We've been in Brazil one week. As soon as we arrived at the Seatac airport my worries about Antarctica receded. I settled into the immediate bustle of ticketing and security checks and last-minute calls to say goodbye before turning off my cell phone for two weeks.
The flights (from Seattle to Atlanta and then Atlanta to Sao Paulo) were smooth, except that I was upgraded to Business Class for our first leg and Bill was abandoned to the lifestyle to which he has become accustomed back in coach. I smuggled him a warm sandwich and a bag of chips but, alas, there was nothing I could do to get him my bottomless glass of chardonay.
In Sao Paulo we were met by Bill's friend, Dimas and Dimas' son, Lucas. Back in 1967Bill had come to Brazil as an exchange student and lived with Dimas' family for six months. I watched as Dimas walked gingerly up to Bill and studied his face before uttering a very tentative, "Bill?"
Bill returned Dimas' gaze, blank for a moment and then I saw recognition dawn on both men's faces.
"Dimas!" Bill acknowledged and there were hugs and kisses and introductions all around.
We stayed our first several days with Lucas in an apartment on the sixth floor of a building in the heart of Sao Paulo. Lucas oriented us and gave us a good deal of his time, showing us a few of the city's best views and explaining televised "futebol" matches to us.
Once Bill and I had our bearings, we ventured out on our own and visited museums, parks and monuments until we were ready to collapse. We figure we clocked in with about forty miles of walking and exploring last week.
Bill and I agree that our favorite stop in Sao Paulo was at a temporary exhibition in the MASP (the Art Museum of Sao Paulo) by a Brazilian artist named Vik Muniz. "Vik" lived in the United States for many years but traveled extensively, creating his images in and from unusual artistic media. His portaits of several people who made their home at one of the world's largest garbage dumps, for example, were formed in the white space beneath thousands of objects retrieved from the trash heaps. Vik then took photographs of his works and blew them up to a huge scale. They stood anywhere from six to twenty feet in height. Look him up.
After Sao Paulo, we took a five-hour bus ride to Ribeirao Preto. This is the place Bill called home for six months after his junior year of high school. He had been back only one other time in 1973 for about six weeks. The city, then a town of 100,000 people, is now populated by 500,000 and is much changed from Bill's memory of it.
Dimas again collected us, this time from the bus station, and took us to the home he shares with his wife, Ana Rosa, in a downtown condominium. We've been here a few days now.
How can I describe the homecoming of a prodigal son? I've sat back and watched the kissing and hugging and questioning and the muddling through of two languages to give the answers. We've spent countless hours over food and drink and conversation with this lovely, large family. And Bill has said to me he feels that something in his life has finally come full circle.
I've been the observer, the silent capturer of images these past few days. I see the body language of a big, loving family and the volley of words passing between them. Occasionally I hear a phrase or a syllable that resembles French or English and I guess at the topic of conversation. Sometimes someone translates the gist for me. And then there are long stretches when everyone switches to English, however inconfident they may be with the language, purely for my benefit. I'm embarrassed by but grateful for this gift when it happens. The rest of the time I am understandiong what is happening through my intuition and my understanding of family systems.
Everyone should do this, by the way - sit a few hours with people who do not speak your language. It's a wonderful way to hone other kinds of knowing besides just that which comes from words.
Speaking of words, one of my quests in the last few days has been to find a book in English. I only brought one novel along with me and I've finished it. In a couple of days we'll make our way to Rio de Janeiro on a bus ride that will take about twelve hours. I can't see doing that without at least one book.
Dimas took us to the mall here in Ribeirao and I found a paperback copy of The Kite Runner in English. I took it to the cash register. They rang it up and told us it would be 78 Reais. That's 39 dollars to you and me, folks! I looked over at Bill. He was pulling out the money and counting out the bills, unthinking. I knew once he realized the actual price, his placid expression would be replaced with (how shall I say this delicately?) rage, horror, shock.
"That's 39 bucks, Bill. Forget it," I said. Then I turned to Dimas. "It's 78 Reais. Isn't that a lot?" I asked.
"Too much. Let's go," Dimas decided and we walked out.
I've never paid 39 dollars for a paperback book, and I'm not desperate enough to do it now (plus my marital bliss is far more valuable to me than that particular book), but I'm still in need of reading material for the bus. So last night I put the problem to the whole extended family.
"We found an English book at the mall, but it was too much money. Can I get one cheaper?" I asked. There was a flurry of conversation in Portuguese. The internet was consulted. Another flurry. There were questions I had to address. Did I like romances? (Not so much.) How about mysteries? (A little better, but not a lot.)
It was finally discovered that there is a used bookstore in town with thousands of books in English. And in the meantime, Dimas would search his shelves for something that would tide me over until we could get there. After much rummaging, there was one book in English in Dimas' and Ana Rosa's house, a copy of Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach, left in Brazil some thirty-six years ago by one William P., my own dear Bill. Talk about coming full circle!
So, today we're having lunch at the family's sports club, visiting a used book store and generally enjoying this beautiful town. There's more to tell about (like Ana Rosa's concert with the symphony, our visit to an old sugar plant and Brazil's conversion to ethanol alcohol in lieu of gasoline for their cars), but it will have to wait.
The marathon is on Sunday the 28th in Rio. I'll post a race report when I'm home (and perhaps a book report on J. L. Seagull).
Love to all.
In March of 2010, I completed my seventh continental marathon distance. Follow me now as I keep running and try to finish a marathon in all 50 U.S. States before I turn 50.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Friday, June 12, 2009
Training for Brazil: Trial #2
As I write, I’m in a little cabin in Tennessee outside of Knoxville. I came here to visit my friend, Wendy, and to get some writing done. I’ve had a lot on my mind lately, and I’ve had trouble finding time to settle down and get my writing completed. This has been a whirlwind of a year.
Soon (tomorrow actually – it took me a while to get this posted), Bill and I leave for Brazil. We are about to run a marathon on our SIXTH continent! I can scarcely believe it. This has been a lot of work and a lot of fun.
As I took a run along a rolling road beside farm houses and log cabins, catching the scent of honeysuckle in the air and watching for snapping turtles on the ground, I let my thoughts fly free in a stream of consciousness.
It went something like this:
Ooh this is a bigger hill than it looked last night when we drove this course…. I hope I don’t get tick and end up with Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever…. I wonder how the dogs and Bill are doing back home…. I hope I’m ready for this race in Rio…. I hope my Aunt S is OK…. What if I can’t get on that boat for Antarctica next spring????
And there I stopped (thinking, not running). I needed to focus on the scenery around me and breathe deeply into the moment or I was going to move into “panic mode” and my run would be derailed.
Just before I left for Tennessee, a couple of things happened. First, my dear Aunt S went into the hospital and was in ICU for more than a week with a tube down her throat. I went to see her once she was awake and stayed in touch with my cousin by phone on a daily basis, but I was terribly worried about her, and about my grandmother, for whom my Aunt and cousin do most of the care-giving. My family is aging, as are we all, and I worry if everyone will get what they need when they need it to keep their lives comfortable in the process.
Just as my Aunt S was stabilizing (she’s home now, by the way, and on the mend) and my anxiety was abating, I got an email from Marathon Tours, the company that runs the Antarctica Marathon saying I wouldn’t be on the 2010 trip. Maybe, they said, I’d be on the 2011 boat to Antarctica. This crushed me. As you know, I have a book contract to write about the effects of this 7 continent journey on my life and all my chapters, including the one on Antarctica, are due next year! Bill and I have spent a lot of money and time and effort to make this whole seven-marathons dream happen. And I’d been told earlier this year that as people were dropping out of the 2010 trip because of the economical decline, I would most certainly be moved from the waiting list to the real list by May. But when no one called me to confirm this, I finally got in contact with the company and found out I’d been jilted (apparently they had to cut back to one boat and cannot guarantee my participation even in 2011). Now what?
Actually, I have some hope. Bill and are getting creative. If we can’t elbow our way onto that boat in 2010, how will we find our way to Antarctica?
Ah, once I get to the idea phase of “panic mode,” I know I’m out of the worry woods. Back on track with a strain of thought I could follow constructively, I kept running and started brainstorming. What if we charter a private boat and just show up for the race? What if we take a helicopter to one of the islands and run 26.2 miles as charted by our Garmin? What if we plug in a treadmill at one of the research stations on the continent and run until we’ve completed the marathon distance?
Now my thoughts were coming fast and, just as I was getting to some pretty absurd schemes, I found myself back at where Wendy and I had agreed to meet and I put my ideas on pause.
So now I’m writing my readers just to say, I’m off to Brazil on June 13th (tomorrow), but I’m in search of creative input from anyone who has a thought about running a marathon (official or unofficial – it doesn’t matter to me) on Antarctica.
If you have any ideas of how to get to Antarctica (contacts for cruise ships, info about which islands have runnable terrain, the address of a friendly penguin), send them my way! I’ll do anything it takes to get us there (safely) and back in time to write my last chapter and turn my book in.
I’ll try to post while I’m in South America, but I’ll most certainly post a race report once I’m back.
See you in early July.
Soon (tomorrow actually – it took me a while to get this posted), Bill and I leave for Brazil. We are about to run a marathon on our SIXTH continent! I can scarcely believe it. This has been a lot of work and a lot of fun.
As I took a run along a rolling road beside farm houses and log cabins, catching the scent of honeysuckle in the air and watching for snapping turtles on the ground, I let my thoughts fly free in a stream of consciousness.
It went something like this:
Ooh this is a bigger hill than it looked last night when we drove this course…. I hope I don’t get tick and end up with Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever…. I wonder how the dogs and Bill are doing back home…. I hope I’m ready for this race in Rio…. I hope my Aunt S is OK…. What if I can’t get on that boat for Antarctica next spring????
And there I stopped (thinking, not running). I needed to focus on the scenery around me and breathe deeply into the moment or I was going to move into “panic mode” and my run would be derailed.
Just before I left for Tennessee, a couple of things happened. First, my dear Aunt S went into the hospital and was in ICU for more than a week with a tube down her throat. I went to see her once she was awake and stayed in touch with my cousin by phone on a daily basis, but I was terribly worried about her, and about my grandmother, for whom my Aunt and cousin do most of the care-giving. My family is aging, as are we all, and I worry if everyone will get what they need when they need it to keep their lives comfortable in the process.
Just as my Aunt S was stabilizing (she’s home now, by the way, and on the mend) and my anxiety was abating, I got an email from Marathon Tours, the company that runs the Antarctica Marathon saying I wouldn’t be on the 2010 trip. Maybe, they said, I’d be on the 2011 boat to Antarctica. This crushed me. As you know, I have a book contract to write about the effects of this 7 continent journey on my life and all my chapters, including the one on Antarctica, are due next year! Bill and I have spent a lot of money and time and effort to make this whole seven-marathons dream happen. And I’d been told earlier this year that as people were dropping out of the 2010 trip because of the economical decline, I would most certainly be moved from the waiting list to the real list by May. But when no one called me to confirm this, I finally got in contact with the company and found out I’d been jilted (apparently they had to cut back to one boat and cannot guarantee my participation even in 2011). Now what?
Actually, I have some hope. Bill and are getting creative. If we can’t elbow our way onto that boat in 2010, how will we find our way to Antarctica?
Ah, once I get to the idea phase of “panic mode,” I know I’m out of the worry woods. Back on track with a strain of thought I could follow constructively, I kept running and started brainstorming. What if we charter a private boat and just show up for the race? What if we take a helicopter to one of the islands and run 26.2 miles as charted by our Garmin? What if we plug in a treadmill at one of the research stations on the continent and run until we’ve completed the marathon distance?
Now my thoughts were coming fast and, just as I was getting to some pretty absurd schemes, I found myself back at where Wendy and I had agreed to meet and I put my ideas on pause.
So now I’m writing my readers just to say, I’m off to Brazil on June 13th (tomorrow), but I’m in search of creative input from anyone who has a thought about running a marathon (official or unofficial – it doesn’t matter to me) on Antarctica.
If you have any ideas of how to get to Antarctica (contacts for cruise ships, info about which islands have runnable terrain, the address of a friendly penguin), send them my way! I’ll do anything it takes to get us there (safely) and back in time to write my last chapter and turn my book in.
I’ll try to post while I’m in South America, but I’ll most certainly post a race report once I’m back.
See you in early July.
Training for Brazil: Advice for me? #1
So, I started “developing” when I was ten years old, but it took me twenty years to get comfortable with my breasts.
My breasts grew more quickly than I was ready for and by junior high, I was big enough for the boys in PE class to shout, “Watch out Cami, you’ll give yourself a black eye!” when I ran around the track. This contributed to my giving up running until sports bras were invented/discovered/marketed widely.
I remember my first sports bra! It hooked in the back like a regular bra, but it pulled the girls in tight enough that they didn’t bounce anymore when I was in my aerobic dance class. I was elated! I loved the new stability in my life. And I wore this little ditty, or something similar to it, until I started running.
The first time I ever ran for more than one hour, my loyal friend, my tight, cozy, cotton bra – the one that had freed me to exercise with other people in the room and to overcome the trauma of Jr. High – failed me. I chafed.
I’ve talked about chafing before. It’s one of the most frustrating things about running for me. It happens when two things rub together, any two things. When your two thighs rub together (mine do) or when your shoe rubs against your ankle bone, you chafe. It’s not a blister, per se; it’s more like a rope burn. If the chafing happens over a long enough period of time, you bleed. Maybe you’ve been to the finish line of a marathon and seen men with blood on their shirts where their nipples would be. This is from chafing.
Sports bra chafing happens just under the breasts at the edge of the bra. For me, it’s like I’ve been sliced across my torso with a razor blade. I quickly learned early on in my long distance running experience that there were a few things that can prevent this. The first thing I had to address was the cotton. Synthetic material wicks away sweat better than cotton and is softer against the skin, so I switched to a bra made from polyester and lycra and tossed out all my cotton. Then I learned about Vaseline. Applied liberally on skin surfaces that may rub against something, Vaseline lubricates the area and eliminates friction. These tricks have saved me from the experience of coming h ome after a long run and wincing in the shower as the warm water washes the salty sweat down my body into my new raw wound.
So knowing what I know, why did I take a twelve mile run a few weeks ago without lubing this area? Why did I wear not one, but two tight sports bras and Vaseline all my usual spots except for my upper torso under the elastic? I can’t say. I forgot, I guess. In the midst of making sure I had my energy gel, my iPod, my water, my running belt, my phone and the new little digital voice recorder I just bought (so I can record inspiring thoughts as I run), I forgot to grease under my breasts.
Six miles into the run, I felt the chafing begin. I tried to tuck my shirt up under the bras to create some space between the thick seam and my skin, but it wouldn’t hold. I tried to run with my thumb under the elastic, but I couldn’t keep up that position. At mile ten, I could tell I was in trouble. An open sore had developed in a straight line front and center under my breasts. I had two miles left and the best I could do was grit my teeth, turn up my music and live with the pain.
When I got home and stripped out of my sweaty clothes, I saw the wound. It was a red splice across my skin measuring about four inches in length, raised and full of puss. As I expected, the warm water in the shower hurt like a mother and brought tears to my eyes. But the real problem was that I couldn’t wear anything (regular bra, shirt, robe) afterwards for about three days without pain. I’d really done a doosey on myself this time. It was the worst one I’d ever had. And I had to keep up my training, so I needed to put that damned sports bra on again, over my oozing sore, on Tuesday. It hadn’t even scabbed over yet.
The next week of running was a comedy of bandages. Tuesday I wore a large band aid with Vaseline underneath, which slipped off after a mile. Wednesday I tried a burn pad adhered with masking tape. Friday I used a blister pad.
None of these methods really held through the sweat, so I put the dilemma to Bill for his expert input. I suppose you can im agine my alarm when I walked in the house after a trip to the grocery store and saw Bill holding up a roll of duct tape! He claimed runners widely accept the use of duct tape to prevent blistering. I had a 15-mile run on the schedule for Sunday and I’d been worrying over my chafing wound all week. His proposal was that I lube up with Vaseline across the red mark, place a gelatin burn pad over the top of that and then run a strip of duct tape across my torso under my breasts where the elastic of my sports bra would sit.
I wasn’t thrilled with the image this created, but I was game if it would prevent further injury, and I foolishly trusted Bill. He sounded pretty sure of himself. So I tried it. The problem is, my breasts sag (I’m 42, people!). So the tape partly gaped on each side under each breast. My creative solution was to run another piece of duct tape between my breasts to create an upside down “T.”
Needless to say, this was a disaster. I launched out on my 15 miles and about half way through, the duct tape started irritating me. I could feel new chafing happening where the vertical strand of tape was between my breasts. In stages, I disassembled the bandage. First I took off the center piece of tape and inspected two new little red marks right on either side of the upper part of my cleavage. Next I took off the horizontal piece and shoved the burn pad between my breasts to soften the new rubbing there. Finally, I pulled that out when I could feel the gel disintegrating because of my sweat. Now I was back to just me and my sports bra with no buffer between us. I’d have to take whatever consequences would come.
There’s both a moral and a question here. The moral is that lubing the areas that chafe is crucial, and if you forget, you’re better off going home and starting over for all the energy it’s going to take you in the next week or two to manage the pain. The question is, does anyone have a solution as to what to do once you have chafed? Is there a product I’m unaware of? A method for protecting the wound while you keep running? Or do you just gut it through as I did?
My breasts grew more quickly than I was ready for and by junior high, I was big enough for the boys in PE class to shout, “Watch out Cami, you’ll give yourself a black eye!” when I ran around the track. This contributed to my giving up running until sports bras were invented/discovered/marketed widely.
I remember my first sports bra! It hooked in the back like a regular bra, but it pulled the girls in tight enough that they didn’t bounce anymore when I was in my aerobic dance class. I was elated! I loved the new stability in my life. And I wore this little ditty, or something similar to it, until I started running.
The first time I ever ran for more than one hour, my loyal friend, my tight, cozy, cotton bra – the one that had freed me to exercise with other people in the room and to overcome the trauma of Jr. High – failed me. I chafed.
I’ve talked about chafing before. It’s one of the most frustrating things about running for me. It happens when two things rub together, any two things. When your two thighs rub together (mine do) or when your shoe rubs against your ankle bone, you chafe. It’s not a blister, per se; it’s more like a rope burn. If the chafing happens over a long enough period of time, you bleed. Maybe you’ve been to the finish line of a marathon and seen men with blood on their shirts where their nipples would be. This is from chafing.
Sports bra chafing happens just under the breasts at the edge of the bra. For me, it’s like I’ve been sliced across my torso with a razor blade. I quickly learned early on in my long distance running experience that there were a few things that can prevent this. The first thing I had to address was the cotton. Synthetic material wicks away sweat better than cotton and is softer against the skin, so I switched to a bra made from polyester and lycra and tossed out all my cotton. Then I learned about Vaseline. Applied liberally on skin surfaces that may rub against something, Vaseline lubricates the area and eliminates friction. These tricks have saved me from the experience of coming h ome after a long run and wincing in the shower as the warm water washes the salty sweat down my body into my new raw wound.
So knowing what I know, why did I take a twelve mile run a few weeks ago without lubing this area? Why did I wear not one, but two tight sports bras and Vaseline all my usual spots except for my upper torso under the elastic? I can’t say. I forgot, I guess. In the midst of making sure I had my energy gel, my iPod, my water, my running belt, my phone and the new little digital voice recorder I just bought (so I can record inspiring thoughts as I run), I forgot to grease under my breasts.
Six miles into the run, I felt the chafing begin. I tried to tuck my shirt up under the bras to create some space between the thick seam and my skin, but it wouldn’t hold. I tried to run with my thumb under the elastic, but I couldn’t keep up that position. At mile ten, I could tell I was in trouble. An open sore had developed in a straight line front and center under my breasts. I had two miles left and the best I could do was grit my teeth, turn up my music and live with the pain.
When I got home and stripped out of my sweaty clothes, I saw the wound. It was a red splice across my skin measuring about four inches in length, raised and full of puss. As I expected, the warm water in the shower hurt like a mother and brought tears to my eyes. But the real problem was that I couldn’t wear anything (regular bra, shirt, robe) afterwards for about three days without pain. I’d really done a doosey on myself this time. It was the worst one I’d ever had. And I had to keep up my training, so I needed to put that damned sports bra on again, over my oozing sore, on Tuesday. It hadn’t even scabbed over yet.
The next week of running was a comedy of bandages. Tuesday I wore a large band aid with Vaseline underneath, which slipped off after a mile. Wednesday I tried a burn pad adhered with masking tape. Friday I used a blister pad.
None of these methods really held through the sweat, so I put the dilemma to Bill for his expert input. I suppose you can im agine my alarm when I walked in the house after a trip to the grocery store and saw Bill holding up a roll of duct tape! He claimed runners widely accept the use of duct tape to prevent blistering. I had a 15-mile run on the schedule for Sunday and I’d been worrying over my chafing wound all week. His proposal was that I lube up with Vaseline across the red mark, place a gelatin burn pad over the top of that and then run a strip of duct tape across my torso under my breasts where the elastic of my sports bra would sit.
I wasn’t thrilled with the image this created, but I was game if it would prevent further injury, and I foolishly trusted Bill. He sounded pretty sure of himself. So I tried it. The problem is, my breasts sag (I’m 42, people!). So the tape partly gaped on each side under each breast. My creative solution was to run another piece of duct tape between my breasts to create an upside down “T.”
Needless to say, this was a disaster. I launched out on my 15 miles and about half way through, the duct tape started irritating me. I could feel new chafing happening where the vertical strand of tape was between my breasts. In stages, I disassembled the bandage. First I took off the center piece of tape and inspected two new little red marks right on either side of the upper part of my cleavage. Next I took off the horizontal piece and shoved the burn pad between my breasts to soften the new rubbing there. Finally, I pulled that out when I could feel the gel disintegrating because of my sweat. Now I was back to just me and my sports bra with no buffer between us. I’d have to take whatever consequences would come.
There’s both a moral and a question here. The moral is that lubing the areas that chafe is crucial, and if you forget, you’re better off going home and starting over for all the energy it’s going to take you in the next week or two to manage the pain. The question is, does anyone have a solution as to what to do once you have chafed? Is there a product I’m unaware of? A method for protecting the wound while you keep running? Or do you just gut it through as I did?
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