Run On

Andrea Cavanaugh, guest blogger

She's a former journalist for the Los Angeles Daily News, the Associated Press, and other publications. She does wicked standup at the Comedy Store. Contact her at andreacavanaugh@hotmail.com. Back next week.

That whimpering noise you may have heard on early Saturday mornings on the eastside is me getting up in the bleak predawn hours to train for the LA Marathon at Griffith Park.

"Why am I still doing this?" I groan to the lump under the blankets that is the dog. The lump has no answers.

That doesn't mean it's not a good question. I never expected to be getting up to run on a Saturday morning in late March. When I signed up to do this, the LA Marathon was scheduled for mid-February. Although I thought briefly about dropping out when the date was abruptly changed to Memorial Day, I'm still here. I'm just not sure why.

I like to tell people I'm training for the marathon to get material for my standup comedy routine. It's true -- there's something so inherently funny about a fat, 40-year-old ex-smoker attempting to run 26.2 miles that all I really have to do on stage is mention it and throw in some pained facial expressions, and I get cheap and easy laughs.

But that's not why I signed up. I agreed to participate in the AIDS Marathon last fall on a lark-- after all, if I'd given it any thought I would have rejected the idea as crazytalk -- for the same reason I took up standup comedy. I had just turned 40 and I felt like I was in a rut so deep that I couldn't even see the sky.

I also confess I was already looking forward to bragging about it -- until I found out how many people I know have already done it and never mention it. Turns out it's not that big a deal, at least in LA. My boss has done one. My boss's boss has run six. My neighbor ran one this year. It's possible that my Grandpa Joe ran one and neglected to tell me about it. About 20,000 people run the LA Marathon every year, and most of them are locals. I was starting to feel like the only person in Los Angeles who hasn't run a marathon.

My reasons for sticking with the program for the first couple of months run far deeper. Raising money to help Angelenos with HIV and AIDS is a cause that's close to my heart. Los Angeles has the second-greatest population of people living with HIV and AIDS in the United States. It's as easy to avert our eyes from this problem as it is any other social ill, but I've been confronted with its human face. For two years I cared for Kevin, my friend and neighbor in Hollywood, who contracted HIV from his first serious boyfriend in the early 80s and had been living with full-blown AIDS for an incredible 15 years when I first met him.

Blind and ravaged by constant pain, Kevin nevertheless tapped around Hollywood bravely with his white cane and Floyd, his Labrador retriever, even though he had been robbed numerous times on its mean streets. He has yet to succumb to the disease that stole his middle age. His sister calls him the Energizer Bunny -- every time it looks like he's reached the end of the road, he dips into a seemingly bottomless well of strength and finds a way to carry on.

I know many others affected by HIV and AIDS. I'm drawn to outcasts, including recovering junkies, and methamphetamine and gay sex go together like peanut butter and jelly. Unfortunately, when meth addicts take the brave step of getting clean, they're often left with the sad legacy of HIV.

Several people I know rely on AIDS Project Los Angeles to provide them with things that many of us take for granted, such as a bag of groceries or a visit to the dentist. As the economy continues its downhill slide, the number of people affected by HIV and AIDS who turn to APLA for help will likely increase.

But none of these reasons explain why I'm still crawling out of bed on predawn Saturdays to run with my compatriots. After all, I raised the $1,600 required of the participants a couple of months ago. I could easily stay in bed on Saturday mornings with a clean conscience and most of the world would be none the wiser.

However, I'll be out there pounding the pavement with the rest of my group tomorrow even though I'm dreading the prospect of running 23 miles. And I guess I know why. There's a certain stubborn satisfaction to be had from completing what you start. To crossing the finish line, even if you do it on your hands and knees. I'm doing it for Kevin and Mark and Gerry and the rest of my friends with HIV and AIDS, but I need to add one more name to the list. I'm also doing it for myself.

Posted by Sara Catania at 10:46 AM | Permalink

I was in New York City for my weekly long run last Saturday (at a conference on the future of watchdog journalism -- if you’re dying to know more, go here, here, here and here) and was looking forward to running in Central Park.

The “loop,” as the asphalt pathway that curves along the park’s circumference is called, runs 6.2 miles. Not quite the 10 miles the rest of my pace group would be doing in LA, and I briefly considered running it twice. Until I got out there and discovered the truth about running in Central Park.

I knew instantly this was going to be different. It was cold—somewhere in the mid-40’s— not technically freezing, but cold enough that my fingers and ears felt icy.

Yet all around me people were running and walking in shorts and tank tops. One man was shirtless. I passed a woman in a floral shift who was strolling and talking into her cell phone. “Compared to last week it’s practically tropical,” she reported cheerfully.

And then there was the spit. A huge gob of it smack dab in the middle of the path. Then another and another.

At first I thought it was an anomaly. Some poor, spit-laden soul with no saliva control. A victim of salivary Tourettes.

But then I heard a throat clear behind me, followed by the unmistakable hocking of a loogie. I ducked reflexively and watched as the gob landed just to my right.

I heard it again and again. I was surrounded by hundreds, if not thousands of other runners, all of them, seemingly, spitting with abandon, transforming a day in the park into a massive, communal spit swap.

As if that weren’t enough, I saw two different people cover one nostril and blow out of the other one, letting the unencumbered fluid fly (Coach Scott later informed me that these are called "snot rockets" and are as rare in LA as they are disgusting).

I could not help but think of my seventh grade teacher, Sr. Rose, who lectured us long and hard about the horrors of spitting. She likened spitting to a sin, and I believed her. Who wants to walk around tracking someone else’s mouth goop on the bottom of their foot?

I was spat upon once, at the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago. I was in high school and had gone to see a production of Hamlet, with Aidan Quinn in the starring role. I had a great seat, right up front and when he spat on me in the midst of tackling some particularly calisthenic line, I took it as a compliment.

But marathoners and joggers are supposed to be running their legs, not their mouths, so what’s their excuse?

That night, while having dinner with a friend and his wife – longtime New Yorkers -- I described my ordeal.

Both looked at me blankly.

“And?” my friend said.

“And what?” I said. “Spitting and snotting all over the place. It’s vile.”

He deemed me a “princess” for my squeamishness. “What are you supposed to do,” he asked. “Carry tissue?”

“That wouldn’t work,” his wife agreed. “It would get all sweaty.”

“So it’s okay to do that?” I asked. “You guys do that?”

They nodded.

I know that indiscriminate spitting while running is not standard practice in California. I ran an 8K with thousands of other people – some of them serious runners -- and I didn’t see a single gob.

I remembered that my friend’s wife had grown up in Santa Barbara. I asked her she had ever spit or blown her nose into the street there.

She paused for a moment and giggled. “No. I wouldn’t do that.”

Posted by Sara Catania at 5:34 PM | Permalink

We are still a solid ten weeks until the Big Day, also known as the LA Marathon. It�s the home stretch. A time to do a few long runs and a lot of solid shorter runs. A time to watch one�s diet, get enough sleep and stay fit.

A time to think about the next marathon.

There we were, powering up for our post-20 mile recovery run, an easy 8-miler, when what should Coach Scott propose but that we all sign up for the Maui Marathon in September.

�The training starts in April,� he explained. �But the great thing is, you�re already training, so you just keep on with it and then after the LA Marathon, you just roll over to Maui training.�

Was it my imagination or did he linger on the word �Maui,� turning it into a rolling oli?

There I was, standing in the early morning cool of Griffith Park, imagining what Maui would be like in September, the month of back-to-school and my daughter�s birthday. The end of vacation and the return to seriousness, except for � Maui.

�Want to go to Maui?�

It was my friend Sara Stein, a much faster and more experienced runner than I. She grinned a little madly.

Two hot mamas on the loose in Maui. What could be more fun than that, I thought?

What I said was: �Do you want to tell my husband, or should I?�

That evening I went to the Maui Marathon website.

The Maui Marathon course is undoubtedly one of the most scenic marathon courses in the world. With over 17 miles of oceanfront running on what Conde Nast Traveler Magazine described as "The World's Best Island," the Maui Marathon is not just a race, it is a vacation in paradise.

Under the site�s runner feedback:

Just wanted to let you know that the Maui Marathon was my first marathon and I now know that I made an excellent choice. The race was well organized, support groups were great, expo was fun, carbo load was filling and announcers were entertaining. It was a challenging course for me and right after I finished I told my wife--not again. Within 48 hours, I change my mind. I will be back next year. Thanks again to everyone associated with the marathon, you all made my first marathon memorable.
Kevin J. Gorsek

The AIDS Project Los Angeles program provides training, airfare, hotel, marathon registration, the works.

All I�d have to do is raise another $3,600 by August� more than twice the sum required for the LA Marathon, in half the time.

And persuade my husband to take on childcare duties for another four months of Saturdays. And either skip off to Maui without my family or come up with the cash to bring them along.

And run another marathon.

Hmmm.

Posted by Sara Catania at 6:11 PM | Permalink

This past Saturday, as a hundred or so other marathoners-in-training and I were gearing up for a 20-mile sojurn, we got a quick motivational speech from Craig Thompson, director of AIDS Project Los Angeles.

AIDS is the leading cause of death for all people ages 15 to 59 worldwide, he reminded us. In Los Angeles County, improved treatment means that some 60,000 people are living with HIV/AIDS, more than ever before, and APLA is a key care provider for those who are uninsured or otherwise unable to afford care. Over time those costs add up. There is no cure for AIDS, no vaccine, no magic pill. Only careful management day after day.

As my co-runners and I wound our way through LA, Burbank, Toluca Lake, Toluca Woods and Glendale (Coach Scott calls it the five-city tour) we had plenty of time to ponder the value of the work APLA does, and our role in making it possible. Each of us is required to raise a minimum of $1,600, about half of which goes to fundraising costs and half to the cause.

I also began wondering about the significant role fundraising plays in marathons. In 2006, marathons and other running and walking events brought in $714 million for charity, according to a USA Track & Field study dug up for me by Brian Lampaa, the media director for Running USA.

That figure was up nearly 9 percent over 2005 and showed a steady rise since the annual charity survey began in 2002. Unfortunately Track & Field does not seem to have kept up with the survey in 2007 and 2008, but Lampaa says that all indications show that running – and the accompanying fundraising – are holding up despite the economic meltdown.

In LA, about half the 20,000 runners who typically participate in the annual marathon are affiliated with one of the event’s 45 official fundraising groups.

The bigger causes, like AIDS and cancer, actually contract with separate, dedicated entities such as AIDS Marathon and Team in Training to conduct their marathon training and fundraising programs.

How did this marathon fundraising juggernaut begin? I put the question to Jeff Galloway, the run/walk guru upon whose method the AIDS Marathon training program is based.

Here’s his emailed response:

During the mid to late 70's a growing number of customers in my Phidippides store would talk about the charity they were "running for". This was the first running boom but the number of marathoners was still small compared with today. As I reflect, training for a marathon during this time period was a bit odd for a middle aged person, and was often questioned by spouses, co-workers and bosses as a mid-life crisis that wasn't necessarily good. By raising money for a cause, the judgement of others shifted to "Well at least that mid life crisis that Joe is having is helping ________ (Jerry's kids, or whatever).

Even as early as 1977, I was conducting marathon training groups in 20+ cities and would estimate that about 10% of the group members were fund raising. Only a few of our programs before 1985 singled out one charity. The London Marathon was the first to promote charity involvement in a big way--from the early days of their race. I remember a presentation at a race director's meeting in the mid 1980's that had many directors thinking that charity involvement was the way of the future. At that meeting many of the old school directors didn't want to deal with charities and felt that this would turn our sport into a circus.

But in the big cities, by the mid 80's, the shutting down of the streets was already bringing the circus to marathon events. Purist race directors kept trying, in vain, to bring the media focus back to the world class competitors at the front. But finishing the marathon was becoming one of those major accomplishments in life for CEO's, movie stars, and hundreds of thousands of average people. The growth created the need for more city services, more police, etc. and race directors were spending more time in meetings to secure the routes they wanted. Even the purists realized that listing the charities and total funds raised during their event, in a meeting with the mayor, would increase their chances of securing the best course for the skinny folks up front.

By the early 90's, most of the larger marathons were encouraging the charity groups (Joints in Motion, Team in Training), which increased the enrollment, forcing enrollment limits and lotteries for entry. A growing number of those in our Galloway training groups, starting in the early 90's would raise funds for charities because this was their only ticket to the race of their choice.

So it’s a symbiotic relationship.

I, for one, would not be running at all if it were not for the fundraising component.

That and the shiny red and yellow AIDS Marathon brochure that called to me when I took my kids to Baskin Robbins for ice cream last summer.

Run a marathon, it said, even if you’ve never run before. Off I ran and joined the circus.

Posted by Sara Catania at 4:16 PM | Permalink