It is cold and wet out there. Absolutely miserable. Snow would be much preferable, and this is coming from a chick who despises the white stuff.

This morning I dragged myself out of bed at 6am, took a warm shower, bundled up, then took a cab down to West Potomac Park to run the Jingle All the Way 10K.  A friend had asked me to run with her, and as I like having friends and making some effort to keep them, I agreed. West Potomac Park is  not the most convenient place to get to, Sunday or not, but I thought that a brisk run in the December cold and brunch (and lots of coffee!) afterward was a good idea.

I did decently on the run for someone who hasn’t done more than 20-minute interval sessions for the past couple of months. According to my Forerunner, the last time I did six miles was September 14. For a runner, that’s pretty crappy. So I was secretly happy that I could muster a 10 minute average during a race. Sure, looking at my results from the 2003 Spring Run-Off was a bit depressing (a nice ~8:30/mile average), but as IP pointed out: I couldn’t do a push up back then to save my life. Now I can do 10 in a row. Booyah!

And the Spring Run-Off wasn’t followed up by a nice brunch with friend. After the Spring Run-Off, I went back to my dorm room, showered, moped about the fact that I was stuck in Toronto, then probably had pasta for lunch. Sure, I was thinner and faster, but I was 500 miles away from my boyfriend with no friends around me because I absolutely hated living in T.O.  Today, after the race, my friend (who finished slightly ahead of me), gave me a high-five as I finished, bitched with me over the fact that they hadn’t placed our bags under a tent (so our backup clothes were all wet), and then took a cab with me to brunch, where we ate all the calories we had just burned while drinking coffee and talking about a multitude of things. After that, I hopped the Metro back home, where my now-husband (if you  haven’t guessed, he was the boyfriend I was missing in 2003) picked me up from the station so that I wouldn’t have to walk in the rain anymore. And tomorrow? The husband and I are meeting up with my running friend and a few others to have a few beers and exchange gifts. Life is good, and it was worth being wet and cold for a little while.

I will give the 2003 Spring Run-Off this: it had snowed the night before and it was slushy as hell the day of the race. Pounding through the slush wasn’t pleasant, but it was still fun. My toes were frozen and I shivered while waiting for some classmates (who had kindly given me a ride, but didn’t invite me to their brunch plans), but there was something exhilarating about tearing through a slush puddle. I wouldn’t want to do it today, but I might be up for it one of these years.

Anyway, crazy as it may seem to get up at 6am for a race, it can be very rewarding. I’m happy I did it even if I am a bit slower than I used to be.

©2012 Sonnet 87. All Rights Reserved. Originally published by WordNerd for Sonnet87.com. This post cannot be republished without express written permission.

Men, why doesn’t this apply to workout equipment?

It never fails. The treadmills at my gym will be empty with little old me going 6.2 to 6.5 miles per hour on one of them during a training run. There is a vast row of treadmills, empty, waiting to be taken. And what does a guy do, without fail, every time I run? Clamber up onto the treadmill next to me, attempt to sneak peaks at my current pace, and punch up his pace at least two tenths while I’m gradually progressing by just one tenth. Guys, what is up with this?

I really suspect that, given the languid paces of most women at my gym, men see a woman who is actually going faster than 5.2 miles an hour as a challenge (I am sure that some men see it as an impingement on their manhood). I tend not to compete when training—the run is for me and no one else. Yet it is annoying, hugely annoying, when a man feels he absolutely must take the treadmill right next to me and proceed to attempt to “beat” me during the remainder of my run. What joy is there in this? Why must you antagonize me when all I want to do is get through 30 minutes successfully? Why must you run clumsily close to me (never mind the big handrails that separate us, right?) when trying to see how fast I’m actually going? I know that I go fast for most women in that gym—one of the employees there, also a runner, always tells me so—but must you take that so personally?

It’s been happening with some frequency since I returned to my running full-time; yesterday was another incident in this happy set of occurrences. One man in particular is very fast—no argument about that here—but he always seems to choose the machine next to me and furiously pumps his little arms faster when I punch up the speed in order to challenge myself. I try to give him the raised eyebrows of disbelief through the mirror, but he never witnesses this since he’s too busy trying to look at my treadmill’s readout. Forget that I cover it with a towel so I don’t have to see my pace and progress. I think he thinks he has x-ray vision.

This isn’t the first time I’ve experienced such competition as I run, nor will it be the last. At one time, I had compiled a list called “The Running Book of Memories” for a post, but I somehow never got around to publishing it on Sonnet87.com. Behold, though, the fragments of the post from January 11, 2006 (still in Michigan at that point):

**I think that the mailwoman was racing me yesterday. I was running in the subdivision, and the mail was actually delivered at a reasonable time (we have gone to bed on Saturday nights with our box empty—our mail magically appears before dawn on Sunday. I ask, why not just get it over with instead of wasting your day off?). The car was a few paces ahead of me, and I had no intention of trying to catch it, because let’s face it: Even at my fastest (around 6.8, 6.9 mph), I’m not going to catch the coasting car. I swear, though, the woman started to race me as soon as I came into view. I’d approach the car on foot, and she’d fumble like crazy to get the mail into the box, and then zoom ahead. I was amused, of course, and slightly puzzled since there was no way I was going to catch her. But aha, catch her I did when she fumbled a bit too much at one stop and I passed her. At road’s end, where the stop sign is, she gave cursory pause before zooming ahead once again. She then went into a cul-de-sac and I left the subdivision, running home to the tune of 5.22 miles. I was resting on my porch when she delivered our mail. I went to go get it, and lo and behold, all we got was crap. Blah.

I’ve definitely raced the newspaper dude before, and I actually did engage in a spirited footrace with some old guy in Toronto who decided that I would be his pacer (grrr, I hate that) and would pass me, staying at the most two steps ahead of me—that was quite annoying. Towards the middle of my run on that day, I just thought “Ah, fuck it!” and picked up the pace, passing the guy for good. Funny thing is, he always tried to do it when we were at the track at the same time—sometimes he won, sometimes he didn’t, but it was always annoying. I’m trying to get in a run, not let you prove yourself a man against the lowly graduate student, sir. Anyway, yesterday was amusing, though, because I’m never, ultimately, going to beat a car.

**Back in 2000, when I used the University of Michigan’s CCRB as my track of choice, there was always a morning crew, and I think we would be disappointed if we didn’t see one another. I remember there were two crotchety old men who would get mad if any newbies dared to run in the wrong direction on any given day, a blonde woman who had the cutest running clothes, an older woman who was so skinny and obviously sick it was saddening, and a guy who turned out to be a law student. Said law student once came up to me after a run and said, “Listen, you don’t know me, I don’t know you, but I just wanted to say that you’re awesome. Everyone else seems to miss a day, but you’re always here, setting the pace.” He was a pretty nice guy, but he ended up disappearing for a few months. When he came back, he had lost so much weight (and he wasn’t big before) and gotten very fast. He told me how his schedule had changed, but that he’d think of me and my constant presence at the track, so that made him do his afternoon runs even if he didn’t want to. Sigh—to have that kind of determination again. Actually, I think I’m getting it back. Yesterday was an awful run, but I finished it with flourish.

**Speaking of the track, I must say it. If you belong to ROTC (Rotsee!) at the University of Michigan and you head over to the CCRB for a timed run, please obey all the track rules, okay? You’re all very annoying when you start going in the wrong direction and talking loudly and trying to engage the regulars in conversation as they work out. Oh, and if you’re playing volleyball on the court and your ball bounces up onto the track, please don’t expect runners to stop. I know that sounds mean and uncooperative but I hate being interrupted during my run. And frankly, nine times out of 10, I’m not going to hear you because I’m pretty focused when I run. I’m not going to give you “a little help” when I’m trying to finish five or six miles, so please just drag your asses upstairs, okay? Thanks, ROTC and volleyball players.

**Going from moderately annoying to very rude: For some reason, on one Easter Sunday, a family took very unkindly to my run that morning. It was probably around 8am, 8:30am when I reached the halfway point in my old road run and turned back towards home. It was then that I encountered a family from probably the subdivision. As I passed their car (I was going east, they were heading west), the passengers proceeded to give me the finger. Whoa! What the hell? This was before my manic “You’d better not run me over, you turds” phase, so it’s not like they’d encountered my wrath before. I seriously think they were fundies who were offended that I was running on the day of the Lord’s resurrection. Because that’s the way to spread brotherly love on the most sacred of the Christian holidays, right?

**Outdoor runs at home led to outdoor runs at school. Towards the end of my time at the University of Michigan, I took to running in the streets only because I needed to get to work and the CCRB was not open early (in fact, I trace my running downfall to the moment I got a full-time job). I would run in safe areas, of course, but the place that gave me the biggest creeps was the student ghetto. Ugh, I hated running through there, and I probably shouldn’t have, but I just wanted to tack on as many miles as possible. It was okay when the streets were empty, but the few times when I saw guys, picking up cups from the night before, put me on edge, especially when they’d notice me and have to be crass and say something. However, the fun part of that run (though I didn’t know it at the time) was running past a certain bar I had not yet begun to frequent.

(Ed. Note: It’s now such a favorite that I’m focusing my search for wedding venues on the proximity of Dominick’s rather than the other important factors such as space and cost.)

Obviously not all dedicated to the impossible jerks who seem to think that racing me (or trying to race me) is a good ego boost, but the evidence still exists for past incidents. I think of the Toronto guy in particular and just fume—he was a Grade A asshole who somehow felt my being able to leave him half a track length behind was an insult directed solely at him. One time, we were joined by some Toronto undergrads who were a bit under trained. “Whoa, she’s fast!” a poor undergrad exclaimed of me (I’m really not—he was just really, really slow). Said poor undergrad then received a nasty look of contempt from the racing jerk (who was passing me on that day—what can I say, sometimes I felt sorry for him), who threw it over his shoulder with little grace and much assholery.

However, it cannot be said enough: there are much faster women in the world. Why is it that the idiots always end up on the treadmill next to me, or on my track?

©2012 Sonnet 87. All Rights Reserved. Originally published by WordNerd for Sonnet87.com. This post cannot be republished without express written permission.

©2012 Sonnet 87. All Rights Reserved. Originally published by WordNerd for Sonnet87.com. This post cannot be republished without express written permission.

"How do you know?" will come the invariable suspicious question.

"Look, that’s Kipling, the end of the Bloor-Danforth line."  Or it’ll be "That’s the Bloor Cinema, I have so been in there!  I saw the Grease Singalong and Bowling for Columbine there."  Or "They’re trying to hide the CN Tower, but those two buildings are First Canadian Place and Scotia Plaza."  Or "That’s the E.J. Pratt, I studied there all the time.  That’s the reading room!  I loved the reading room!"

Um, in fact?  Reading something on the E.J. Pratt library?  I just found a picture of myself at a computer.  Isn’t that weird?  Testament to the fact that I spent a ton of time there, seriously.

Anyway, being so familiar with the city, it’s hard not to point out a few buildings when the opportunity presents itself.  I almost feel a bit of nostalgia, untempered by the seething dislike I hold for the university.  Had I a bit more time to adjust and just live there, I would’ve loved the city.  As it was, I was stuck with my snotty, irrelevant cohort who were the collective definition of the word "showboating."  I honestly think that, had I not had to put up with them, I would’ve been quite content to live in Toronto for an unlimited amount of time – then again, it’s freezing during the winter, so that might not be a good idea except in the summer (when it was HUUUU-MID).

In all honesty, you can’t completely hate a city that houses the Hockey Hall of Fame.  What kind of fan would I be if I vowed to never step foot inside of Toronto’s city limits again?

Toronto, sharing the distinction with Vancouver, attracts a ton of movies for filming.  While I lived there, the direct-to-video classic Skulls III (no, I’ve never seen it) was filmed around Hart House; Jon Voight was spotted by a friend during my first Toronto run (Run for the Cure); the Toronto Film Festival evidently produced a truckload of stars who I never saw or bothered to seek out for myself.  It’s literally bouncing with Hollywoodishness (is that a word?).

Me?  I prefer the cheap yet delicious daiquiris.

Oh, and before I forget: Good-bye March – three is a magic number.

©2012 Sonnet 87. All Rights Reserved. Originally published by WordNerd for Sonnet87.com. This post cannot be republished without express written permission.

However, they also send out an alumni newsletter.  Some samples from today’s bulletin:

*SCIENTISTS NAME U OF T BEST PLACE TO WORK
U of T tops the list of best places to work in academia outside the U.S., according to a survey of scientists in Canada, the U.S. and Europe. Survey respondents told The Scientist magazine they like our strong reputation in the life sciences, the high number of Canada Research Chairs and our ability to attract the brightest scientific minds…

*YOU DON’T EVEN NEED SPECIAL GLASSES
Touch an object on a computer screen and a multi-camera system allows you to see behind it. The 3-D technology, developed by a team of U of T engineers, could be used to track objects or individuals in airports and casinos…

*CLAY DATES WITH PICASSO
The Picasso and Ceramics exhibition continues at the University of Toronto Art Centre until Jan. 23, 2005. The holidays afford a great opportunity to enjoy this display of 80 unique pieces, the largest exhibition of Picasso’s work in clay ever seen in Canada…

*RONALD BRYDEN DEVOTED CAREER TO THEATRE WRITING, TEACHING
He was a respected theatre critic in England, then dramaturge of London’s Royal Shakespeare Company. Later, Professor Ronald Bryden inspired many students as director of U of T’s Graduate Centre for Study of Drama…

The newsletter is divided into sections that include Campus News, Alumni Events (there are three listed this time, with only sports event on the list; it’s a professional sport event, too), Research News ( hefty part of the newsletter), Links of Interest, In Memoriam, etc.  A much more thorough, detailed newsletter that is obviously coming from a school whose sports program is, at best, a minor diversion.  Ah, Michigan, if only you were that way!

©2012 Sonnet 87. All Rights Reserved. Originally published by WordNerd for Sonnet87.com. This post cannot be republished without express written permission.

These expats speak of frustration at the United States, speak of the well of sympathy they’ve encountered in their adopted lands. I read those blogs, particularly those from Canada, with a sense of jealousy. When I lived in Canada, the atmosphere was anything but friendly and full of sympathy. Anger, resentment was more like it. I could probably count on my hand that number of times that the United States wasn’t insulted in my classes. It just wasn’t Bush-bashing, either. It was an all-out assault on the Americans in class, on every single person living in the States. No matter how many times I tried to defend myself by expressing my moderate to liberal views, I was still an evil American. Evil to the core.

Part of it might have been my surrounding community. English geeks are notorious for their overinflated sense of selves, using their excellent command of the language to try to wrap up less verbose people into contradictions and denials. Everyone always had something to say; generalizations were encouraged when it came to the current political climate. It was strange; we’re supposed to find supporting and contradictory evidence, then use both to try to formulate the best supporting argument we can. Except when it came to politics. My Canadian professors were in on it, too – how many times were jokes made at my expense?

I found the Canadian climate hostile; no one wanted to acknowledge that I wasn’t a Bush groupie. My unwillingness to march in anti-war events and attend anti-war concerts was another of my major malfunctions. For me, it was sheer workload that kept me from marching or attending. Others, who probably had as much workload but neglected it for social action, looked on me in disdain. After a while, it became easy to not care. After all, I was only there for a year. They’d have to suffer Toronto winters for maybe the rest of their lives. Mwahahaha.

Seriously, though, living in Canada was no easy feat. Acclimating to such a hostile environment was difficult; sometimes going to class made me sick to my stomach, wondering what they’d say to the horrible American this time around. I had long ago learned that protesting my innocence was futile; if I didn’t actively participate in their activities, I was endorsing a man whose sad command of the English language made me dislike him from the first. What they didn’t understand was that my protest was quiet. I was waiting hungrily for 2004. I was sending money to my social causes. I sent letters, signed petitions. I wasn’t being a lump; I just wasn’t conforming to their ideal of a progressive American.

I really wish I had experienced the level-headed discussion some bloggers recount. I wish that I had found someone in my cohort who didn’t hold my American citizenship against me. However, my cohort was the polar opposite of the trolls on the expats’ blogs. There was only black and white. There is a “with us or against us” mentality on the liberal side, but it seemed to only exist in Toronto. I didn’t agree wholeheartedly with them, I didn’t participate in their activities, so I must have been a horrible person. A Bush supporter.

Someone once actually asked me if I had voted for Bush in the last election, expecting a yes answer. “No, I helped Gore win Michigan,” I answered snootily. They were genuinely surprised.

Then again, at that point, I wasn’t willing to share my political views with anyone from my cohort. They didn’t know them because they assumed. You know what happens when you assume.

I really don’t miss Canada.

©2012 Sonnet 87. All Rights Reserved. Originally published by WordNerd for Sonnet87.com. This post cannot be republished without express written permission.

What got me in this thinking mode was a dicussion on the merits of Subway. Yes, Subway, don’t look at me like that. During the summer of 2002 (ah, glorious summer! the introduction of yours truly to Dominick’s! damn my undergrad friends), my older brother and I would sometimes have lunch together at Subway as we both worked about equidistant from the epicenter of that shop. Day after day (well, for me at least), it was a chicken breast sub with no sauce or cheese – just lettuce and tomato, if you please, thank you – along with a bag of Baked Lays. I truly loved it at the time. It was a relatively healthy lunch that got me close to Briarwood and the hell away from my office. Damn appraisal office.

Anyway, a few days before classes were slated to start in Toronto (a Sunday, to be precise), I was waiting for the Robarts Library to open so I could check my e-mail. Since the library didn’t open until noon or 1pm (I forget which), I decided to go to the Subway around the corner. As I bit into my regular sandwich, a sick, sick feeling came over me. I was so. Damn. Sick. Of. Subway.

To this day, I still remember the feeling of revulsion. I sometimes wonder if it wasn’t pronounced by the fact that I was missing my friends and my family and I had a premonition through Subway that something B-A-D was about to happen to me (that something, was as always in Toronto, housing troubles). It was like my stomach did a flip, all the pollution in the city rushed into me, and the hot summer sun only made it boil over that day. I look at Subway to this day and am mildly revolted, though I can sometimes eat a sandwich.

Why am I telling you this? I don’t know why.

My reaction to that Subway sandwich that day basically characterizes my entire stay in Toronto. While waiting for something to start, I’d inevitably do or see something that made me sick. Be it literally or figuratively, nary a week went by without my being disgusted in way or another by fellow students or life in a large Canadian city. The sickness was compounded by the fact that I had been expecting something better, just like my Subway sandwich. I had been expecting to be immersed in a fount of knowledge and Med/Ren/Early Modern goodness that would suffuse my being and make me into A Better Person. With Subway, I had been expecting a lot less, but it also never materialized. And like Subway, I can take Toronto again, in small doses, as a tourist, but never on a daily basis.

The lesson? Never eat Subway in a large Canadian city. The end.

©2012 Sonnet 87. All Rights Reserved. Originally published by WordNerd for Sonnet87.com. This post cannot be republished without express written permission.

At least they didn’t show the gradute English department.

©2012 Sonnet 87. All Rights Reserved. Originally published by WordNerd for Sonnet87.com. This post cannot be republished without express written permission.