Snippets of Stories 3

Scene from the story Twenty-six Point Two that I used to apply to the UO and OS Creative Writing g-school programs.

Once I got out of the water station, I began to run again. I planned to repeat what I had done in the first half. Mile thirteen to fourteen wasn’t too bad, but as soon as my body knew that I had decided to finish this marathon, it fought back. I felt as though my quads were swelling. I could almost hear a Thud! every time my foot hit the pavement. I longed for the next water station. My throat was so dry. I took walking breaks every mile and felt like no matter what I did, I could not get enough to drink. I was taking water at every water station. Gu, my energy source for this race, didn’t help at all, and neither did my miracle mix of peanut M&M’s and fruit snacks that got me through my first marathon in a Boston qualifying time. The aid stations were handing out Ultima Replenisher, a sugar-free version of Gatorade which made me gag. The liquid briefly hydrated my mouth, but then left it drier than before. My legs felt sluggish. I yearned for water. Ten steps later I grabbed one. It was warm.
“Go Anna!!!!!”
I looked right and saw my sister jumping and clapping. My mom stood next to her looking less enthused. Say something, mom, I thought. She didn’t though. She didn’t cheer me on nor did she tell me to quit. She just stared at me and from ten feet away I could see the age wrinkles around her eyes. I turned my head and faced forward, continuing on as my sister cheered from behind.
At mile sixteen, I seriously contemplated dropping out of the race. There were a few emergency aid stations marked along the course. When I reached one at mile seventeen, I thought, just try run to the next aid station and drop out there. I couldn’t get my medal unless I finished. Greed kept me going at this point. I did not drive five hours to Duluth not to get some hardware! Despite the selfish motivation, when I thought about how much more I had to still run, I felt worse. Old women were passing me. I lost sight of the nine-minute-mile pacer. Stopping to walk no longer helped.
Around mile seventeen and a half I became desperate to find any energy source. An older woman was handing out cups of ice at the very end of the next water station. I grabbed one as I ran by her and tossed a few cubes in my mouth. I began to choke.
“You ok,” asked a young man who had caught up to me.
“Yeah (cough), I’m fine (cough).”
I looked over at him. His nipples were bleeding through his white tank top. The lines of crusty red made me nauseous.
The cool in my mouth zapped me like a bold of lightening. I suddenly had energy again. I ate ice for the rest of the race when available; sometimes almost choking on it, but the slight relief the ice gave me made it worth it.
The marathon route entered Duluth. Some how, maybe because of the heat, in my mind, I had gotten a mile ahead of myself. I thought I was approaching mile twenty. I checked my watch and thought I had picked up the pace and was making good time. Then I came to mile nineteen. If I had the water and salt to spare, I would have cried. To think I only had 6.2 miles left and to realize I actually had 7.2 mile may not sound like a huge difference, but at that point, I dreaded every step.
In town, people cheered for us the entire way. Some even handed out food and water, or sprayed us down with they’re garden hose. One guy had a tray of small cups of beer. I passed up the offer, not because I was underage, but beer was the last thing I wanted to be drinking at that point. I couldn’t get enough water. A mile further down the road, a woman was holding out a giant tub of Vaseline. I was glad I had prepared my body that morning by rubbing down with Blister Shield wipes. At least I wasn’t dealing with chafing too.
I wish I could have enjoyed the last six miles more that I did. I had to use all my focus to keep going. No matter how hard I tried to run, I hurt, and I had to walk. All I could think about was how thirsty I was.
“Keep going blue shorts! You look strong,” yelled a spectator.
They have no idea what kind of pain I’m in, I thought. I just wanted to finish, that was all. Just cross the finish line and then sit down.
“High-five! High-five!” Yelled a little boy holding out his hand to runners. I extended a sweaty palm to him, but missed.
When I reached mile 23, I knew I just had a 5K to go. I had done countless 5k’s over my life. Compared to a marathon, the distance was minuscule. I had a feeling that this would be the longest 5k of my life. I came to a small bridge in the course that I had to run up and then back down. When I saw it, my heart sank. I knew from my last marathon that running down would be the worst part. The extra pounding took my already almost crippled legs and finished the job. Every step from there on out was like a combination of fire and nails in my quads.

To My Valentine:

I chase orange melting into purple.
A lone bird without a V,
Leaving my nest in the sunrise;
High above the nimbi,
Thousands of miles spread out between us;
Your heartbeat fades into a distant patter,
Mine races in front of me.

This Eagle’s flight cannot take me away from you,
My love expands past the mountains that separate us;
I follow the winding river’s curves,
And they lead me straight back to you.

Dusk settles on the earth below,
But above these white puffs its still morning

And I chase on

To catch the sunset to find my own sunrise.
I yearn for the day
I wake to pink sky with you by my side.

And when night lingers
Outside my windowpane,
And fog rolls in
To cover the valley range,
I will not fear or distress
‘Cause though its not here
In the rolling west,
I know there’s sunrise
In the distant plane
Where my heart is on this Valentine’s Day.

Snippets of Stories 2

The beginning entry of an untitled story I began a few months ago.

It was one of those humid sunny days in late August that tease the senses into thinking summer may just go on forever. Taylor and Paul had been driving in a red Chevy Aveo rental car along Highway126 from Eugene to the west coast for an hour. Paul, in his blue-rimmed sport sunglasses, had the windows down all the way as he drove which blew strands of Taylor’s long brown hair into her face. She brushed away the strands while she studied the road map on her lap and sipped black coffee from her thermos.
Paul played with the radio stations, switching back and forth from the local country station to the classic rock station unable to decide which he’d rather drive to. He knew Taylor hated country, and he wanted to listen it just to spite her. He loved the face she made when she was upset, scrunching up her nose and biting her bottom lip. Sometimes he’d try to rile her up, just to see it, but right now there wasn’t anything good playing on the country station.
They were headed to the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area for four days of camping, hiking, and if they were brave enough, swimming in the cold Pacific Ocean. Taylor fiddled with the map as she continued to take small sips from her thermos. She peaked at Paul out of the corner of her eye. She was attracted to him; there was no denying herself of that, but now that he was here, physically present with her in car, she turned all shy. Their hours of late night conversations online, weekend texting, and flirtatious emails for the past five months had still not prepared her for what it would be like to physically be with him again.

Snippets of Stories 1

So, there are a lot of stories that I will not post in entirety on here, but rather just share snippets. Here is a section of a story called The Breakdown of Souls that I have been working on for a few years.

Around 5 am the sun came up and shined through the open garage door into the back window of the car. As the car began to heat up, Jen awoke. She groggily grabbed her purse and stumbled out of the car and into the house. The first thing she saw when she opened her bedroom door was his picture on her bulletin board. She fought back tears and crawled into bed, only to find herself staring at a photo of them on her nightstand. He seemed to be smiling through the picture at her. She sighed, rolled over and closed her eyes. She didn’t sleep this time. She lied there until the smell of bacon and eggs crept under her door and to her nose. She wanted to just lie there in bed until he came looking for her and said that he made a mistake and that he wanted her back. Eventually her mother was the one who came looking for her.
“Jen, its 8:15, you need to get up and get ready for work.”
“I’m not going,” she said.
“You’re what?”
“Not going! I’m going to call in sick. I really don’t feel good this morning.”
Her mother walked across the room and put her hand on Jen’s forehead.
“Sick in the middle of July? Well, you don’t feel warm, but your eyes are all puffy and red.”
“Mom, I said I don’t feel well.”
“Are they itchy?”
“Is what itchy?”
“Your eyes. Gosh I hope you don’t have pink eye. What have you touched today? Don’t rub them!”
“Mom, I don’t have pink eye. I’m not feeling well.”
“Have you been drinking? Jen, I tell you, if I find out you were drinking last night, I’ll have you-“
“Mom! No, I haven’t been drinking. I’m just sick, ok! Can’t I just be sick? Why does there always have to be a reason to things for you? Not all things have a reason, Mom. Sometimes bad things happen for no reason. Sometimes unexpected-bad things- they-they happen- for…no…reason…”
Jen’s sentence trailed off into tears. Sandra held her daughter and let her cry for a moment.

Madison Marathon

At the end of my sophomore year of college at the University of Madison, I ran my first marathon. I had not intended to run a marathon that early. I had always told people I would run one after I graduated from college, when I had the time to train. I did not train for my first marathon, though.
Three weeks before the Madison Marathon, my friend Allison came to me for advise on a twenty mile route she could do around town. I had done several out and back loops throughout Madison, and I was able to estimate the distance of many of these routes based on the time it took me to run them. I began explaining a route that she could take, but it was hard because she had never been on most of the streets I was describing. I decided that I would just run the route with her and stop after about two hours, letting her finish the last hour around campus. At this point the longest run of my life was one hour and fourty-five minutes, and I had only done that twice.
The following Saturday morning, I woke up around 7am to eat a peanut butter/ banana/ honey bagel sandwich for breakfast (which to this day has remained my pre-long run meal). Then at 9am, I met Allison and we set out for our run. We ran at a conversational pace, probably nine-minute miles and dropped to 8:30s. I began eating some fruit snacks I brought along after an hour and a half into the run. We jogged in place at all of the stoplights to prove to ourselves we could run for twenty miles straight.
I ended up running the whole route I had plotted with Allison. It took us exactly three hours. When we got back to the dorms and finally stopped running, I felt a pain I had never experienced before. My quads burned, my hip-flexors ached all the way up into my mid-pelvis, and my shoulders, neck, and back were so tight I thought the slightest movement would make a muscle snap. Yet, after completing a twenty mile run with out dying or quitting, I figured I was capable of running a marathon. What was another six miles? So, I signed up for the Madison Marathon.
The semester ended two weeks before the marathon, and I went back to live with my parents over the summer. On race day, I woke up early to eat the same pre twenty miler meal. Then my mom, sister, and I hopped in the car and drove the 26 miles to the capital building. Yes, my home town is the same distance from the starting line as a marathon; the race I was about to run. The car ride made me realize how very long this race was going to be. When we got to Madison, we met up with Allison and her family. I nervously waited in a line to get my race number. All sorts of potential disasters were streaming through my mind. What if I can’t finish? What if I get injured? What if I have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the race? What if I hit the wall? What is the wall? What if I just collapse? All of this worrying made me have to go to the bathroom several times before I walked to the start. Finally it was 7:20, almost time to run. I didn’t do any kind of warm up other than walking. I thought who wants to run before running 26.2 miles? Yet, I saw people warming up all around me. Allison and I stood next to each other at the starting line. We were in a large pack of people, but somewhat towards the front. There I spotted my former high school cross country coach. I had heard he was running Madison Marathon as well, but I was surprised to find him in the crowd of runners. There was something about having my coach there with me that made me a little less nervous, but I still had no idea what I was getting myself into.
The first ten miles flew by. It shocked me to see how many people dove off the course in the first five miles to go to the bathroom. No one was shy about it either. I saw both men and women hiding behind trees and bushes relieving themselves. Allison and I engaged in conversation which helped the time to pass. We ran along side a woman who had run the Disney Land Marathon in Florida the year before. We also caught up to a man who had run a marathon the day before, was running Mad City as a “cool down”, and planned to run Lakeshore Marathon in Chicago the day after (the same race that was a mile too long that year).
Starting about an hour and a half into the race, I began eating and taking water and Gatorade at every other mile. I had brought my own energy snack of fruit snacks and peanut M&M’s. I tried to make sure I was never hungry or thirsty the entire time I was running. The strategy seemed to work pretty well. Allison and I kept up a pretty good pace and we ran together almost the entire way. We reached the twenty mile mark under three hours and realized we must have run over twenty miles on our training run because we were going about the same speed. It was also at this point that I realized the true torture I was putting my body through. We had just gone over one of the bigger hills on the course and I remember asking Allison, “Whose [explicit] idea was this?” Only to have her respond it was mine.
Around mile twenty-two by some miracle, I got a second wind. Allison and I agreed that if one of us felt good, that that person should just go. I took off and got faster with each step. I must have done something right in the first 22 miles of the race because my last 5k felt amazing. I reached the finish in a time of 3:37:31 which was good enough to qualify for the Boston Marathon in my age category.
As soon as I stopped running, the pain swooped in. My quads throbbed and quivered under by body weight as I hobbled out of the finishing area. I saw my former high school cross country coach and we congratulated each other as I waited for Allison to cross the finish. Then, I limped to a port-a-potty and signed up for a free-massage at the massage tent. I reached the point where I couldn’t walk/limp any longer, and I collapsed in the grass while I waited for my massage.
Unfortunately because the Boston Marathon falls on a Monday in April, I was unable to sign up for it. I had too many important classes on Monday and Tuesday that I could not afford to miss. I also thought since I had qualified for the Boston Marathon in my first marathon attempt, I could easily do it again. (I would later find out I was wrong). Training for a marathon takes a good base and a little bit of luck because you never know what kinds of injuries may sneak up on you. I had a good base before deciding to run Mad City and therefore I was able to run well.

Press Release

FOR IMMEADIATE RELEASE


MOVIN’ SHOES HOLDS 4TH ANNUAL FULL MOON RUN

June 20, 2008, Madison, Wis.- Movin’ Shoes will host their fourth annual Full Moon Run on July 17th at Olin Park in Madison, WI. The registration fee for the 5K is $15 and the race starts at 9 p.m. It is open to the first 500 registrants and takes place under the light of the full moon. Kids 12 and under can sign up for the 1K kids fun run for $1 that starts in Olin Park at 8:30 p.m.

Onsite registration begins at Olin Park Shelter at 7pm and ends promptly at 8:30 p.m. The 5K course starts at Bernie’s Beach on Lakeside Street and follows the Monona Bay and Lake Monona bike paths to Olin Park. Rewards and refreshments follow the race from 9:30-10 p.m.

The $15 fee covers sign up, a free pint glass, socks, a bike light, and a raffle ticket. There will be tons of raffle give-a-ways! Post-race refreshments and specialty root beer will also be served. The top male and female in each age category wins either a free pair of shoes, gift certificate, or merchandise. To sign up, you can go online at http://www.movinshoesmadison.com/ or pick up a registration form at Movin’ Shoes.

-more-
Movin’ Shoes Run
Page 2 of 2

For the past four years, Movin’ Shoes has put on the Full Moon Run to benefit the Fit City Madison Programs whose goal is to improve nutrition and increase physical activity among all Madison residents. Movin’ Shoes has been selling running shoes in Madison since 1976. They take pride in being a small independent business and treat each customer that walks in the door as a friend. They sell merchandise for 10-15% below suggested retail and give discounts to teams, clubs, and high school athletes.

For more information contact:
Movin’ Shoes
528 S. Park St.
Madison, WI 53715
(608) 251-0125
www.movinshoesmadison.com

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Grandma's Marathon Article

Published in the Poynette Press.

June 17th, 2006, Minnesota held the 30th anniversary of Grandma’s Marathon. The 26.2 miler starts in Two Harbors and finishes in Duluth. It’s one of the largest marathons in the country, last year ranking the 13th largest in number of finishers. This year, 91 percent humidity at the starting line and temperatures soaring to 77 degrees did not stop 6,909 runners from crossing the finish line. The weather forced 410 runners, more than double the usual amount, to the medical tents and 13 runners to the hospital. Among this year’s finishers was local runner Anna Heintz from Poynette who ran in a time of 4:12:50. This is Anna’s second marathon in the last two years, her first being the Madison Marathon in which she qualified for the Boston Marathon. The unfavorable conditions at Grandma’s will not discourage her from running another marathon in her future, though. She hopes to one day run a marathon in every state. Local runner Kevin Frehner (Poynette) was also among the finishers this year.