LEAVING LAS VEGAS

“You can’t take it with you,” Joe said. He had asked if I thought he was going to win the next hand and when I said yes, put down a $500 chip. He lost it. And I sunk my head into my hands.

“You can’t take it with you, right?” he said, looking dead at me, then clarified that he didn’t mean I wasn’t welcome to get up and go with the $350 of stacked “quarters” I couldn’t seem to keep my hands off. As a writer, I bridle at clichés, but I stopped to think about this for a moment. Joe was trying to tell me something. It seemed urgent.

Still, I couldn’t bring myself to bet more than $25 at a time. I had been hot for a while, and then my pile dwindled. I was down to $150 just before I had to leave for the airport.

“Bet it all,” Joe said. “Or cash it out. Those are your choices.”

Icouldn’t walk out with his money—with real money.

“I got some really smart guys to work with me,” Joe said. “We made a good product and then we sold it. Then we made some other products, and we sold them.” He looked at me and shrugged: “Pay it forward.”

I’m not a gambler. Three times in my life I’ve left jobs—good jobs—with nothing lined up because I trust myself. I believe in my abilities to make things work out. I believe in my talents and skills and rarely underestimate my many faults. Running the Las Vegas Marathon without reliable mile markers was, for me, a gamble. I don’t like the discomfort of uncertainty, but I’ve learned how to live with it in other parts of my life. A marathon, however, is not a war. And it’s not work. It’s what we do for fun.

Joe shrugged again, took another swig of Seven and Seven. “It’s up to you,” he said.

I bet it all.

Lost it all.

I walked away with nothing. i

But it didn’t feel like nothing. ¢

Can Your Marathon Training Be Applied Elsewhere in Life?

s far as pregnancies go, except for some morning sickness in the first and

third trimesters, mine wasn’t that bad—which | attribute to my running.

As my belly blossomed and my hormones raged, running kept me toned and emotionally on an even keel. I ran, did NordicTrack, or walked every day.

Running became more labored by the end, but I could still do a few miles at a comfortable pace.

The morning of July 19, 2 1/2 weeks before my due date, I coached a client at the Newton [New Jersey] High School track from 8:30 to 9:30. It was the hottest day of the year, and during our mile warm-up, I was bothered by cramps. I figured I was dehydrated and was embarrassed that I couldn’t finish the mile warm-up with my female client. I had a break before my afternoon client, so I decided to combine getting some fluids and food with my errands and headed to Wal-Mart. The cramps persisted.

Part way through my Wal-Mart shopping, it occurred to me that these cramps were getting worse and coming in cycles. I had never been pregnant before, so I hustled to the baby department, found a copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting, and looked up “contractions.” That was at about 10:00 a.m. Long story short: went home (still in denial); called my husband, who told me to call the doctor; called the doctor’s office, which said, “Get over here now!”; drove myself, now scared and timing the cramps at two minutes apart; got to the doctor’s, which got me in; water broke; husband arrived and rushed me to hospital; no time for epidural or anything; baby arrived 20 minutes later.

Nurses of 20-plus years said the delivery was one of the fastest and most intense they had ever seen. Unfortunately, the intensity took its toll in the form of my blood pressure spiking dramatically, so much so that I was readmitted to the emergency room the day after I was discharged. I don’t recall the top number, but my bottom number was 125, and I nearly died of a stroke.

For the next two months, I endured sleepless nights with a newborn that were accompanied by mandated high doses of blood-pressure medicine. Without them, my diastolic pressure was 90 or above, a far cry from my prebirth low in the 70s. I went to my cardiologist (who is also a runner) every few weeks, and he wanted me to stay on the medication. I hated how it made me feel; when I tried to run, I felt that the whole world was spinning.

As summer turned to fall and the leaves began changing color, I fell one day while running on the trail because of vertigo from the medicine. That was it. I don’t recommend what I did, but I decided to wean myself off the medication.

By mid-November, I was off it completely. I entered a 15K race the Sunday after Thanksgiving, and though I finished in a decent time, it was a far cry from times Iran back when I qualified for the Olympic Marathon Trials.

Before giving birth, I had planned to do a spring marathon, but after the “marathon” I had been through with the intense delivery followed by the battle of the blood pressure on top of caring for a newborn and balancing my coaching and writing jobs, I realized it wasn’t meant to be. The icing on the cake came when the marathon I planned to run was canceled.

The author, shown here in the Hartford Half-Marathon, ran in the 2000 Olympic Marathon Trials just one month after being struck by a car while training.

© Victah /wwwPhotoRun.net

70 | | NOV/DEC 2007

A NEW TRAINING PARTNER

My new plan was to be ready for the Long Branch Half-Marathon on April 30. I had a lot of running to do. I was determined, but the greatest strength came from the help of a great new training partner. She was different from any training partner Thad had in the past. Amazingly, though she didn’t speak English very well and wasn’t a runner, her encouragement was immeasurable.

When the weather was bad, she would get me through arduous runs on the treadmill. When the weather got warmer, she rode along with me as I had to retrain my body to run up hills. I thought I could just bounce back, but that wasn’t to be. Some days I had to walk some of the uphills, but undaunted, my training partner rode along with me.

I did several runs without her on some weekends when I ran with my husband and his friends. And a few times I did a race without her. The long runs seemed to take forever compared with long runs in the past, and my 5K race times were two minutes slower than I wanted them to be, but I persevered. My training partner came to most of my races, at least as her schedule allowed, and she watched from the sidelines.

Finally, I had one hard effort left going into the April 30 half. It was the week before the race, and I knew I had to prove to myself that I could do a hard 11 miles, or I would have doubts about finishing the half. The problem was that I had to do it on the treadmill. That would be a bear to tackle.

Undaunted, my faithful training partner stayed with me through the first five miles. She had some emotional issues, but she got me through the pivotal first half of the run before she had to go.

On April 30, I ran the Long Branch Half-Marathon in 1:31:39 and placed eighth female out of 1,186 in the race. It wasn’t the 1:17 Iran years ago, nor was it the pace I ran for 26.2 miles in the 2000 Olympic Marathon Trials, but it was a victory and made me thankful for my health—my blood pressure is back to