Join me on a run!

I love running in my rural neighborhood -- seasons change, lots of new vineyards, fun neighbors (and fun neighbors' dogs), lots to see. Here are some photos from a January run:

It was a sunny day, not really cold -- what a treat! Going down the driveway, looking back at our barn/shop -- roof is almost done, still lots of finish work to do on the rebuild!

Here's the view to the north:

Here's the view looking back towards the house:

Along the ridge, various views:

Pics going down the ridge now, the first ones are from an area logged of Douglas firs, but the oaks are still standing:

It's a beautiful road!

Lots of brown, winter stuff around, and here was a BRIGHT baby fern!

Down the last hill to the valley and the paved road:

Around the block and back up the hill:

This route was 7 miles - a good way to start the day! :)

My first marathon race report!

Here it is -- the Portland 97 race report that I wrote for Runners World Beginners Forum. I found it where someone else had posted it on another site about different marathons. :)

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Karen Maas [Bib # 299], Newberg, OR

My first race report--do you all realize how much I want to say and tell about the Portland Marathon? I know this will be long, so I'll summarize before details ...

I was signed up as a marathon walker, and had been expecting to walk with my friend, Rhonda, that got me to sign up to walk it with her. But Rhonda couldn't come due to major blisters that she got last week, so I was on my own. I finished in under 6:51 (forgot to turn off my chrono right away), and met a new friend at mile 14 who had me jog and walk with her, and I RAN the last half mile! OK, Fernando, I’m ready to rain for LA Marathon next March!

OK, some fun details. First, on Friday I did my ``packet pickup,'' where I took my confirmation card to the basement of the Portland Hilton. Now, I live near Portland, but we rarely go there, so I parked at the first public parking garage I came to and we (my girls and I) walked in the rain to the Hilton. First time the girls got to see Portland city up close in the daytime, so we did a little sightseeing (but not too much, since parking was $3.50 an hour!).

Very crowded at pickup, but SO organized! Got some Power Gels and a shoe pocket for phone money while there. Hectic day, we dashed off for daughter's orthodontist appointment. While at the orthodontist office, was able to look through the packet. I was #299, and there was a separate map for the walkers, where after a certain time, they would be rerouted to finish the course for traffic safety reasons. So I went over the maps pretty carefully, expecting to walk all the way and have to change course. There was also a very good section that described each part of the course and what could be expected for different weather situations (didn't matter--we were blessed with a GLORIOUS day) and some pacing suggestions for the hills (which weren't bad hills to me – but maybe for someone running all the way).

Saturday spent at in-laws in Salem with a foster brother's birthday party. Made mistake of having ice cream--phlegm problem for me, but it was a birthday. Won't do that before LA though.

Walked a slow 4 mile loop Saturday afternoon – couldn’t rest ALL day, praying and trying to find ways to not worry about all the little things that might go wrong ...

Well, Sunday morning finally came--and came too quickly, for I didn’t sleep well (does that happen to everybody?). Got dressed, ate bananas, OJ, and bagel, got the kids and Reg up, finally got out the door and on the road to Portland.

Reg found a great parking space at that early hour, though it was already crowded at 6:00 in the morning! Took my day pack to be checked in (they recommended bringing a change of clothes, but like I said, the glorious weather just made it something extra to carry later). Got my number pinned on, found the walkers start (separate from runners and race walkers, we merged with them later on the road--turned out to be good for getting started with over 5000 people at the start). I was about 30m back from the start line. The runners' start, just one block over, was where the announcer was, but they had up-beat music playing at both starts. It was about 50 degrees, so no way was I taking a sweatshirt. Jogged, rubbed our arms and hands, whatever to warm up while waiting. The national anthem was acapella by a great tenor voice form Portland Opera, but over at the walkers' start, we were giggling at the fact that on our end, they forgot to turn the bouncy music off till middle of the song. Finally, Mayor Vera Katz did the countdown (she did the wheelchair count one minute before the running count), and the cannon went off, and so did we!

OK, now I've learned that you don't expect to set a pace at the start! But no one stepped on my heels, and we all got going. Reg and girls were on federal building steps, but missed me in the crowds and I missed them in their crowds, so we’re even.

We walked through Chinatown (not as big as SF, but great gate to go under – and same, uh, interesting smells as SF) then down to waterfront park (along Willamette River) and west, went up a short hill to next block and continued southwest, then looped around to come back along waterfront park going north on the other side of the road. THAT was fun, to see the runners and wheelchairs and walkers ahead of you. The part that wasn't fun was seeing everybody going by and thinking you were the last ones, till you made the turn and could see how far back the walkers really went!

The next several miles were another out-and-back section along the waterfront past the shipping and industrial areas, with docks on one side, and massive railroad lines on the other. Incredible what we got to see on foot--so much would be missed driving in a car! And that goes for the whole race!

Waved to my new runner friends, Julie and Pauline, who passed me on a long run (long walk for me), then turned out we met the next week when my daughter joined swim team--their kids are already on the team. Walked in the shade of the warehouse buildings as much as I could going NE along the river, for we could see the turnarounds would have us in the sun for several miles going back!

Then we started up gentle slope into residential neighborhoods heading out of the city on the north towards the St. John's Bridge, which was the highest elevation at 149 feet. At around mile 14, my new friend, Joyce, jogged up, and we were kindred spirits immediately. We were talking about life and love and jobs and dreams even before we exchanged names! Joyce was mixing walking and jogging because of a hurt knee, she couldn't do a lot of running. And, even though I had only planned to walk it, I jogged and walked with her, and felt great!

About mile 18, we left behind a man walking form the Loma Linda Lopers, a running club. He was in his early 70s, and he and his wife walk one marathon a month. How's that for a goal?!
Another mile or so later, a 7th grade boy, Greg, walked and jogged with us for a while. He was such a kick! Olympic material there, though I don't think he knows it yet. Joyce and he ducked into a little market and she bought him an ice cream cone. I walked on, since I didn’t dare eat dairy on the road, and they said they'd catch up. Well, Joyce caught up, but Greg wanted to walk and eat his slowly, said he'd meet us at the end.

Those miles in the 20s were a real treat on the east side of Portland. Going through old residential section (with shade trees and people offering to spray you with hoses at gorgeous old houses), the university, being up on the ridge above the Willamette, with the buildings and bridges of the end in sight ...

We were jogging over the Steel Bridge, coming to mile 25, then we walked for awhile (Joyce was desperate for portapotty, but didn’t want to stop). I left her with her blessings and ran the finish.

Can't tell you (but I will, watch me) what a thrill it was to feel so good after walking and running the longest I've ever done in one day! Lots of cheers on the sides of the roads, such excitement hearing my name and where I was from, on the loudspeaker (and they pronounced my last name correctly, which I realized and was so pleased I didn't hear my time!) and the kids at the finish line hanging the medals around my neck (don't know which school they were from, but they were doing a great job!), and being given a rose. Then I remembered to turn off my watch--ha! I finished in better time than I thought, even with the extra seconds and the 20 minutes of portapotty lines (do runners have the same long lines as the walkers?)

The song that kept my walking pace was Tim McGraw's ``I Like It, I Love It'' (figured that was a good one to keep in my ear for when I hit the wall--what wall?) Now I need to get a running pace song ...

OK, enough from me. I'm ready to start training to RUN the marathon in LA!!!! Yes, I’m feeling good (a little stiff, not sore, 1 blister that I didn't know I had till bedtime) but I know I'll sleep better tonight than last night--I think my adrenaline is finally back to normal!
Finish line hugs to anybody that read all of this!

If I can do it, anyone can!

If I can do it, anyone can!

Me? A runner? Never. I could play high school and college tennis for hours – I wasn’t a runner. I could backpack for miles and miles – I wasn’t a runner. I was a mom, a housewife, a teacher.

But I was surfing one rainy day–- web surfing, following links. I’m not sure how, but I ended up at the Los Angeles Marathon website and found myself gazing at all the athletic marathoners running under the California sun.

As I looked closer at the photos, I began to realize these marathoners didn’t all look athletic. Actually, they looked a lot like me.

I was still carrying some of the extra pounds from when I was pregnant with my two girls – and that was 6 years before. I knew exercise was important, and I even had weeks where I’d join different aerobics classes, but nothing really regular. I thought of how I used to be active before I got married, joined the work force and had kids, but now it was just an after thought.

Out of those thoughts came the decision: I was going to run a marathon before I turned 40. Even before telling my husband, Reg, I made an appointment with my doctor for a complete physical. I felt like I needed my doctor’s OK. Nine years earlier, I came out on the bad end of a wreck with a drunk driver who was heading the wrong way on an interstate.

I didn’t remember a thing from two days before the car wreck to two weeks after when my brain start working again. I had been in a coma and to this day, I still see double when I look up and to the right. Plus, I had all sorts of foot and toe damage – broken shin, crushed big toe joint, crushed ankle joint. I’m a walking, talking (now running) miracle.

With two long screws in my ankle, I needed to be sure it was going to be safe to even start to run—much less do a marathon. But the doctor said I’d be fine as long as I took it slowly. The doctor’s office was very supportive – the year before, they had a relay team on Hood to Coast!

So I decided to start running at the high school track because there was playground next to it. That way, I could run while my daughters were occupied on the jungle gym.

Eventually, I worked my way up to running a whole mile. Much to my amazement, I liked it. This was something I could do. I didn’t need any equipment or special skill either.

Next, I went for two miles in a row. I was on my way and began to believe I could go farther and farther.

Finally, I told my husband my dream of running the very marathon which had inspired me to even begin--the Los Angeles Marathon. He looked stunned and had no idea what to think at first. But he was encouraging.

Then came the shin splints. Nobody had ever told me that I needed to wear real running shoes. I had been wearing some old cross-training shoes because I wasn’t a real runner yet. Real runner or not, I came down with those sore shins from wearing cheap shoes. That started my reading and researching and learning about running.

A local running store set me straight about the need for good running shoes. After being properly fitted, they made a huge difference and my shin splints quickly disappeared.

The next important lesson I learned was that I didn’t have to do all my running on the track. Instead of circling and circling the track (boring!)I began to run and walk around our four-mile, rural block in the morning while my supportive husband watched the girls. This was starting to be fun as I ventured out more and more.

I discovered John “The Penguin” Bingham (the guru of the slowpokes) and read everything he wrote. I was never going to be fast and The Penguin let me know in his writing that was just fine. I didn’t have to run fast; it was better to learn to run slow, he advised.

My running lessons came quickly and I began to change as I learned more and grew as a runner. Instead of running every day as I had been doing, I began running four days per week and enjoyed it even more. I learned that walking breaks were just fine. In fact, whatever I did fine was fine as long as I did it. There were no rules to what I could or couldn't do. This was all about me. I was in charge.

Eventually, I became a runner. Not a fast runner, but I completed my dream of running the Los Angeles Marathon before I turned 40. And, it was my second marathon instead of my first – a friend had asked me to walk Portland Marathon 97 with her, while I was learning to run for Los Angeles 98. Walking Portland, with a run/walk middle and running mile to finish, was a wonderful confidence-builder for Los Angeles! It wasn’t easy, but it was one of the most satisfying experiences of my life. Now, not only was I a runner; I was a marathoner.

You’ll have to trust me on this one: If I can run a marathon, anyone can. Marathons are habit-forming!

My Miracle Story

It was a dark and stormy night. Really! That's how my miracle story starts out!

We were driving towards the Oregon border that December 21, 1988 evening. The plan was to drive to Medford or Ashland, motel it, and drive the rest of the way to California the next day. We were taking our daughter, almost 9 months old, for her first Christmas at Grandpa and Grandma's house. Reg was driving, and we'd just passed Canyonville. We were talking about stopping at the next rest area so I could nurse Laura, then Reg says I was dozing. He was following a semi-truck, going up an easy slope and around a curve. He was passing the truck, when suddenly he saw one headlight, then two, and nowhere to go! It was a head-on collision at freeway speeds.

Reg says he could feel the car rising up on the guard rail, and he prayed that we wouldn't roll. We didn't. When everything stopped, Laura was crying from her car seat (that's good), but when Reg looked over at me, he says my eyes rolled back in my head. The trucks along the way had spotted the drunk driver going the wrong way on the freeway, and help had already been called.

The firemen took Laura, carseat and all, and headed to their warm truck cab. They had to cut me out of the car, and the driver who hit us out of his car. Things were messy. They loaded us into ambulances, and we were taken to Mercy (Hospital? Med Ctr?) in Roseburg.

My injuries were severe: left leg had a crushed big toe, and crushed ankle, and a broken tibia. Something from the other car's engine had smashed through the window and hit me in the face, causing me to be in a coma. There was 3rd nerve damage, and lots of cuts that needed stitching. My left elbow had been jammed into Reg's ribs.

Reg's injuries were mainly the broken ribs (that he didn't notice right away) and lot of smaller cuts. Laura had some cuts, but we thank God that the car seat worked the way they are supposed to, and she had no other physical injuries.

Since I was comatose, all the stitching and stuff they did with no anaesthesia. Anything to try to stimulate my brain. They did not do any orthopedic surgery -- they did not know if I would live.

Reg's parents had come down and taken Laura back up to my cousin-in-law in Salem, who was nursing her infant son. Laura had never had to have a bottle, and wasn't happy -- Beth was able to nurse her, and taught her to bottle feed in a not-so-sudden way.

December 24 -- I was still comatose, and there was pressure building in my brain. It got to the point where the doctor sent me for CT scans to determine points to drill in my skull. When the CT results came back, Reg says the doctor was upset; he was sure a technician messed up the procedure. So the sent me back in for another CT scan -- this time the doctor was observing. And instead of finding drilling points on my skull, they found out that sure enough, the pressure was receding in my brain. Now that's a Christmas gift!

And during the week after Christmas, I started coming out of the coma. Mind you, my mind was not really connected to the real world yet -- it would still be over a week before I started making sense of things. But they decided that I was going to live, and so would need followup orthopedic surgery, and longer care. So they sent me to Portland Adventist Medical Center, where Laura had been born.

The neurosurgeon at Mercy chose the neurosurgeon at PAMC to work with. Their goal was to get familiar things to my senses. Reg got music that I liked, had people make phone calls to me, even if I wasn't recognizing voices or knowing what I was saying yet.

For my leg, the broken tibia was still in line, so the most important thing was rebuilding my ankle joint. I still have 2 long pins in the ankle. They didn't address the toe joint, for that was going to have to be after ankle recovery. No cast or wrapping on the ankle, other than bandages. Even though I would not be allowed to put weight on it, it was left mobile for physical therapy and flexibility.

My short term memory started working again the day I was transferred to Rehab. It was not all there right away, I just remember being taken by wheelchair to my new room on the 7th floor, and having things start to be familiar. Rehab was set up so that twice a day, every day, was physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy. Evenings were when family could visit, and there was a larger, open area in the center section with a big table for games. The nurses became more familiar to me there.

And one night, shortly after starting rehab, I realized that this wasn't just a never-ending bad dream -- the hospital was real, the time was real, and the calendar on the wall said January. What had I missed? Why was I there?

Of course I tried to call Reg at home, but there was no answer. I later found out that my mom had made him stay in the nurses' dorm room with her and Laura, for he was too tired to be driving home to Newberg. I called Reg's mom next, and late as it was, she was the one who told me what had happened and why I was in the hospital.

Wow. I so appreciate breathing and walking and talking!

I was in rehab for only 3 weeks. My brain connections were making rapid comeback. Speech therapy had a special moment. One of the speech therapy training was that I'd be shown pictures on cards. I was to name the pictures. Before my brain started working again, I'd say whatever word came to my head, even if it was not the picture on the card. One day I was naming cards, and the one that came up was a picture of a diaper pin. I knew that I knew what it was, but did not have the name for the picture in my head. And I said so, instead of saying "clock" or some filler kind of word. That night, I remembered "diaper pin" and told the speech therapist the next morning. Even though I couldn't remember the word for the picture, it was good to communicate that in a normal way. (I had been told by lots of people that while I was speaking in mostly complete sentences, they didn't all make sense.)

Rehab sent me out for a day as a test, for Reg and I to see how it would go. We ended up visiting my orthodontist. I had been wearing braces at the time of the car wreck, and my lips had smashed onto them. Several days in ICU, when they finally got my lips untangled from the metal, the front brackets had all come loose. So the orthodontist fixed the brackets and wires. Then we stopped by where I worked (as a contractor at home, since Laura was born). Everyone was so glad to see me, and it didn't bother me that I looked like a stroke victim (from the nerve damage, the right side of my face sagged). I was out of the hospital, on crutches, and free that day! Reg took me out to eat, then back to rehab. They sent me home that weekend.

My parents stayed with us after they sent me home. I was on crutches now, until the next ankle follow up visit. We had Christmas a month late -- that was OK. My sister and brother-in-law had come up while we were in Roseburg, and Sherrie finished the baby dress I had started for Laura before we left home. Reg had left the scraps alongside the sewing machine, but I have absolutely no memory of purchasing the pattern or fabric or sewing the dress.

So, I'm a walking, talking miracle. The pins in my ankle are still there, and I've completed 25 marathons since then (with two more planned for 2007). And I'm talking -- turns out, from where the scar on my brain is, had I been right-handed, it's where communication would probably still be impossible. Praise God, He made me left-handed 30 years before!

Welcome!

Here's the new blog with writing from Karen M!