The new season

This cult called Team in Training is wonderful.
I've been struggling lately, trying to get back into my running routine. OK. I'll say it. I've been afraid.
It hasn't been easy -- these IT band issues. They both hurt, the right more than the left, since San Diego. I don't want to freak up my knees, but I don't want to stop running, either.
I've run only slightly since the marathon, mainly because I have wanted to try and see if I could actually run again without pain so I could be a mentor for the winter season. But you can't really mentor runners very well if you can't run with them, can you?
So I've been trying to gather inspiration where I can.
I even got the bag out again, the one that TNT Captain Laura and the mentors put together for the team for this summer's events. They gave it to us in April, at our 15-miler, the first really long run we did at White Rock.

I pulled it out on Wednesday. I took it to work with me for inspiration. It also was the day the team leader at the LLS office blew up e-mails to remind folks that the deadline was near to apply to be a mentor.
I felt I needed something here at this point if I was going to get back to where I was, something that had become my cocoon, my comfort zone. Running. With the team. For a purpose.
I opened the bag again. Because I had it at work and didn't want to have to explain to each person who walked by, I just mainly looked inside. but really kept it shut so that others wouldn't start going through my stuff. Things like that happen in my new/old digs at my new job. But that's a different blog post...

The surprise of the day came on yahoo, when I got an e-mail from Laura. I hadn't been out to Wednesday Night Run in about a month. They missed me. She wanted me to apply to be a mentor.
So I did, and I got in. The new season kicks off while I'm running the Crim at the end of the month.
I still worry about the IT bands, so I've been diligent about seeing my new chiropractor, a sports medicine doctor who is really more like a Whisperer (doesn't look like Robert Redford, more like Doogie Howser).
He hasn't adjusted me once, he's done mostly physical therapy on me and my homework assignments are exercises that look a lot like pushups without lifting the body below the pelvis.
Yesterday, Dr. Doogie put his fingers between my IT band AND my knee and leg bones on the right and pulled the sucker out from behind the knee bone and away from the rest of the leg. (I don't think I need to describe the pain here). But it feels better and other than just being sore from that maneuver, it doesn't stab like it did. (We do this again on Tuesday. I can't wait).
He says I'll be fine.
So all you TNTers out there who have gone down this road before, what do you look for, want, in a mentor?
More inspiration please?

Full circle

My ride on the elevator this morning was surreal.
I had a deja vu.
I was 28 years old the first time I walked through the doors at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. That's a little bit ago.
Spent most of the day trying to log in and get my e-mail operational.

I'll be glad when I can edit stories. It's been a week and a half since I edited anything.
The inside of the building still smells of ink and hot wax. I love it. I really miss the sounds and the vibrations of the printing facility, normally in the basement or ground level of a newspaper.
I was seeking a new journey, a new adventure.
I'm glad that this is the place. Again.

Home

I got a new job -- start "this week," on vacation... Sweet.
Visiting Daddy, stepmom, sisters, brother and their families.
It's hot and humid in the Alamo City, as always. It's a certain feel, I can't say I have felt the exact thing in Houston, Corpus Christi, Austin, or Dallas-Fort Worth.
Things are green, the sky is blue. I tried to find a skyline picture for this blog, but everyone is really proud of them -- must purchase this photo...I'll take my own later. Thank goodness Mapquest is Mapquest...
I came fully prepared to run. Violated the cardinal rule, though.
I ate hot sauce last night.
:-|

Last day

It's my last day of work today at The Dallas Morning News. I am sad, I will cry, but I'm happy.
I leave more than a workplace, a job. It leave some really awesome people. Great friends who are like family, who care about me and others and are just amazing to share space and air with.
Great journalists that inspire me to be better every day.
I hope they always orbit my earth.
I just travel west now, back over the Trinity River, to the competition, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, where I spent 10 years of my professional life before I left them seven years ago.
Funny, when I left there back then, I cried, too, listening to friends who were also like family wish me good luck "on the dark side."
I have gone full circle, again.
But it's not goodbye. It's see y'all later, on the other side of the Trinity.

This is a really great song that kind of sums up what I feel today. Thanks 10,000 Maniacs.

THESE ARE DAYS

These are days you'll remember.
Never before and never since, I promise, will the whole world be warm as this.
And as you feel it, you'll know its true that you are blessed and lucky.
It's true that you are touched by something that will grow and bloom in you.

These are days you'll remember.
When May is rushing over you with desire to be part of the miracles you see in every hour.
You'll know its true that you are blessed and lucky.
It's true that you are touched by something that will grow and bloom in you.

These are days.

These are the days you might fill with laughter until you break.
These days you might feel a shaft of light make its way across your face.
And when you do you'll know how it was meant to be.
See the signs and know their meaning.
Its true, you'll know how it was meant to be.
Hear the signs and know they're speaking to you, to you.

Have your day, everyone.

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

He talks a mile a minute about life and the news.
He giggles about irreverent things. He has a great sense of humor and a really quick wit.
It's hard to believe that my father turns 88 years old today.
Sometimes he'll get on such a rant about politics, I get kind of scared. (I won't discuss those things with him on my cell phone anymore).
Luis is a character. He always has been. I remember him making my mom turn red with the things he'd day to her. He liked teasing. He still does.

One of my fondest memories is the ritual we had when I was little. I would hear when he arrived home from work. The car in the driveway. A door slam. The squeaky screen door opens.
I'd run from wherever I was in the house to greet him.
When I was little, he'd scoop me up in is arms and look me in the eyes, kiss my cheek. He always said these words: "De quien es la reina chula?" (roughly translated, something like who does the pretty little princess belong to).
"De Daddy," I'd say.
To this day, he still asks me that, whether it's in person, on the phone, in birthday or Christmas cards.
I could never have enough space to write or the time to discuss all the wonderful things, beliefs, principles, faith that is my father. He is indeed the greatest man I have ever known.
He also makes one heck of a whisky drink.
Happy Birthday, Daddy.

Free association Tuesday

Brandon saved my life Friday night...
I am leaving my newspaper on the East Side of the river to go back to the West Side of the river. Great thing is that I don't have to move, the commute becomes shorter, and I am returning to a place I spent 10 years of my professional journalism career before I crossed the river to my current paper seven years ago. (Don't do the math).
The going-away parties began last Friday. My boys took me out to the "gayborhood" in Dallas for drinks. Lots of vodka drinks. :-D
Interesting thing occurred -- a man walked up to me (don't think he was gay), stood next to me, got in my face and said: "You are an arrogant son of a bitch!"
I am glad I had so many vodka drinks, I would have probably tried to really figure out why he was talking to me, and one of my boys would have likely gotten into a fight trying to pull me off this psycho.
We really couldn't figure it out. Brandon immediately tried to get between us -- so cute protecting me. The man was no match for Brandon's wit. Even with vodka drinks Brandon can calmly debate like no other.
I really couldn't figure it out. It made me wonder, am I an arrogant son of a bitch?
Maybe he thought I was a drag queen.

Geez!!!

OK, before anyone starts the critique, this is my first video...
It is never going to stop raining.
The lakes and rivers are so swollen, they are cresting. The waters are just about to flow over spillways at several dams in the state.
Girl Scout camps are under water in Northeast Texas at Lake Texoma (at the border of Oklahoma and Texas).
It has rained for about three months, it's unbelievable.
The mosquitoes are horrible.
The fleas are horrible (poor Niki, I found a flea on her the other day. She hasn't had a flea since we found her in the park seven years ago).
The sun hasn't been out in like three months.
Some broadcaster asked on radio today, which is worse, drought and oppressive heat, or endless rain and awful mosquitoes?
As I sit here applying Afterbite for the mosquito bites I got at a fireworks display on the Fourth of July, I am thinking oppressive heat and drought isn't that bad.

P.S.: A special thanks to Andy Isaac, who walked me through uploading this video. Google is really the way to go.

Mud run (sorta)

OK, so maybe you really can't see the mud very well on my legs or shoes, but it's there.
It did not rain this morning, so I hit the road.
Today was the first day of unofficial-official training for upcoming runs -- Too Hot to Handle (Dallas, July 21) and The Crim (Flint, MI, Aug. 25).

3 miles
40 minutes
13.44 average pace (according to Nike+iPod)

P.S.: Note to people whose houses back up to sidewalks on streets known to have runners: TRIM YOUR FREAKING TREES.
Branch of live oak with a side of Bradford Pear leaves DOES NOT taste good.
I'm calling code enforcement.