Facie’s Ramblings

This evening I was trying to find a t-shirt to take to my mom's. I have a deep drawerful of shirts that I wear when I want to go extremely casual, as most of them are old, and at least a third are ill-fitting.  Since I can barely close the drawer, and I had no idea of half of what is buried there, I decided to take everything out and see what I had. Surprisingly, I had remembered almost all of them, and many brought back memories, which is unfortunate as it makes it tough to give them up. Here are some of their stories:  This is probably my oldest tee. Twenty-two years ago this past February, I stayed awake and on my feet for 48 hours (plus about 10 more before and after) for Penn State's Dance Marathon. I am proud of that feat and being a part of something that helps so many pediatric cancer patients. The hallucinations I could have done without. Regardless, I wear this tee some years during THON weekend. Depeche Mode was the first concert at the Civic Arena I went to without...

I started running again about five months ago, somewhat sporadically. But about two months ago, I decided that maybe, just maybe, I could run in a 5k again. So I figured I had better start running once a week, if I had any hope of running the entire thing. Once you are fully entrenched in your 40s, it is a little more difficult to just run a few times over the course of a couple of months and go out and do a 5k. Or so I would imagine. The 5k I am running in next week is the Race for Pace. This year, they are having a super hero theme. Me being me (well, I being I) embraced that wholeheartedly and decided to wear something super hero-ish. At first, I thought I could go as the Flash. I figured it would be ironic because I was probably going to finish in the bottom 25 percent (maybe worse, but let's not think about that). People would see this middle-aged woman panting and barely jogging as she was halfway through the race, and they would laugh. I am always happy to provide a few la...

For some people, 2012 was really awful. For others, 2012 brought many blessings. For me, 2012 was pretty good and mostly uneventful; there is not any one particular things that stands out for me. I had a short-term job for almost three months. But, much like my last steady/regular job, it seems like almost a lifetime ago. I also did some freelance work for the company where I used to work, and at times, I kind of felt as if I still worked there. And of course there was subbing. I won't even venture a guess as to what 2013 has in store for me job-wise. I am, however, pretty worried about my impending 2012 tax bill. Our run of getting a nice chunk of change back and putting it toward home improvement is over, at least for this year. I just hope we (I) don't owe too much money... I ran, swam, and did Zumba, but did not set the world on fire in any of those areas. Of course, I ran in the Race for Pace 5k and earned a third place medal ( albeit several weeks after the fact ), so...

My last post about fading into the background is absolutely true for the vast majority of the time. Every once in awhile, however, the "old" me shows herself. Yesterday and today are two examples. Story 1: Facie the Competitor Some guy at the pool yesterday: You have been swimming a really long time. You must be tired after all those laps. Me (slightly annoyed): No, I have done only 10 (which took me about 12 minutes, which is not a long time). I swim more laps and notice the guy looking at me as I am swimming towards him. The guy: Do you want to race me? Me (after my jaw drops): I might swim a lot of laps, but I am not fast. I then swim away, wondering if I had traveled back in time and am at some junior high camp. I continue to swim my laps and actually consider racing him. After all, I used to be quite competitive. And I just finished about 24 laps and still have energy for more. He is of average build, closer to thin, but he keeps taking breaks after a few laps. ...

I spent chunks of time today writing a post on this morning's Race for Pace. I would add more details and then take something way. Ultimately, I ended up boring myself, which means I would probably put most of you to sleep. So here is an abbreviated post, in a list. It was probably about 35-degrees at race time, but sunny (it was 29 degrees when I got there 45 minutes earlier). My attire of a long-sleeved t-shirt, a windbreaker, yoga pants, socks as gloves, and a knee brace (one of those flexible-stretchy things) from early this century turned out to be the right wardrobe. I was relatively pain-free the entire time (knee brace was a good call); even my feet hurt very little (though during the first mile, two of my toes were numb from the cold!) I started off strong, kept a pretty steady pace, struggled a bit near the end up the last hill, but "kicked it in" as best as I could the last tenth of a mile. Having my friend Diane there cheering me on really helped. As I ...

On Saturday, God willin' and the creek don't rise, I will be running in my first 5K in two years. I started slacking off on my running last year, pretty much all the way through the beginning of this school year. But when school started back up this year, I rededicated myself to running at least once a week, and I have done that, for the most part. So I decided to turn this running into something that "counts" at least once this year. And since I have done the Race for Pace before, and it is only a few miles from my house, it seemed like a good race to do. New for me this year is the age group I will be in: 40 to 44, which apparently qualifies me as a master. Huh?! What the what? Whatcha you talkin' 'bout Willis?! To me, 40 is not old to be a runner. I see runners of all ages. Granted there are many more younger than older runners, but just looking at the results from last year's race, I noticed that 42 out of 135 males and 32 out of 100 females were...

Right now I am watching the Olympics, as I have done late every night since Friday. I don't know about you, but my favorite sports are, in no particular order, swimming, diving, gymnastics, beach volleyball, and some track and field events. I am a pretty good swimmer. I may not be the most graceful (my butterfly is more like the baboon), but I have endurance and a fair amount of speed. I am not even ashamed to admit that after a particularly good day of swimming last year, I actually looked up some Olympic records to see if I came close. Spoiler alert: I did not. Unfortunately, that is about as athletic as I get. I can dive the most basic dive; everything else scares me (not that too many pools in this sue-happy era have diving boards). But seeing the twists and turns these divers do leaves me almost breathless. In a good way. I am absolutely lousy at gymnastics. I cannot do a cartwheel, handstand, or split, which makes what these gymnasts do all the more amazing to me. Ser...

I try to keep my running blog (that one over there to the right below some stuff) separate from this one. Why? Well, for a few reasons, thanks for asking. As you have probably noticed, this blog is typically all over the place in subjects, and many of my posts are long-winded (hence the second half of the name). On the other hand, my running blog, get this, is all about running. And, believe it or not, most of those posts are short. Brief. To the point.** In fact, if you read both of my blogs, you might find yourself wondering, "How can these two blogs be written by the same person?" Which brings me to my second reason. Sort of. This blog is called "Facie's ramblings" (the "r" in "ramblings" left intentionally lowercase, FYI), Facie being a childhood nickname. I don't refer to myself as Facie in my running blog; I instead go with, more or less, my "real" name (real is in quotes because of my various first, middle, last name ...

This weekend I am running in the Regent Run Around the Square, my first 5k race since 2006 and my first Run Around the Square since 2002. The last time I ran in that race, I entered the "heavyweight" division. If you know me, you know that although I am not skinny, I am certainly not a heavyweight. And even if I were, isn't it more important to be healthy and in shape? Which I am. How else could I run 3 to 4 miles on a regular basis? (Okay, I have not run 4 miles since the beginning of June, and I sometimes let two weeks go by before I run again. But during the school year, I was a regular runner, and trust me, I am doing just fine now.) Who thinks up these things? Don't enough women have self-image problems without being made to feel fat when they are not (and even if they are overweight, why make a big deal about it)? Luckily for me, I think fairly highly of my physical self; at the very least, I (mostly) accept what I have, try to work on it somewhat, and just b...