good bike ride. Some serious exercise today. 116 minutes worth. Talked with a woman after the swim today and she told me that she just learned to swim 2 weeks ago and managed to swim an entire loop tonight. Wow! Very impressive. I told her that I learned to swim when I was 6 months old and it took me until I was 38 to swim across the lake! She also said that she’s signed up to do a half ironman triathlon (1.2 mile swim/54 mile bike/13.2 mile run) this fall. That’s hard core.

july 17/Tri Training

Team Mo (me, the Mom) and Ro (Rosie, 11 year-old daughter)
1.32 miles run/walk

The first real day of training for the mile was a bit rough, but we did it and we still love each other and are willing to race together. I’m proud of Rosie for toughing it out, even when she really didn’t want to.

july 16/TRI TRAINING

Team Mo (me, the Mom) and Ro (Rosie, 11 year-old daughter)
.6 mile run
280 yard swim
Lake Nokomis

I’m so excited to be training with my daughter for a super sprint triathlon! In a month, we’ll swim 200 yards in the lake, bike 7 miles and run 1 mile. Rosie is a great swimmer and biker. And she’s a fast sprinter. Now she needs to train to run a mile.