it makes you nervous

I don’t normally comment here on current events or on politics. But the news that Sen. Arlen Specter’s cancer returned gave me a pause. Specter is a fellow Hodgkin’s survivor. Like me, he had advanced disease. He made it three years in remission — generally HD, if it comes back, makes it’s ugly presence known in the first two years — and yet still relapsed even though he claims that he was feeling great.

Specter had a couple strikes against him — he’s a male (sorry guys being male is a negative prognostic factor in advanced stage HD), he was stage 4B (that’s as bad as it gets), and he was over 45 (age being another negative prognostic factor).

Nevertheless, it makes you nervous. And it makes you wonder what you’d do if your number comes up. Stem cell transplantation is the usual treatment for relapsed Hodgkin’s Disease and it cures some people, but given the state of my lungs, I’d have to think long and hard about it. I kind of feel as though I don’t have another fight like that left in me. Eight months worth of ABVD pretty much knocked all the wind and fight out.

There’s also a fear of being left worse off having done something extreme like a stem cell transplant than you would have been just trying to manage and control the Hodgkin’s Disease (even acknowledging that there would be no cure).

Hopefully, it is not something I ever need to consider, but it’s always in the back of the mind and it makes it really difficult to plan and live your life.

support Blood Cancer Research at Department of Defense

If you would like to help support blood cancer research — please consider sending a letter to your congressperson urging support of the establishment of a $10 million blood cancer research program at the Department of Defense. The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society has an easy to use internet form you can use, or better yet, you can send a real letter (you know, with a Forever stamp on real paper and all that).

We need better cures for the blood cancers — the blood cancers include the various leukemias, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Hodgkin’s Disease, and myeloma.

Just to give you an example — the current front-line treatment for Hodgkin’s Disease is the ABVD chemotherapy regimen. It only cures about 75% of people, and of the 25% not cured with ABVD or a similar regimen, half of those people can’t be cured with an even more severe chemo regimen and a stem cell transplant. So of the 8,000 people diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Disease every year, 1,000 or so will die. Many more suffer from treatment related side effects from the harshness of the drugs used in ABVD or in the harsher regimens.

Moreover, ABVD was first developed all the way back in the 1970s. In cancer terms, that’s ancient history. We need more up to date and better treatments — and of course not just for Hodgkin’s Disease, but for the other blood cancers as well, most of which have much lower success and cure rates than Hodgkin’s Disease.

Further, because the blood cancers have to be treated systemically (that’s why chemotherapy is used so much in their treatment), drugs developed will probably also benefit other people with a variety of different kinds of cancer.

So, if you will, please consider sending a letter asking your member of Congress to support blood cancer research. I know the blood cancers aren’t as popular as some other kinds of cancer (we don’t have an entire month dedicated to us for example and you won’t find our various colored ribbons adorning products in the store), so we need all the help we can get.

If you do send a letter, you have my sincere thanks.

bad days aren’t allowed

Coming off three excellent runs in a row, today I ran into the proverbial wall.  Runner’s like to talk about “The Wall” — a mythical, legendary beast, a spot where the flesh and spirit become weak, where all you want to do is curl up into a ball and go to sleep.  Upon meeting the wall, your spirit, motivation, and will all drip out of you and form a puddle of discouragement at your feet.

Usually you meet The Wall in a marathon; today I met it running considerably shorter than that.  I was out for a 14-mile run.  The day was fairly raw (mid-30s), quite windy (SSE 19MPH), and it was overcast.  Not ideal running conditions, but certainly not terrible ones either.

It wasn’t a good run from the get-go.  I woke up and felt tired.  My stomach ached a little.  And I just didn’t really feel all that much like running.  Still I put on my shoes and went out the door.

About half way through, my stomach started cramping and I felt kind of short of breath.

The shortness of breath thing always concerns me.  I truly think my first symptom of Hodgkin’s Disease was a decrease in exercise tolerance.  So even the slightest problems with my runs makes me get extremely nervous, even though I know rationally that there will always be bad days, even for healthy people.  But for me …  Bad days aren’t allowed anymore.

I finished the run, but I felt mad for stopping a few times because I felt tired and a little winded.  I’ve spent the entire day trying to convince myself that I just had a bad day, that I’m fine, that I’ll be running normally tomorrow.  After all, I had three excellent runs prior to this bad one.

Fingers crossed for a good run tomorrow.

reflections on a year with cancer

Over on my homepage, I wrote an essay, Reflections on a Year Running Through Cancer. It is a rather raw, but incredibly honest and truthful look at chemotherapy, mainly from a runner’s perspective.

Some of you have been here reading along loyally the whole time, some of you may be making your first visit here today to my blog. I am leaving my Hodgkin’s Disease posts in-tact here as a diary of my experience. However, if you would like to read my reasoned and thought out reflections on the whole cancer experience from diagnosis to remission, feel free to read the essay.

Cost of Cancer

A visitor asked how much my year of cancer cost. Not including the problems I had this year, my insurance company was billed approximately $477,000.00 in 2007. I paid “only” a $2,000.00 deductible and spent “only” $1,400.00 out of pocket in drug copays.

Even with the help of my folks, I exhausted my savings. Most 27 year olds don’t have $3,400.00 just laying around, especially when they need to stop working for awhile.

Ah.  I forgot every time I went to see a doctor, I got billed $25.00 as a co-pay.  I saw my primary care doctor once, three surgeons, a cardiologist, and a lung doctor.  I also saw my oncologist (or a partner) 18 times in 2007.  So to my out of pocket expenses, add on another $500.00 or so.

I am not complaining, I am grateful I had / have health insurance. But a note to anyone reading this from Cleveland-Marshall College of Law — that was my law school. This is why I get angry when people from the law school call and ask me to donate $500.00 three or four times per year even after I ask them to please stop calling.

today I am a 1-year survivor

I am a one year cancer survivor as of today.

Most of you probably associate today, Valentine’s Day with love — red hearts, paper lace kisses, candy, flowers, that sort of thing. A few of you probably feel pretty cynical about it because your not in a relationship.

For me, I can’t separate the day from the fact that I was diagnosed with cancer.

Every sugary sweet and sappy commercial, was a reminder. All the people wearing red at the gym - a reminder.

It was at 11:42 AM on this day last year, almost exactly the time I’m writing this, that I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Disease. As a history buff, I tend to note times and dates when important things happen (I can tell you with precision exactly where I was when I learned about September 11th for example.)

My initial diagnosis was primary liver cancer with a 6 month suggested prognosis.

For about a week, therefore, I thought “I am going to die.” Of course, any of us can leave this earth at any moment, but, well, this was different. This was a mathematical certainty, this was a sentence. I didn’t want to say anything here until I knew for sure — but I did all the things you would think you would do if you found out your time was severely limited. I planned all these things I was going to try and do before I got really sick.

So in the span of a five minute conversation, I went from I’m going to die in 6 months to I have a treatable, even dare I utter curable cancer and maybe, just maybe I’m going to die in 50 years instead.

Of course that chance for 50 years came with the catch that to get the chance, I had to do 8 months of pretty nasty chemotherapy.

And it’s not as though Hodgkin’s Disease was an easy road, not that Hodgkin’s Disease is a “good” cancer. Hodgkin’s Disease is very treatable and it is even curable, but only about 3/4ths of the time. And I was in trouble from the start. I had massive disease. Although I was most focused on the abdominal mass, it was the chest masses that were dangerous. You don’t have too much room in your mediastinum (the area between your heart and lungs) for your lymph nodes to grow to Godzilla size. My veins — especially the superior vena cava, the main vein that drains the blood from you head — were compressed. I had early stages of SVC Syndrome (an often fatal disorder).

Dr. S later told me he was up all night worrying about me because he was concerned he wouldn’t get all the staging tests done in time before I started developing serious problems. He said untreated he thought I might make it maybe three months.

But the wide swing from death sentence to you’ll probably live made me a touch neurotic — it’s very tough to shift gears from I am going to die to you’re going to live, but you have to do 8 months of chemo. Poor Dr. S, he didn’t know WHAT to do with this defiant runner who cavalierly brought her running shoes to the first appointment and told him “I’m not sick.”

I will always be very grateful to Dr. S for recognizing the severity of the situation and getting me into treatment as soon as he possibly could. (Even if I do still think he’s a vampire.)

I will remember with a touch more fondness May 18 (”Jennifer, I am pleasantly surprised, your scan was excellent, really much better than I expected.” “So that’s good right?” “Yes, you are in remission.”) and September 21st — the last day of chemo.

So although I will never associate Valentine’s Day with flowers, cards, candy, and love again, although the day will always have an association with a terrible disease, I am thankful I outlived my original diagnosis and I’m still here and out running a whole year later.

it’s MY BLOG

It’s my blog and I’ll selfishly self-promote myself if I want to! (I mean, if a blog isn’t for self-promotion, what is a blog for?)

As you may or may not know, depending on how much attention you pay to the blog (and if it’s not much, I understand *sniff*), I am writing on the web editorial staff for Running Times Magazine. They just published my third article on their site.

Here’s a link to the newest article:

• Running Battles: Mountains and Valleys

And here are the past two if you want to read them:

• Running Battles: A Hard Run
• Running Battles: Serious Fun

Other than that, I’d like to say Medrol is my friend and costochondritis is not a fun condition to have, but mine is much better today. (My xiphoid¹ process² hurts!)

Ever try to tell people your xiphoid process hurts?

“What seems to be the problem?”

“Doctor, my xiphoid process hurts.”

“You think your WHAT hurts?”

“My xiphoid process. See I took anatomy in college, and I think that’s what hurts.”

(Maybe I was mispronouncing xiphoid or something?)

“Oh.”

If I say my abdomen hurts, then the doctor starts assuming it’s my stomach that’s the problem. If I say it’s my chest that really hurts, then people panic (something about chest pain gets people’s attention.) And the xiphoid process is not really the stomach or the chest. I figured if I said xiphoid process, they’d know what I was talking about, but apparently it just strikes them as odd that I knew what a xiphoid process is. Maybe I pronounced it wrong and they just didn’t want to tell me. Oh well.

So anyway score points for Jenny and her amazing memory — it turned out it is my xiphoid process that is inflamed. I seem to have the classic costochondritis symptoms — pain when you push on the breastbone.

I am even my usual self today; i.e. having trouble sitting still and eating everything I can lay my hands upon. I suppose you COULD blame the Medrol because those sound like steroid side effects, but let’s be honest … I’m always like this and when I’m not like this, I’m usually sick.

1. Xiphoid is Greek for sword. [↩]
2. i.e. the bony thing in the bottom of the breastbone, in the upper abdomen, between the ribs [↩]

an essay about running

This is an essay I wrote about running. A few of my friends I shared it with liked it a lot and submitted it to be considered for publication by Runner’s World. I greatly appreciate the sentiment and am deeply flattered, but I know the odds RW will publish it are very long.

Anyway, although this piece is very personal and quite lengthy (four pages single-spaced), I thought I’d share it here. It is written to a runner audience, though others are free to read it too (just you may not quite understand it as much). I stuck it in the Hodgkin’s Category and in the Running Category, but it’s really written for the runners.

—-

Why Running is Important to Me.

An essay about running written by a cancer survivor.

I have run this trail so many times that I know every nuance. The trail is actually meant for horses, but the running community seems to utilize it more than equestrians. It is packed dirt, the perfect running surface, the perfect length, three miles out, three miles back. I know this trail as well as I know the map of veins on the back of my hands. It is mainly a flat and featureless trail, but I know where each of the subtle dips and rises are located. I know where the best views of the Rocky River are; where you are most likely to spot a stately heron stalking for fish or a bright snowy white egret with a bright yellow beak. I also know where the rocks underfoot are and where it is likely to be soft and muddy.

I love the trail; I love the soft surface, the smell of the shale, the high ancient cliffs that rise above it. I love how the river changes, sometimes subtly, sometimes severely, as though it were a living thing. I find a certain thrill when I run next to the river when it is high and rushing like a torrent, but I also enjoy it when the water level is low and the river moves sluggishly too. I even enjoy running under the two bridges that span it. One bridge is old, white, stately. The other is a highway bridge, a pale blue-green, functional but not beautiful. I always sprint under the bridges, the sound of traffic far overhead urging me not to dally.

I’ve had good, glorious days on this trail. I’ve also had terrible days that I would as soon forget. You see, this is where I not only run, this is where I find solace, where I go when I need to escape.

One of the very worst days: the day I was diagnosed with cancer. It was Valentine’s Day and Cleveland was buried in a snow so significant that even the courts were closed. I don’t remember much about that day, that day everything changed, what and how I exactly felt, but I do remember going out running, out on my trail that was covered with a thick and heavy white blanket of two feet of snow. I did not get very far (snow is very difficult to run through), but I can remember standing about a mile out, my breath appearing as thick clouds of white steam in the bitter air, and saying out loud, “Why me?!?” When it snows, the world becomes very silent and still. And so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when there was no answer.

The next week was a whirlwind of tests. PET scan, MUGA scan, pulmonary function test. There was simply no time to run on my trail. Every day for a week there was a test, and it all sort of blurred together. The entire diagnosis and chemo process even now is sort of fragmentary; I remember images and scenes, but most of it is just a hazy memory, sort of like a bad dream that you can kind of remember only terrifying bits and pieces of when you wake up. It is almost as though I did not actually go through it. It was almost as if I watched it from afar.

I didn’t know if I was going to be able to run while doing chemo. I had asked my doctor at the initial visit — the same visit where he pulled out a tape measure to figure out just how large my abdominal mass was (I was not offended, actually thought it almost absurd) — if I could keep running and he said, sure if I felt like it. I could tell he didn’t think I’d feel like it.

I knew, though, if I was going to survive, I’d have to keep running. I knew it instinctively. It was as though running was as essential as breathing. Life is nothing without passion; I have two real, true passions, Civil War history and running. Those two things make life worth living. And so I decided no matter what I was going to try and run even through chemo. The day before my first chemo, a surgeon was placing a port — a central line device used to spare your veins from being burned by the noxious chemicals and poisons — in my chest. My chest masses were so immense that the surgeon didn’t think he could manage to squeeze the port in amongst the enlarged lymph nodes. We should put it in your leg, he said. This would mean no running for the duration. I was staring at the daunting prospect of eight months of chemo. Eight months with no running? I said no way. I’d rather be burned inside out than not be able to run. The surgeon, a triathlete himself who I think understood why I needed to at least maintain the illusion that I was going to run my way through this mess, found a way to fit the little metal disk into my chest.

Chemo further depleted my blood of hemoglobin — that little iron-based protein that carries oxygen around your body. My counts had already been ravaged by cancer. The first week after chemo, I was dizzy and my heart raced. I could hear it when I tried to sleep at night, thudding in my ears. Still, I would go out and jog around the block a few times. Going out after chemo to run was very hard, particularly because it was very cold and the streets were covered in snow and ice. I stuck to my neighborhood. I was too dizzy to drive to my trail and far too weak to even think of attempting the large hills I’d have to run up and down to get there from my house. But eventually the snow melted. And so, amazingly, did my masses. My blood counts actually started to improve as the disease was knocked into submission. I went back to the trail. I watched it slowly come alive and turn green. I marveled at the little, delicate flowers that peppered the ground with white, pink, purple. I was blessed a few times to see a doe with a brand new, spindly legged fawn, still covered in spots. The birds returned.

Spring eventually softened into summer. The air became warmer and thicker, the days much longer. And my trail became something like a tunnel cut through a jungle canopy, a ribbon of dirt through a mass of thick, bright greens.

Summer was rough. The thing about chemo is the drugs don’t just target the bad cells. No. Unfortunately, chemo is not a smart weapon, it does not know enough to make just a targeted attack on the bad cells that are dividing out of control. Chemo is a poison and it kills indiscriminately, targeting good cells and bad ones alike. Chemo therefore causes lots of collateral damage: to your hair, to the lining of your stomach, to your skin. It can cause so much other damage — even occasionally other cancers, a future leukemia is a possibility for Hodgkin’s survivors, for example — that you end up with the equivalent of a Pyrrhic victory. Although I was lucky to keep most of my hair (which I feared was likely as doomed as Custer’s men at the Little Big Horn), my lungs took a real beating from the drug Bleomycin. Bleomycin is the least effective of the four drugs used to treat Hodgkin’s Disease. Ironically, it also causes the most problems. My right lung filled up with blood and pus from Bleo damage, and even after discontinuing the drug (which is very commonly done), I struggled for a long time to even walk up the steep stairs in my house without gasping for breath.

I’m not sure why I kept running. Or rather I should say kept trying to run because by this point I was no longer really running. I suppose I desperately wanted to cling to an essential piece of my identity. Chemo tends to rip away your identity and leave you in tatters and pieces — I had reached the point where I knew I could not practice law for much longer. My hair was thinning. I was losing weight. I had a tan from being outside so much, but my face was as white as a sheet. And swollen. My face was constantly puffy, as though I had just gone a few rounds in a fight. Psychologically, I was a mess — I was by turns depressed and then very angry. I had no business running, but I just couldn’t let go of it. It was the one activity I had that made me feel normal and alive and like I was still a part of the world.

(When you have cancer, you see, it seems like the entire world seems to keep going at it’s normal pace, while you are left behind. You cannot really live while undergoing chemo, you just try and exist. You try to make it from treatment to treatment. You try not to think too far ahead.)

Running requires a lot of breathing, of course, and since I couldn’t do that essential activity very well, it became a massive struggle. I spent a lot of time stopped on the side of the road or on the trail, bent over, grabbing my knees, wondering if my heart was going to leap out of my throat onto the ground in front of me. I looked — and felt — like a poser. I was just pretending to be a runner. I was once a runner. I wasn’t one now. I seriously wondered if I would ever be able to run again. All I could do now was jog at a ridiculously slow pace for a few minutes, then gasp for breath on the side of the trail.

For whatever reason, one morning during this dark phase. I decided I’d run for forty minutes — an easy amount for me. Twenty minutes out, twenty minutes back. Four miles or so. Give or take. Easy. No pressure. I’d done it a million times. Two minutes into the run, I was in trouble. My chest hurt, I was breathing heavily. So I slowed down. It felt like someone had put a very large stone on my chest. I slowed down some more. The entire right side of my chest burned every time I inhaled. It felt like I was sucking in volcanic air. I stumbled to a stop. It felt as though I had a spear stuck in the right side of my chest. I knelt on one knee, the other firmly planted on the dirt. I coughed and drops of crimson congealed into a black puddle in the dirt of my trail next to my left knee. The coughing released the pressure in my chest; I felt better.

Cancer had brought me literally to my knees.

Every time I pass that spot on the trail, my stomach tightens a little. It is a constant reminder of how bad things were. But it is also a reminder of how far I have come.

I refused to give up. The next day, stubborn as always, I was back out again on my trail, jogging a few yards, walking a few, jogging, walking, jogging. Although I had some pretty poor runs after that, I never coughed up blood again. Soon after that incident, my lungs started to heal from the Bleo assault, and I was able to start really running again. My pace gradually improved. The number of chemo treatments dwindled into the single digits. Then I could count them on one hand.

I finished chemo in September. Within a few weeks of chemo ending, I noticed that I was running fast and it felt easy. I also noticed that my trail started to change again. Now the days were getting noticeably shorter, the angle of the sun was changing, becoming lower in the sky. And soon my trail blossomed into a sea of bright golds and fiery crimsons. It was so beautiful, that it would take your breath away to see it. No picture, no poet could do it proper justice.

The trees gallantly held onto their brilliant leaves for a long time, but not long ago the wind knocked most of them down. Now the trail is dull, brown and gray. It gets dark very early. Daylight is at a premium. But although it may not be as beautiful as it is in other seasons, I still love it.

I’m back running the volume I was running when I was diagnosed. I feel strong as I fly down my favorite trail. I no longer struggle to shuffle down the path, I no longer have to stop every few yards to gasp. I run with my head up, confident.

I say I love to run … and I do. I guess it is funny to say you love to run. Enjoying this sport, running. Non-runners think runners are crazy. Insane. Those who don’t run, do not understand. They view running as punishment. Runners know this. We take a sort of twisted pride in the joke that our sport is every other sport’s punishment.

And at times, I admit, running seems like punishment. Some days, even the most dedicated among our tribe do not want to run. We usually do so anyway. Runners tend to be committed. To running, if nothing else. We will run laps around a parking lot if we have no other option. Or in place on a treadmill. In the driving rain. In the ice and snow. I’ll admit that there is a physically painful aspect to this sport: that hot, burning sensation in your lungs as you finish a hard 5K or stagger to the crest of a big hill, that overwhelming heaviness in your legs as the lactic acid builds up at the end of a hard track workout.

This is what non-runners think of running as. We know better. Oh sure. We know it is sometimes painful, that there are bad days. But then there are those glorious days, when you feel like you could run forever …

Oh, how I do love running. I love the feel of the wind in my hair, the steadiness of my breathing. The dull thud of running shoes against the packed dirt, the crunch of gravel. The occasional wildlife sightings, the ability to withdraw into one’s self. I love how the running endorphins enhance my senses and how I feel so alive at the end of a run. Running is freedom.

And yet I know this could all change; the cancer could come back. Every cancer survivor lives with this fear in the back of their mind. Relapse dangles over our heads like the Sword of Damocles. You try to drown it out with other activities and thoughts, but it is always there. But while that incessant whisper is part curse, it is also part blessing. I once took running for granted as something that would always be there. Now I know it can’t be taken for granted.

To me, I think the worst possible fate would be to arrive at the end of your life and to realize you have not lived. And that is why I love running: nothing makes me feel more alive. I hope I can run forever.

Every run is a gift. Run long, run strong.

a gray run

A gray run, brightened considerably by the chickadees.

November may be the most gray month of the year. It seems like the sun never shines during November. Of course, that’s an exaggeration, but still. One starts to run out of ways to describe the color of the sky: battleship, steel, iron, sooty, silver, ashen, dismal, smoky, powdered, leaden .. all synonyms or adjectives to describe that extremely dull color: gray.

The trees turned late here this year; some of them are desperately hanging onto their burnished golds and fiery scarlets, but most of the leaves are now on the ground. The decaying leaves give the air a certain earthy fragrance. They make a soft carpet to run on, even adding cushioning to the hardest concrete sidewalks. It is a slippery carpet, though.

Given the lack of foliage and the grayness, I suppose you could say this is one of the most ugly times of the year. Everything seems so dull and dead and dirty. It’s also often quite cold.

Not today, though.

I go running nearly every single day. Sometimes I run and I forget that I am running and suddenly realize I’m a lot further along than I thought. Other days are a struggle, though I almost always feel better for having run. Still other days I seem hyper aware of my surroundings; I become extra aware of every tiny little detail: from the wildlife to the mottled green, gold, and red colors on the leaves under my feet. It’s not just sight either, but the smells — the wafting scent of breakfast or burning leaves or a fireplace. And sound — the crunch of gravel underfoot, the soft padding over the leaves, the squish and squeak of a well worn pair of running shoes, the sound of cars and the wind whistling past my ears.

I ran down by the lake today. The lake is just as gray as the sky. It was unseasonably warm — 60ish — and as a result I broke a pretty good sweat. The air was thick like a warm, wet blanket and the wind was gusting out of the south-southwest. It made the way out a little harder than the way back which is much more sheltered from the wind. The waves from the lake lapped gently against the pale sand. The white water gradually crawls forward, then as if an unseen giant was pulling a string, the waves pull backwards.

I saw a few birds. A red-bellied woodpecker clung on the side of an old oak tree. Woodpeckers don’t like to be spotted. They are shy and elusive. I’ve learned that at Gettysburg, “pursuing” the gorgeous red-headed variety. The red-headed woodpecker is common in the woods between the Virginia and North Carolina monuments where the road dips down and then rises up again. I also see them quite often at the Loop near the Wheatfield. And I spotted quite a gathering of these blue-black, white, and red stunning avians in the large old witness tree at Devil’s Den. They don’t like for you to know where they are, and if they sense you’re watching them, they will take off, progressively higher and higher into the trees. Anything to escape the prying human eyes.

The chickadees are much more friendly. They are tiny balls of feathers and fluff with bright black eyes that sport a distinctive shiny black cap and bib, with a contrasting paintbrush strip of white over their eyes. Their eyes are like tiny black stars glinting out from the snowy white surrounding feathers. The back of a chickadee is a gray (but it’s a warm gray) and their bellies a very soft, chestnut-golden brown, not unlike some of the strands that pepper my hair. The chickadees hop happily back and forth at the many bird feeders along my route. I also sometimes spot them curiously and cheerfully peeking out from an evergreen bush: tiny tufts of gold, brown, gray, black, and white.

What I like most about the chickadees is for such a delicate bird, they are actually very hardy. I see them out even in the worst weather. In that way, I suppose they are kind of like runners. They also always seem so cheerful, no matter what the weather. They don’t seem to mind the gray.

I saw a few other birds. A hold-over robin with dull-colored plumage, a few large white seagulls. And innumerable house sparrows, as always. Several coal black crows were perched high in a buckeye tree. They were engaged in cawing at a set of crows that had taken up a spot in another tall oak tree. I have always liked crows; they are smart and funny. I still smile at the thought of a very large, solitary crow crawling into a discarded bag from McDonald’s at college; the crow crawled into the wet and dirty bag and emerged triumphant with a piece of half-eaten hamburger. The crow enjoyed that hamburger as we would enjoy a piece of fillet mignon.

I saw many squirrels too. The squirrels are incredibly busy this time of year, gathering nuts and acorns for the coming winter. They were moving a bit faster than usual today.

I think the red furry squirrels are moving a lot today because they do not need the Weather Channel to tell them that the weather is changing. The northern sky is no longer gray but is now like a fresh bruise: dark, purple, angry. The wind is picking up more, and it is starting to rain. Tomorrow it is supposed to snow.

If I run tomorrow (I feel as though I could use a day off), I’ll be looking for the squirrels and woodpeckers and chickadees. It’s amazing what’s there when you take the time to look.

the need for speed

I ran a half-marathon this weekend. I very rarely race, so when I do, I try to make it count. It was the first real effort I had made to race since being diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Disease.

This was a true runner’s race. There was nothing fancy about it — just a good, well-marked, uncrowded, perfectly flat, very straight, VERY fast course that ran through rural scenic farm country. The weather was ideal — high 30s, mostly cloudy. I ran in a longsleeve tech shirt, gloves, shorts, and a beanie. I wore my lightweight trainers (white and red New Balance 825s for the shoe junkies out there). As you can see behind me, the trees are decked out beautifully in gold right now. (And yes, that is a cornfield.)

I ran very well. I set a PR (that’s a personal record — a personal best — for the non-runners). I took home hardware (that is runner-speak for winning an award). I ran negative splits (I ran the first half slower than the second) and I never was passed after the first mile, but I got to do a lot of the passing. It’s fun to finish strong.

I’ll probably be out racing again in about two weeks at the Cleveland Fall Classic.