a congratulations and a non-race report

Last week, my friend Kristin Goff completed the Olympic Distance triathlon at Carleton Place.

It was the culmination of many months of dedicated training and perseverance, and I want to congratulate her on this spectacular accomplishment. If anyone knows how hard it has been, it’s me, because I have been following in her dust. I hope she’ll write her own race report.

As many of you know, because we have big mouths, more than two years ago, Kristin and I made a pact to do an Olympic Distance triathlon together when we both turned 60.

It seemed like such a noble goal, turning a negative into a positive, and it was so very far away, that of course it was easy to laughingly commit.

We continued to do Sprint Distance Triathlons - the Early Bird, Smiths Falls, Brockville, the Canadian, etc. plus myriad running races - and this past year I joined her to diligently train evenings with the Ottawa Triathlon Club.

In the early days of our triathlon career - a few years ago - she was already beating me on the swim and the bike, but I was able to demoralize her by passing at the last minute on the run. Then, her times improved so much that I couldn’t catch up and reel her in.

It didn’t make a lot of difference at awards time, because we were usually either first in the age category or second in the age category, since we were frequently the only two.

And then in the past few months, Kristin really took off, swimming powerfully, biking confidently with her aerobars and clip-in bike shoes, and running faster and with confidence.

By the Riverkeeper, she had time to socialize before I arrived at the finish line.

When we did long swims in Meech Lake on a choppy day, she plowed confidently through the waves, while even in a wetsuit I felt like a bobbing cork and considered climbing up the rocks to the road and walking back.

I was doing the training with her, but I was feeling so bad about becoming the Eddie the Eagle of Triathlon that I broke out in hives and lay sleepless at night as I contemplated what lay ahead.

And then, like a sign from above, I read a book review in the Saturday paper of “The Dip - A Little Book that Teaches You When to Quit.” The book said quitting can be a good strategy.

A dip is the long slog between starting and mastery, the difference between the beginner technique and the more useful “expert” approach, the book says. Winners quit fast and quit often and only stick when they find the right dip to conquer.

I am regularly practically last in the Sprint Distance; if there were cut-off times for the Olympic, I wouldn’t even have been able to consider it. So I chose my own cut-off time, and decided this isn’t my dip.

Despite having done the long slog through the swim and bike and run distances over the past few months, two weeks before the Big Day, I decided that in spite of the happy fairy tale ending it would have created, the Olympic Distance wasn’t for me, for now. I switched my registration to the Sprint.

I suppose it’s actually amazing that I consider a Sprint Tri a letdown, when in my Try a Tri days I figured I’d never be able to do one at all. And I found out when I did the Sprint, that while I wasn't faster than I used to be, it was certainly way more comfortable - so there is value in training for an Olympic and actually doing a Sprint.

Thanks, Kristin, and congratulations! It has been - and will continue to be - great fun.

Sorry I can't hear you: My experience with and treatment for acoustic neuroma

Ever since I was diagnosed with acoustic neuroma, I’ve been trying to get an article on the condition published so that there would be more awareness. The response from the media has been nil. Since I’m trying to use my blog for things I’m interested in, I decided to put some acoustic neuroma stuff here for those who have asked about it.

Louise

----

I didn’t do very well on the bird watching walk.

I couldn’t tell the leader’s bird call imitations from the real thing; I’d think it was real birds when he was just whistling. I couldn’t tell where the sounds were coming from.

And background music makes it impossible for me to make out the words when people are talking in restaurants, aerobics or spinning classes, anywhere.

Hearing loss sneaks up on you. Is everyone whispering or mumbling on purpose?

I write this as an explanation for those of you who may think I have on occasion been rude to you. I wasn’t ignoring you or intentionally giving an inappropriate response; I just couldn’t hear you properly or tell which direction the sound was coming from. And usually I was too embarrassed to tell you.

In fall 2003, I finally told Dr. Johnson, my family doctor, that I seemed to be having trouble hearing.

She referred me to Dr. Gregory Antoniak, ENT, for testing, which led to a CAT scan and an MRI.

That led to a referral to Dr. Brien Benoit, neurosurgeon. Months evolved in between all these appointments, and each one led to several phone calls to arrange an appointment for the next.

Finally, Dr. Benoit’s diagnosis was “acoustic neuroma.”

With MRIs more readily available, acoustic neuromas are being diagnosed more easily now, but their incidence is still very rare - about 2,500 people being diagnosed each year in the U.S.

Symptoms include decreased hearing, ringing in the ears and a change in balance. While acoustic neuromas can affect either ear and sometimes both ears, most often it is unilateral. The vast majority have asymmetric loss in hearing, most commonly high frequency hearing loss. An early sign is avoiding one ear while using a telephone.

My acoustic neuroma was slow growing, about 1 cm.

It’s nothing I did or didn’t do, and it’s not hereditary.

Three choices:

I-1. Do nothing, observe. 2. Do another scan in a year and see if it’s growing.
(If I were 20, he’d say do the surgery for sure. If I were 70 or had a serious illness, he’d say don’t do it. At my point in life, he says it’s up to me. “How long are you going to live?” he asks. “If it’s another 25 years, well, it’s easier to do the operation while the growth is small.”)

II- Operation

Through the ear.
Lose hearing on the right side, but less chance to lose facial nerve. Tail on tumour makes hearing-saving operation through brain chances not good.
10 per cent chance of facial nerve loss.
Surgery in hospital a week, off balance and off work about a month or two.


III - Stereotactic radiosurgery.
Same as cancer radiology. It stops growth but doesn’t take it out. Some side effects. Done by neuro otologist.
I am leaning towards number II. There is at least a six-month to year wait anyway, so I’m thinking of reserving now for a year July.

Wednesday June 30th, 2004.

Hearing test appointment 20 min. then Dr. David Schramm, who says, have another MRI in October to monitor the growth rate. If it is slow, we can wait a bit more. Otherwise schedule an operation for spring, three or four months later.

Nov. 2/04 2nd MRI

Nov. 24 10 a.m. follow-up hearing test and appt. with Dr. Schramm. That showed no growth in tumour in the important area, but hearing worse. He said surgery not necessary yet.

June 12/05 3rd MRI Civic Campus.

Wednesday August 31 10:45 a.m. Follow-up appointment Dr. Schramm. He says the MRI shows size of tumour is the same. However he says it’s usual for hearing to continue to deteriorate as mine has; he doesn’t know why.
If I have any numbness or weakness on the right side of my face, I am to call him right away. Otherwise I will have another MRI in May, with follow-up in June 06. Radiation wouldn’t be a good choice, because there’s not much hearing to save, and the tumour could grow back, and necessitate surgery anyway, he said.

With surgery, any attempt to save the hearing would cause more risk to the facial nerve, so once I have surgery, there will be no hearing on my right side. I would have the surgery within six months of being scheduled. He says some of his patients don’t like the ongoing uncertainty and opt for surgery. He recommends waiting, since there’s nothing to gain, and there are surgical risks. I wait.

December /05

My hearing continues to get worse. At any round table event or party, or skiing, running or driving with someone on my right, which is my ‘wrong’ side, I miss totally or misinterpret what is being said. It is very frustrating and makes me hesitate to attend large gatherings. I can understand why some people become hermits.

May 9 /06

Another MRI at the Civic Campus, a few weeks after my application for long term disability insurance has been rejected by the insurance company. Apparently they are spooked by the possibility of surgery in my future. My sedentary husband was approved.

June 26/06

The neuroma has grown to 2 cm, and it is time for an appointment with Dr. Benoit the neurosurgeon.

Dr. Benoit says again, three choices:

- Surgery in Ottawa done by Dr. Schramm and Dr. Benoit.
- Linac radiation done in Ottawa.
- Gamma knife radiation done in Toronto at the Joey & Toby Tanenbaum Gamma Knife Centre at Toronto Western Hospital.

He won’t make the decision for me, and sends me off to the Internet to do my own research. I am surprised that radiation is now considered a viable option, when I had been told previously it wasn’t.

Radiation gives minimal risk right now, but possible long term difficulty later, as opposed to invasive surgery now. I opt for radiation, grateful to have an option to surgery. I will lose the little hearing I have left in my right ear.

And I wait for a call-back from Dr. Benoit’s office about a time for gamma knife radiosurgery in Toronto.

Early September

I finally get a voicemail call at home late Friday from Toronto Western Hospital.

A week goes by, and I finally make contact. The appointment is set for an assessment on Tuesday October 24, and gamma knife the following morning.

A few weeks before the radiation, I receive a call from the University Health Network about taking part in a pilot study “Exploring the Role of 3T MRI in Gamma Knife Radiosurgery.”

It requires undergoing a research MRI test prior to treatment, using a stronger magnet than standard MRI scanners, and use of a breathing device with oxygen and carbon dioxide. “It is possible that 3T MRI will give us additional information that will help plan and assess your treatment more accurately,” said the consent form. “Information learned from this study may also benefit other patients in the future with your disease.”

I decide to consent to the second MRI which was right after the one that was party of my treatment. It turned out to be very difficult because it doubled the time I was flat on my back in the machine. I am not claustrophobic, but I am a fuss budget, and there’s no room to fidget in an MRI machine.

I am also a Pollyanna, and had underestimated the demands of the treatment, thinking I’d be back on the train to Ottawa the same afternoon.

Gamma Knife day began at 6 a.m. and ended late in the day. It’s not actually a knife, it’s using very precise beams of radiation to treat affected areas of the brain (the target). At the target, the concentrated radiation destroys the tumor. Because the beams are precisely pinpointed on the target, damage from radiation to surrounding brain tissue is small.

The four steps to gamma knife treatment are putting on the frame, imaging, treatment planning, and treatment.

The stereotactic head frame is attached to my head with four pins, two on the forehead and two in the back of my head. The frame stays on my head for the entire procedure, to keep me in a stable position during imaging and treatment. A transparent box is is placed on top of the frame to measure the depth of my skull.

After the images are taken, I wait back in my room while the neurosurgeon, radiation oncologist, radiologist, neurologist and medical physicist treatment planning team decides which areas to treat, how much radiation to give, and how they will target the radiation. That takes several hours.

After treatment the neurosurgeon removed the head frame, and bandages were put on the pin sites on my forehead. Symptoms afterward included mild headache, some bleeding, and swelling around my eyes caused by the local anesthetic.

I was back at work two days later.

My hearing will continue to decline, but hopefully the growth of the tumor has been stopped.

Six month follow-up

Toronto Western Hospital April 25, 2007. Dr. Menard said size of the tumour is the same, so that’s good; no growth.

Another six-month appointment has been made for October 31st.

The last thing I'll say about being 60

About 10 months ago, I had the idea that I would start recording what it was like to approach age 60 and beyond. I was sure that it would be monumental.

Here is some of what I wrote:

August 10th 2006

On this hot summer day, I realize that six months from now, on a surely cold and snowy day, I will turn 60 years old.
I want to celebrate that. My daughters Diana and Naomi think a girlie winter vacation getaway is a good idea, and so does Lorne, who hates to sit on a beach anyway. That’s something down the road.

Meanwhile, as February approaches, I will add thoughts that come to me so other women turning 60 will feel hopeful and possibly I will feel hopeful too.

August 11

I mention to my friend Cynthia my goal to record the next six months. I’ve created the folder, I say. It’s empty.
“You’ll have more to say looking back,” says she who has already passed this milestone. “Six months after, instead of six months before.”

August 12
Daughter Diana and I volunteered at a triathlon supervising the bike turnaround on Colonel By Drive near our house. When the last cyclist had passed, the two motorcycle officials offered us rides to the finish line on their bikes, and we each hopped on.
“You’re pretty cool,” Diana said to me in disbelief.

August 13
Two fisherman beside the Canal showed me the wide mouthed bass one had caught with a plastic worm, and then they threw the fish back in the water.
That’s what I want for 60. You can catch me, show me 60, and then throw me back in the pre-60 water.


August 20
The Battle of Brockville

As I ran across the finish line at the Thousand Islands triathlon, Mike the announcer pointed out to everyone that my friend Kristin had already beaten me, finishing the race 4 minutes ahead.

Rubbing it in, he announced that the two of us have an ongoing rivalry to avoid last place, and this time she had won.

Indeed she had, improving on her swim and bike, so that it was impossible for me as usual to “reel her in” on the run.

And even though I was last, for me it was a huge accomplishment just to be there when only a few years ago I was quivering in the Try a Tri in the Carleton pool, and never envisioning I would actually be smiling in the choppy waters of the St. Lawrence River.

I thank the kayaks circling me like sharks at the swim for not just hooking me into the boat and heading for shore. As usual, I had trouble sighting, complicated by waves that blew up on the return swim, enhanced by a nearby large boat. I couldn’t see the furthest buoy; one kayak told me to keep left or I’d be caught in the current, another told me to keep right, and I flopped around like Flipper until I ultimately reached the three powerful “pullers’ who yanked me over the very slippery boat launch exit.

It was not hard to find my bike.

And it’s funny, I was afraid of not being able to see because of water in my swim goggles, but in fact they were fine. It was the raindrops on and in my glasses as I biked that were a minor annoyance.

I didn’t know until after the Brockville Triathlon whether I’d want to do a race report. That’s because my training for this event was even more bizarre than usual.

I had spent the first three weeks of July walking around Europe in 40-degree heat, and doing no running or aerobic exercise at all. And then I spent two weeks before the triathlon enrolled in CycleFit Boot Camp trying to force my unused muscles back into shape.

Hence on Saturday when Kristin and I headed to Brockville (great accommodation at St. Lawrence College for $34 each, including breakfast), I was even more sore and creaky than usual. I had read Rick Hellard’s advice to athletes that there’s nothing they can do to improve themselves in that last week before a race, only make things worse. I wondered if I would become a negative example of that philosophy. He was obviously a positive example of his own advice – he won the Olympic Tri.

And when you’re last, it’s hard to know what makes any difference.

The reason we had even entered Brockville was as step one of a pact we’ve made to do an Olympic distance Tri when we both turn 60 in six months. The Sprint Tri swim at Brockville is one 750 loop, and the Olympic there is two. This was to be an information reconnaissance to see if Brockville merits our symbolic efforts next year.

We’re still working on that decision, but we were pleased that the variety of races meant company most of the time (except when I was swimming). It buoys the spirits to feel you’re not alone, and many of the Olympic Tri people were very friendly and supportive as they passed by on bike or run.

Meanwhile, rematch to avoid last place at The Canadian on Labour Day Weekend!

August 22
I report to a younger colleague that a former freelancer of ours has a letter in the Citizen complaining about sidewalk cyclists in Stittsville. “Is he a cranky senior?” he inquires. My first reaction is, ‘no, he’s my age.’ My second reaction is, ‘I better not be cranky any more.’

More recently, a Citizen news editor announces at a meeting that the Ottawa Senators are so popular that when they were put on the front page, the paper didn’t receive the usual letters from “little old ladies” complaining about sports being given major coverage.

---------

And you know what, that clinched it. I didn’t want to be focussed on age any more. I am who I am, and that’s more important than chronological age. This blog will contain things I like or have written, book reports and bits and pieces that haven’t appeared anywhere else. I have seen 60, and it’s no big deal.

The Real Oliver Twist - a moving book

I spent the holidays reading a book that has continued to haunt me, The Real Oliver Twist/Robert Blincoe: A life that illuminates an age, by John Waller (Icon Books, 2005).

The author is a historian who lectures in the department of history and philosophy of science at Melbourne University.
In 1832, John Brown, a British campaigner to release young children from the servitude of the textile mills, wrote a memoir of workhouse orphan Robert Blincoe in a popular pamphlet.

The author of The Real Oliver Twist uses that memoir and a 22-page bibliography to re-create the times of poor Robert Blincoe, born in 1792 in rural St. Pancras Parish and abandoned at four to a “work’us” (workhouse) never to see his family again. At seven he was sent 200 miles north to work in the horrendous and unrelenting abuse of the cotton mills.
“The Memoir details the cruelty of masters and overseers, the weakness of the law, and the harsh realities of a child’s life dictated by the relentless rhythm of machines and the clanging of the work-place bell…He was remembered, if at all, as somebody who fought bravely against the cruel vicissitudes of life. But his own hard work and his devotion to his family eventually achieved for them a degree of respectability beyond the wildest imaginings of anybody who had known him,” writes John Waller. “as a bruised, lonely and desperately unhappy parish apprentice.”

According to Waller, there is strong textual evidence that Charles Dickens read Blincoe’s Memoir shortly before writing Oliver Twist, and the parallels are striking. “Blincoe’s Memoir must have had a deep impact on a man who had been sent to work in a bleaching factory aged twelve and never reconciled himself to his family’s loss of gentility,” he says. “And it would also have yielded rich background material that Charles Dickens’ own life didn’t provide but which the plot of Oliver Twist required.”
He writes that “making children like Blincoe work was almost universally agreed to be a good thing. Schooling, on the other hand, was seen to have its dangers. Juvenile, sweated labour inured poor children to their ‘inferior offices in life’, but education threatened to give them ideas above their stations. This was a real concern in the highly-stratified world of 18th –century England, in which everyone was meant to have their place upon a vast hierarchical chain stretching from the most degraded humans – beggars, actors and minstrels – on to artisans, shopkeepers and tenant farmers; next to bankers and merchants; and finally arriving at the dizzy heights of squires, barons, earls, dukes, archbishops and, at the very top, monarchs.”

And as bad as the work’us was, apprenticeship as a ‘sweep’s boy’ and indentured work in the mills, was worse.
“When Parliament set up a committee in 1816 to inquire into the ‘State of Children Employed in the Manufactories of The United Kingdom’, it was revealed that few mills worked their child apprentices for less than eleven-and-a-half hours. Many forced them to labour for fifteen hours, with minimal breaks for refreshment …Lunch eaten next to the machines.”

As the book continues, “only at nine or ten o’clock at night, after more than sixteen hours of work, and with less than half an hour to rest, did the wheel finally come to a stand. The absence of milk in the diet, combined with near-constant standing during the day and the awkward motions required to operate the machines, took a heavy toll on Blincoe. At the age of fifteen, as he entered puberty and needed proper nutrition to build up healthy bones, his legs began to bow… Continuous standing and monotonous movements ensured that for the remainder of his life Blincoe would walk with difficulty on buckled legs.”
It would be nice to think that the world has changed, but in so many ways it is evident that it hasn’t, as the children suffering throughout the world in child labour, the sex trade, orphans of AIDS in Africa attests.

This book, about a time hundreds of years past, is a reminder and an impetus to care about children still in need of advocacy now.

The Orange Juggler

The following story I wrote won first prize winner in the City of Ottawa 55 Plus Fiction Writing Contest in 2002:



The Orange Juggler

“... May I reach
That purest heaven; be to other souls
The cup of strength to some great agony,
.. So shall I join the choir invisible
whose music is the gladness of the world.”
• George Eliot

He loved that she quoted poetry all the time. When it wasn’t her own poetry it was George Eliot, or it was Elizabeth Barrett Browning... “How do I love thee...I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life! - and if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.”

Like a massive ballet troupe, hundreds of runners were stretching against trees and walls and lying waiting on the grass. Music from a radio station trailer clashed with loudspeaker announcements. He wondered how she would have described the chaos.

Grabbing his left running shoe in his right hand, he stretched lightly and alone, alternately bending each long leg behind him.

He managed a wan half smile, a soft little ‘hmph’, sort of a laugh, his closed lips curling up at the corners, straight into his prominent cheekbones.

A beautiful big grin, she described it. Like punctuation between his ears.

She loved his smile. He loved her poetry.

He loved the wavy bangs she was always brushing out of her round, sad eyes. He loved her favorite lemon yellow sweater that smelled of her perfume. He loved her laugh. He would laugh for her.

He leaned against the tree to steady himself.

“Sorry about your wife.” A runner in a red jacket, a staff member he knew from the Y, stopped in front of him. He nodded back, his heart pounding. What could you say. He’d only decided to enter the race last week, because it supported the Breast Health Centre. The running would be no problem, he was certain of that, but he was so afraid he’d be paralyzed by thinking about her.

The ‘five minutes to start’ warning startled him.

Bending down, he pinned the race number on his white singlet. 404. Daniel Allan Stone. Male. 36. Then he hurried back outside and waited for 9 o’clock.

The air was a damp combination of spring mud and wet grass. He shivered and shifted his weight to keep warm.
He glanced at the timing chip on his shoelace, then at his watch. At 12:30 he’d be done.

An instant later, he was gone, swept away in a sea of runners. A huge quiet mass of arms and legs, heading down the road.
The grass was so green, shockingly green.

There were few spectators, just the beat of a solitary boom box under a little gray tent at the side of the course.
11 a.m. He stared ahead, already battling tension and fatigue. Perspiration and sporadic drizzle matted the thick brown hair around the nape of his neck. His chest heaved, his lean arms and fingers were too heavy to lift. His salmon shorts clung in wet wrinkles to his body. The runners had long ago strung out, and he had his own space.

11:45. Ten kilometers to go. “Just 10 kilometers. Just 10 kilometers.” Shaking his head, his dry lips shifted to mouth her words instead, as his aching legs churned along, fighting the urge to stop:

A moment in time

Drifting. Drifting.
A bittersweet interlude
Hanging in the air
In the damp heat of summer
suspended in time.
A perfect note of music,
a red canoe
going nowhere.
No future, only memories.
Knowing it will never end.
Knowing it will never be the same.
• Emily Stone, 1999

“Knowing it will never be the same,” he repeated, picturing their last perfect weekend on the lake. “Knowing it will never be the same.” He had memorized so many of the poems she had written just for him. She taught English, and wrote for others, but the poems were just for him, and he knew them all by heart. One good thing about being an actor. Just a year ago she had come back stage to meet him, and they were together ever after. Noon. Grateful for the distraction, he continued reciting her poetry, reliving their time together...

Bike Path

Bike path
Life path
Through the woods
with the yellow line.
You slow to lead me
Then you’re gone.
Down the road
Round the corner
Up the mountain
Out of sight.
To bike with you
To run with you.
I never dreamed
and now I do.
What better gift
Can ever be
Than you have shared
your path with me.
• Emily Stone, 1999

He blinked back tears. He felt she was with him, and she understood what was in his head. Always. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to,” she’d say when he was filled with worries. “It’s okay, it’s okay.” And he knew it was. He knew she would be saying that now, gazing into his pale blue eyes and gently touching his lips. He marvelled that someone could be so serene and yet never waste a minute. She was always planning a trip, always thinking of some great adventure they could share together. She hated being stuck in the city on a long weekend. She wouldn’t have wanted to be in town now, and would have persuaded him to skip the race.

Urban tumbleweed

Scrub grass lapping unevenly
at the old metal legs
of a scratched park bench
placed optimistically
under a sparse, struggling tree.
A small circle of nature
in a mall of asphalt
ending abruptly
as a torn plastic grocery bag
blows saucily by.
Urban tumbleweed.
A blunt reminder
of where we are
and where we want to be.
• Emily Stone, 1999
•
She’d been sick so long, they both knew from the beginning their relationship had no future. They knew they could do nothing about it; and knew the pain of goodbye was the price they would have to pay for being truly, wildly in love.
He had imagined over and over how it would be to part from her - like visualizing a race - hoping that by creating her leaving in his mind he could somehow alleviate the leaden lump in his chest. Home for the last time, she had asked to put on his socks, closing her eyes as he rubbed her feet.

He was wearing the same socks now, the way she had wanted him to. They were keeping him going - through the blur of mile markers, drink stations, sweat and pain.

The mantra of poetry was a link with Emily, propelling him on.

It was the second time around. The home stretch. Then why was it so hard.

He plugged along.

Eyes downward as he came around the corner, he saw a piece of orange peel on the asphalt.

She always loved oranges.

He willed his throbbing legs to keep moving as the orange imagery flooded his mind. He was 12 years old, back in the bedroom of his parents’ house, light-hearted and light-headed, knowing what he wanted to do. He had seen jugglers at the circus every year, and he yearned to be like them. Maybe that’s what made him become an actor.

He had stayed in his room all day, practicing juggling three Mineolas. He was the smallest in his class back then. Though he’d been over six feet tall for so many years now, he was still that little boy inside. “I picture you tall and strong your whole life,” she said in disbelief when he told her, rubbing her fingers up and down his long arms for emphasis. His mind went back to the juggling as his legs strained on.

There had been so much to learn. He had wanted to quit. Who needs to juggle.

Who need to love. The oranges fell to the floor. Over and over. He was feeling a little better now. Everything seemed a little brighter, sounds a little louder. . .

He concentrated on finishing the race, juggling the oranges. The little boy had skipped supper to continue juggling the oranges... Daniel thought of the food at the finish line. He wondered if there would be oranges. One kilometer to go...Don’t move forward as you juggle...Don’t stumble as you run...His arms felt lighter as he imagined the three oranges tossing through the air, but he could barely breath. Focus. Focus... She’d always loved his juggling. She’d laugh and clap and say it was one more thing that made her love him.
He felt dizzy.


As you leave

I ache with envy
future dreams
Your strength
When I have none.
And see the world
Through your bright eyes.
Too late.
You show the joy
That all should taste.
Embrace the world.
Don’t cry. Just live.
I’ll know. I’ll feel.
I’ll be the same
And care as much.
I won’t be gone.
• Emily Stone, 1999

He gasped over the finish, ignoring the numbers on the large black time clock. He stumbled to the grass. He’d done it. He’d done it. For her. He had thought he couldn’t live without her, and now he knew he wouldn’t have to.

Ottawa Marathon

“There is no Try. There is Only Do or Not Do.”
- Yoda, Jedi Master.

This is the first year since 1999 that I haven’t written a public marathon report in the Ottawa Citizen. For longer than that, I’d been running on the race weekend, and then coming into the Citizen on Sunday afternoon to put out the race results section for the next day.

The run-publish ‘duathlon’ was fun to do, with runner and graphic designer Chris Macknie and the small group working that evening.

At a suitable break, we’d eat takeout pizza and chat about the day, and get the section to pre-press just in time. This year that didn’t happen. The paper decided that with electronic race results so accessible, it wasn’t prudent to devote about a dozen newsprint pages to names and race times.

It was also good timing, because Chris is in Africa for three months and not here to do that painstaking design task. If you think it’s not important, just try taking phone calls from relatives the next day bemoaning the fact that someone is missing from the results. (It usually turned out that they really were there, just slower than originally thought.)

So here is my less public report on yesterday’s marathon, my 14th:

First of all, I will never again criticize the “dumb” drivers who don’t know about road closures. I was sitting on my front porch Saturday at 5:15 waiting to be picked up by a friend, when the lead group of 5k runners passed by my door, followed quickly by everybody else. It’s a good idea to check the routes of all races, not just the one we’re in.


In spite of the long bleak stretches where I felt I was running alone, I met so many interesting people along the way. There was a woman who said she quit last year in the heat at km 37 and was mad at herself all year, and came back to redeem herself. I was there when she passed 37 this time. There was a bike store owner from Windsor who started running at 57, and was back to the Ottawa Marathon for the second time. In just a few short kilometers he told me what bike I should really be riding. There were excited first timers from Markham, and repeat visitors from Peterborough, and everyone thought Ottawa was great, and they like the new course.

Thanks to my friend Larry McCloskey who kept up the tradition of watching for me on Colonel By and running beside me until Carleton. The distraction is so appreciated. And unlike the other people who dropped in and out of race life, he stayed at my pace.

Congratulations to my friend Anna Shannette who did the 10k Saturday night and then the marathon Sunday. I turned her down when she invited me to join her in what I deemed a crazy pursuit, and then went back and forth to City Hall so many times Saturday, that I ended up doing more than a 10 k anyway, with no bragging rights.

The rain over the second half was much better than heat; I thought the weather was perfect for running; though unfortunately less so for spectators and volunteers.

There were certainly times during this long marathon when I questioned why I was doing it. I’m tired, my feet hurt, my race times get slower and slower, so why bother. Nothing is ever as exciting as your first marathon, so why keep doing it if you aren’t getting faster.

Sure, I’ve got some health problems that could be used as an excuse, but I continue to be in awe of people for whom nothing is an excuse.

It takes a particular brand of courage for the back of the pack marathon participants to keep going for so long, and without the crowds, the validation of those with faster times, or Pace Bunnies.

And even though I force myself to run along, I am aware that walkers are walking faster than I am running. Lots faster.

I guess it’s about continuing to meet the challenge. I’m a different age, so it’s a different race. As Yoda says, “There is No Try. There is only Do or Not Do.”

I’m already signed up for the Marine Corps Marathon for the fall.

Still Tri-ing after all these years

My triathlon ‘career’ began with an e-mail in 2001.

“To a ‘budding triathlete’”, he wrote, alluding to an overly flattering tag line about me on an article I’d written about him ... On September 19th, 2000, my colleague and Ironman athlete Chris Macknie forwarded me an e-mail he had received about the Ottawa Triathlon/Duathlon 2001.

The e-mail thanked him for attending “the inaugural Ottawa Tri/Du last May.” It said the event would be on Somersault Promotions’ 2001 Triathlon/Duathlon schedule - on Saturday May 26th, 2001. It was a 500 metre swim/ 20 k bike/ 5k run.

I laughed.
Nevertheless, that April my friend Kristin and I mailed in (those were the old days) our applications instead for the shorter Try a Tri. She pushed me to do it. I was absolutely terrified.

I wrote at the time: “Well, we have done it! We have swam (swum?) - two laps in a 50 metre pool - and biked 12k and run 5k. I am delighted to have done the swimming; Kristin was particularly proud to have done the running. And we organized our clothes and equipment, and made the transitions! If the marathon is 95 per cent mental and 5 per cent physical, then the triathlon is at least 50 per cent organization and 50 per cent physical.”

Well, it’s seven years later, and I can’t believe I’m still doing this. Coming almost last in the race but first in my age category - 1 out of 2 for women 60 plus - on the 500 metre swim, 22 k bike and 5 k run on May 19th.

And I’ve figured out why the wait for the Sprint Tri swim at the Early Bird seemed so eternably long.

It wasn’t just that more swimmers were added because of the extended Carleton University pool time - and so the slowest swimmers didn’t get into the pool until after 10 a.m.

It was because the weather was so perfect. Last year when hypothermia hovered outside, we were happy to stay in as long as we could. This year, it was great to finally get outside, and then not to have to hassle with additional clothing for cold, wet temperatures.

It was like the Teddy Bears’ Picnic to finally reach the water station the woods for the run turn-around.

Since becoming a faster swimmer doesn’t seem to be an option for me, I think next year I’ll bring a pillow and a sandwich, or go to Tim Hortons for two hours in my body marking and bathing suit. Although it was nice to have time to really get to know the people near me in line.

It’s amazing how interest in triathlon continues to grow, and now the number of nifty triathlon suits in the pool.

It’s great that Somersault now has the competitors’ names large on the race numbers for all the races, so cyclists can bike by me and say, “almost there - Louise”, and I can say, for instance, “Thanks - Barry” as I read their behinds.

And nice shirts!