Rituals
This morning I delay the start of my long walk to check out a race in my hometown — the New York City Marathon. I get homesick watching the tv coverage. At one point, one of the announcers says something really idiotic about one of our U.S. female elite marathoners — something along the lines of, given that she’s already achieved this and that, and she’s trained for months, what could possibly explain how poorly she’s doing? I regale my television set with a nice blast of New York style “get a clue, ya moron!” I don’t get to do that kind of thing nearly often enough now that I’ve moved away, and its curiously refreshing. They show Lance Armstrong, who is aiming to complete his first marathon in under 3 hours. He makes it by less than 60 seconds, raising over half a million dollars for cancer research and treatment in the process.
During the commercials, I go through my pre-long-walk ritual. Some light stretching, water, gather my clothes. First the underwear, then the Body Glide (lubricant to prevent chafing), then the tights and shirt. Check the feet and toenails for any problem spots, then the socks. Hair back in a ponytail, sunscreen, lip balm, moisturizer, hat. By the time I put on my shoes, I’m an athlete. I mix up a couple bottles of sports drink, and I’m out the door.
Unlike my recent training on the bike trail in the dark, its a Sunday afternoon, and although its not what anyone would call bright, and its raining, there are a good number of other folks out getting some exercise. At one point I look just ahead of me: on the left coming towards me, is a woman maybe in her 50s roller blading with ski poles; on the right, just after passing me, there’s a guy who looks around 40 on some curious mix of bicycle and scooter. The front half is like a bicycle, with a regular sized tire; but there’s no seat, just a little scooter style platform, and the rear wheel is really tiny. He’s standing on the platform, pushing himself along with one leg. I see lots of other bikers, and also joggers and walkers. Down the path a bit more, I see what look like racewalkers in the distance. Once they get a little closer, I realize its two of my Western Women Go the Distance teammates, with coach Judy Heller. I turn and walk some with them, just to say hi and exchange a few words. We haven’t seen much of each other since the Portland Marathon last month, and its exciting to me to see them working towards our goal. I tell Judy I’ve been to Dr. Ray, since she is one of the folks who recommended him to me. “So,” she replies, “are you a convert?” “Oh, Yeah!” She notices that he hasn’t cut holes in my shoes. This is one way you can tell if someone is a Dr. Ray patient, he’ll just slice holes in their training shoes to alleviate any points of tightness. Not random holes, but little slices in just the right spots. He hasn’t had to do this to my shoes, because my feet are pretty narrow, and my toes slant down alot from the big toe, so shoes aren’t quite as awfully squishy for me as for the average person. The shoe industry does seem to have a strong belief that most people’s feet are shaped like V’s, with the middle toe the longest and the big toe — um, not so big. I’ve never actually met anyone with feet like that, only people with more or less a straight line along the inside of the foot from heel to toe, but they must be out there, because otherwise would all those shoes exist? Well, this solid logic is why I’m a “Dr. Ray convert.”
Back at home its time for my post-long-walk ritual. As soon as I step out of the car I feel chilled in my wet clothes, so right away I get into a hot shower. Back when I was a backpacker, I’d get into a shower and check for ticks. Now that I’m a walker, I also check myself, but not for bugs — for chafing and blisters. I can walk quite a ways without noticing part of me is irritated or hurting. I don’t know if everyone is that way, or if its one of the ways I’m built for endurance, but its happened enough times that I know its true. Last week, I chafed so badly from my heart rate monitor strap, that not only was my skin badly scraped (chafing leaves something between a scrape and a burn), part of it was actually raised like a welt. I only noticed it when I caught a view of my back in the mirror later that evening. Much more dramatic was the day I was bleeding at the ankle from a popped blister, working out at the track. I only noticed it back in the locker room, when I sat down to take off my shoe and there was a giant impressive red splotch on the back of my sock. (“Great,” I remember thinking. “How the heck do I launder *this*??”) That one did really hurt for a few days, but I hadn’t noticed it on the track at all. (After further consideration of my level of laundry skill, I threw the sock out. )
After the shower, its time for the best ritual of all — waffles. The post-long walk waffle ritual started a few years ago, training for the Portland marathon. It took a few tries to optimize it, there was an early comical attempt to whip the egg whites by hand quickly followed by the purchase of an electric mixer, but now I can make waffles pretty much no matter how awful I’m feeling, in no time at all. Since I’m trying to lose some weight for racing, the bacon, alas, has been ejected from the ritual, but the waffles are still just as good and drenched in maple syrup. Today I’m out of butter, so I add a cup of blueberries on top with the syrup as an alternative treat. *Definitely* worth 15 miles in the rain!