Tufts 10K

Here I am with my running gal pals at the start of the Tufts 10K. We took the train to Boston, walked from Back Bay Station to the Boston Common, picked up our registration packets, and checked our bags. My fam fam caught up with us and got a picture of us before the race. Notice the dry hair.



Over 5 miles later, you can see that things have changed. I now look like a drowned rat because as soon as we hit the starting line, it started to drizzle. Moments after we crossed the finish line, the drizzle stopped.

My running buddy, K, and I ran the race together, from start to finish. She's the one who was with me when I collapsed back in May. Crossing the finish line together was an emotional moment. I felt very thankful to be able to participate in the race, to be able to run with my best time yet on that race, to share that moment with her, to have other women from Foxboro who joined us, and to have my friends and family there to cheer me on.

The Tufts 10K is a powerful race. You are surrounded by 7,000 other women, each of whom has her own story and her own reason for running. Because of the turns in the course, you have many opportunities to cheer on women who are both faster and slower than you. Families line up along Commonwealth Avenue, cheering their runners and holding up signs. While I won't deny the seriousness of what happened to me, I know that there were many women for whom this was a bigger step. It's both humbling and encouraging to think about all the stories that were out there that day.

Considering where I was in May, I am proud to say that I finished the race and shaved 8 minutes off my time compared to 2 years ago (results are here). I'll never be a fast runner, but I am certainly a thankful runner.

I hope I can do it again next year--maybe with a lot less drama!

Initial Thoughts about Musical Preference Systems

I’m a fan, and loosely a scholar of, Hawaiian music. So today I entered Keali’i Reichel, a well-known pop music artist in Hawai’i, into Pandora’s search engine. Pandora asked if I wanted something similar to “Keali’i Reichel (Holiday).” I said yes. It played a song from Hall and Oates “No Child Should Ever Cry on Christmas Day.” I gave it a thumbs down. The next selection was “Songs from Matengo Folktales” by Bowling Green State University Men’s Chorus. The next several selections were Christmas songs; apparently Pandora locked onto the “holiday” theme. Next I tried a searching for Israel Kamakawiwo’ole (a.k.a. IZ), arguably one of the best-known Hawaiian artists outside of the islands—it couldn’t find him.

Finally I tried searching on the term “Rainbow” hoping to find IZ’s rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World.” Eventually I saw something by Jake Shimabukuro, a Hawaiian artist. The helpful start message described the piece as featuring folk influences, mild rhythmic syncopations, acoustic guitar riffs, and “a good dose of guitar pickin’.” Not a bad description, I guess, for a ukulele piece. Perhaps the title of the piece, “When My Guitar Gently Weeps” fooled them.

Since I indicated that I liked this piece, Pandora used that as a model for choosing pieces for me. The next selection was “I Surrender All” from 50 Hymns on the Guitar. I guess it was a good dose of guitar pickin’. Subsequent selections included wonderful acoustic guitar pieces by such artists as Pat Kelley and Mark Holizinger, Don Ross, Raina Rose, and other guitartists with whom I was not familiar—but not a single piece of Hawaiian music other than the original Shimabukuro one.

I take this as evidence that programmatic musical preference determination must take into account more than statistical comparisons. I’m still thinking a lot about this, but my main area of concern is that the sense of community around a particular artist or musical style and the concept of identity through music play a large role in musical preference. As a further demonstration, consider a female listener who identifies herself as a lesbian. She likes the Indigo Girls. Based on musical characteristics (folk influences and a good dose of guitar pickin’), would Pandora select a Melissa Etheridge piece (basic rock song structures, extensive vamping, major key tonality, gravelly female voice)? Probably not initially, but to that listener the connection between these artists is real and important. There is considerable overlap in the communities that surround them since all of these women are openly lesbian musicians.

Elements such as community and identify are hard to quantify, but music preference systems will have to come to grips with the sociological and cultural aspects soon.

Testing mapmyrun.com

That should be the 5 mile route above, but it doesn't appear when I view it. Maybe people using a different browser can see it and will let me know. (I'm using Safari on a Mac.) You can access the route here though.

I've been using Map My Run for a while now because I find it fascinating to know down to the one one-hundredth of a mile how far I am running. I want to to know precisely where my splits are so that I can time myself and fret over how I was a few seconds slower than yesterday. I rode my bike (I have an odometer on it that measures in hundredths of a mile) on part of my favorite 3.3 mile route one day so I could determine precisely where the one mile mark is. I've even considered carrying the GPS with me to get a better measurement. In other words, I'm obsessed.

Anyway, check out Map My Run. My recommendation is to select "Follow Roads" to make it easier. They still have some bugs to work out, but it's a great tool if you need an accuracy fix like me.

What a Summer!

So the culprit was not the mosquito but another dear/deer friend here in New England:



That's right, friends. It's a deer tick. I never saw the silly thing and I never knew I'd been bit, but I got a whopping case of Lyme disease in August. Chills, fever, bullseye rash all over my body (hands, arms, legs, and torso). I was sick for over 2 weeks before I was diagnosed. My own fault, really. Though I had suffered through a week of the chills, fever, fatigue, etc., I didn't go to the doctor because--get this--my temperature could be kept around 100 degrees if I stayed on Advil so I stupidly reasoned I must be getting better. Actually I just desparately wanted to go on vacation to New Hampshire so I was willing to convince myself in any way possible that I was not that sick.

The rash broke out while we were in NH. By the time we got home we knew something serious was going on. We quickly figured out it must be Lyme. I went to the doctor and lo and behold, tested positive for LD. I went on the antibiotics. After 2 1/2 weeks I started reacting to those (tingling in the hands, constant flushed feeling) and quit.

So I started the summer with cardiac arrest and ended it with Lyme disease. Surely I am done with the sad tales, right?

Everything has more meaning

One side effect of going through a life-threatening incident like I did is that, at least for now, every ache and pain takes on more significance.

A gland in my left groin (that sound sooo male, I'll just on my bikini line) became very swollen and painful Saturday. Since I had a couple of heart catheterizations during my hospital stay, I was worried that I had some kind of infection from that. But that was over 2 months ago, so that can't be it. By the end of the day Saturday, I had a fever. It's now Monday and I still have the fever and a headache. I'm either too hot or too cold, I ache all over, and I'm exhausted.

I'm not good at being a patient. I keep trying to get up to do things, but I don't make it far before I run out of steam. Yesterday with my fever hovering around 100, I suggested to Dave that maybe a good run would knock it out of my system. He gave You're-An-Idiot Speech #35. He probably would have tied me down to the bed (hmmmm) if I had tried. I had such a horrible night last night that I didn't even suggest it today. But I'm getting cranky from being inactive for so long. This explains why I left the hospital in Boston and wandered the streets in Mission Hill with heart monitor leads stuffed up under my shirt so no one would know I was an escapee.

I probably have a virus (just for fun Dave suggested West Nile) and it will run its course just like it does in other normal human beings. My heart can take it.

And when it's over, I'll go for a run!

The results are in!

Dr. C from B&W called several days after the CT-scan. They didn't find any masses or tumors or ligaments or ribs or whatever poking into my artery so they eliminated that as the cause of the vasospasm which caused the arhythmia which caused cardiac arrest. Like my suburban cardiologist, she also ordered a bloodtest for my C-Reactive Protein level. Interestingly the test I had done at 8:30 showed it at 4.2 and the one at 11:45 at B&W was at 3.5. Anyway it's slightly elevated and is considered a marker for potential heart disease because it indicates a propensity for inflamed viens.

The solution is to take cholesterol medication (Crestor), which I am now doing even though my cholesterol is okay. So I'm up to 4 pills plus a vitamin every morning.

Before I added the Crestor to my regimen, I thought I'd try an experiment to see if the cramp in my throat and chest would show up if I didn't take the other drugs then went running, or if the lack of the cramp over the last 6 weeks has been because I wasn't taking the cholesterol medecine perscribed in the hospital. So I went for a run in the neighborhood before taking my meds. I couldn't even make it .3 miles before it started. So I don't know what the problem is (esophagal spasm was one guess), but I know the solution--take the isosorbide and nifedipine before running.

Meow-Scan

Yesterday I had a CT-scan, sometimes called a cat-scan, sometimes called a meow-scan. OK, I'm probably the only one who would call it that besides my cat. Because I couldn't have food or water for four hours before the scan, I decided to have the bloodwork done that my suburban cardiologist ordered, which required fasting. So I stopped in at the lab and got poked at around 8:30. "My, your veins are so small. I hope I can find one," the lab tech said. Not a good sign.

Then it was off to B&W, the only hospital besides Children's that I've been in in Boston. Turns out the CT-scan for the heart involves an IV. "Oh my, your viens are so small. I can't find one. I'll try this one on your hand." It was about 3/4 of an inch below the last joint in my thumb. Not a pleasant experience.

Finally, I make it into the CT-scan room. The machine is a giant donut. The patient lays on a table and is sent through the hole in the donut and back. Cool. Unfortunately for me, the tech looked at the IV and decided this was some kind of amateur job done down on the first floor (heirarchies are firmly in place in hospitals). So let's make sure it's okay by shooting 5 CCs of saline through it as fast as we can! Oh, didn't I come up off the table. The tech was entranced by how my vein jumped up. Then she asked me if it hurt. With tears streaming down my face, I mumbled yes. (I'm still one of those who doesn't want to disappoint authority figures.) So she tried injecting the saline slower. Those who know me would be proud that not a single one of the absolutely filthy words that jumped into my head actually came out of my mouth. So everyone should believe in miracles. Really.

They did the non-contrast scans first. Then my dear tech, with her special way with words, came back in and said, "We're going to inject the contrast dye in a few minutes. It's going to hurt like the saline, but it will be over quick." Doesn't anyone teach these people how to lie (or how to use adverbs)? Now I can't stop thinking about the future pain. I start to feel panicky. Then a voice comes over the speaker: "We're just waiting for your heart rate to go back down then we'll start." Is the irony lost on these people?

When they finally decide they're just going to have to do it or miss their lunch break, it turns out not to hurt as much as the saline. But I have to tell you it was the weirdest freakin' feeling I've ever had. My body felt warm inside and I could have sworn I had peed in my pants. My mouth only got the weird taste for a second. Then it was all over. "You did great," my dear tech said. She and I really need to have a talk.

Apparently, because union rules call for it or something, the cardiologist at B&W also orders a set of bloodtests. The phlebotomist takes one look at my arms and snorts. I can't decide if she thinks I'm some kind of junky or just one of those pathetic creatures who has SMALL VEINS (a faux pas in the medical world, apparently).

So now I wait for the doctors to decide that I should know about the results. Who knows when they'll bother with that.

In the meantime, I think I'll go running.