Family Portrait - 1981

Dad and Paco, me and Mom, circa 1981. I always liked this photo.

Reaganomics

Today, at the recommendation of my dear friend Jami, who works for the KU Alzheimer's & Memory Center and read over my fundraising letter for me, I went sniffing around for some statistics to add.

What I found has me totally pissed off. I tend to focus mostly on the devastating social effects of the disease, but the financial effects are staggering in their magnitude. Alzheimer's is costing our government $183 billion this year alone. That's $11 billion more than 2010, four times the national inflation rate. With new Americans developing symptoms every 69 seconds, by the time I'm 70, this amount will have ballooned to $1.1 trillion. After all, Alzheimer's and related dementias are the 6th-ranked killer of Americans today, and it's the ONLY one without a cure, hope of prevention, or way of decelerating the process.

(Other diseases rounding out that top ten have mortality rates that actually fell between 2000-2008, including heart disease, stroke, prostate/breast cancer, and HIV. Alzheimer's deaths, in contrast, rose 66%.)

Now, this isn't the space for discussing/debating politics, at least as long as BOTH sides are ignoring the issue. But seriously - with all this talk about national spending and expenses and debt ceilings and all this goddamn bickering in Washington, it kind of makes you wonder why the hell finding a cure isn't in the national interest.

I mean, for Christ's sake, REAGAN had Alzheimer's.

So here's my solution. Every time a politician or talking head goes out and throws the name Reagan around in any kind of political fiscal discussion, they should be required to donate $10 to Alzheimer's research. Stop blathering already, do some good, and put your money where your rapidly flapping mouth is.

[Source: 2011 Alzheimer's Fact Sheet]

Of Musicians and Marathoners

In the process of brainstorming for my fundraising letter, I had a thought.

When I played in my first violin recital, I was four years old. Despite a healthy desire to learn to play REAL music, and the beginner's love to practice, I could barely draw the bow across the strings without making a sound like a creature dragged straight from hell. Despite Mom and Dad's enthusiasm for my new undertaking, that can't have been entirely pleasant for them, but there they were, ushering me into the group of other beginners and taking their seats.

When your child can only play the rhythm for Mississippi Stop-Stop on the A string while the piano tinkles out the melody, a violin recital can be a long, drawn-out affair. It's a LOT of time watching other people's kids and clapping politely, followed by three or four minutes where she takes the stage to play the same screechy notes you flinched your way through at home. You cheer wildly, taking all sorts of photos. Then...more watching other people's kids. More polite clapping. You think, "Wow, she could actually be sort of good if she only practiced more." Then it's over and she comes to you and asks how she did, and you ask her how she feels, take more pictures, and tell her she was wonderful.

Dad was there for those early violin recitals, and he'll be in the crowds lining the streets of New York City when I run my second marathon. And really, after raising a violinist, the experience probably won't be all that foreign to him. After months and months of hearing about not-so-pretty training runs, some at a pace that could barely be considered running, he'll take his place on the street around the time I'm being dropped off at the starting line. It'll be a long, drawn-out affair, even if I finish in my goal time - 4 hours and 15 minutes. He'll spent a lot of time watching other people run past, clapping politely. Then, for a few moments, I'll be in his line of sight and he'll be able to cheer for ME, take pictures/video, etc. Then...more watching other people. More polite clapping. He'll probably be thinking, "Wow, she isn't that bad, but she could be pretty good if she trained more."

Beyond that, I can't really project what'll happen. With any luck, he'll be able to see me more than once on the course. Brian will be out there too, and my friend Elizabeth, who's pursuing her master's degree at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan. She's promised me signs. I've never had anyone make me race signs before, so I'm REALLY looking forward to that. And with her talent and sense of humor, I'm sure they'll be awesome.

And then, there will be food. Some of the best food in the world, in fact.

100 days to go!!!

Fundraising Letter - First Draft

I have a confession.

For someone who set her fundraising goal well above the minimum amount, I am absolutely terrible at asking people for money. In fact, there are only two people I've EVER felt comfortable asking, and one is sadly no longer in a position to have any to give.

So when I told myself I wasn't going to do any writing here until I finished my fundraising letter - pretty much the cornerstone of my effort - I had no idea it was going to take me THIS long. After all, I knew after last week that I wanted to center it around what I wrote on my fundraising page. That's probably the best piece of writing about this whole messy business that I've done to date, and if they pull out a checkbook instead of visiting my site, I want to make sure they've read that letter. But it was still difficult to get the expository stuff out without sounding like, well, a charity infomercial. I've been banishing images of homeless pets (to Sarah McLaughin's voice), starving Somalians, and harelipped children from my mind all afternoon. Argh.

For better or for worse, I wound up canning the PR stuff about the Alzheimer's Association and the statistics about the disease. I'm not trying to scare anyone into giving money - if they aren't partially intimidated to scared shitless about the deterioration of my mother's mind, they're probably not going to donate anyways. Even in the inevitable paragraph where I actually have to do the asking, I tried to put as much emphasis as possible on the personalized aspects of what's actually being lost here - not neurons or dollars spent on home health care providers or anything that can actually be quantified, but memories, both past AND future. And who can put a price on those?

Anyways, here's my first draft. Too weird? Based on what you've read of me, does this sound like me?

Dear ,

The news coming out of the Hodges household in recent years hasn’t exactly been the kind of stuff Christmas newsletters are made out of, so we stopped the presses quite awhile ago. If you haven’t seen me since Max and Jen’s wedding, you probably know me as a violinist, a writer, a golfer, mother to a huge furry dog Dad hates, a student, or some combination of those things – but probably not as a runner, let alone a marathoner.

With Mom’s mind steadily withdrawing and with Grandma Nancy’s recent passing, I’ve started doing a lot of things I never thought I’d do. A good portion of every day is devoted – whether I like it or not – to worrying about what’s going to happen to my family, especially Dad. I keep my phone on and with me at all times, in case someone needs me. I cry – a lot. And because things lately have a tendency of getting to be too much, too fast, I run.

Maybe I’m biased because she’s my mom and well, she wanted me so badly she sent for me from halfway around the world, but if you’re reading this, I have a hunch you agree – there’s nothing about Janet Elizabeth Henry Hodges that isn’t special and unique and wonderful. When she started losing her memories and her personality and everything that made her her, a big part of everyone who knew and loved her was lost, too. So when I decided I wanted to run a race in honor of Mom, there was no distance for me but the marathon – 26.2 miles – and no stage big enough but the streets of New York City.

So on November 6, 2011, before most people have started their first cup of Sunday morning coffee, I will be shaking off my nerves at the starting line of the biggest, most famous race in the world – the New York City Marathon. I am running as a member of Team Run2Remember, a group of 80something people who run in support of the Alzheimer’s Association to fight back against the disease that has stolen memories from our loved ones. So not only have I dedicated myself to completing a 26.2 mile race for only the second time in my life, I have set an ambitious fundraising goal of $6000, a small amount when stacked against all of the things I’ll never get to share or reflect on with Mom.

This is where you come in. I’ve never once thought this goal was unattainable because of all the people out there who love me AND my family, and who miss the real Mom with all their hearts. I’m writing to request your support with a tax-deductible donation to the Alzheimer’s Association in memory of all of her lost memories and the lost opportunity to make more. I can accept credit card contributions in any denomination on my personal New York City Marathon fundraising page, at http://2011teamr2r.kintera.org/elizabeth, or checks can be mailed, with the enclosed donation form, to my home address: XXXX, Kansas City, MO XXXXX. If you have questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch – elhodges@gmail.com, or (XXX) XXX.XXXX.

Of course, it would be remiss of me to ask for an “investment” in my undertaking without providing an investor report, of sorts. To this end, I’ve started a blog with the aim of writing about my life as framed by both my running adventures (and misadventures) and my experiences with Mom’s condition and the effects it’s had on my family. It’s usually not a very easy thing to write, and from what I’ve heard, it’s equally difficult to read, but if you’re interested, I’d love for you to join me there – http://roadfullofpromise.blogspot.com.

When I initially received notification of my acceptance to the team, Dad was the first person I called to tell the good news. It wasn’t until a couple of weeks later, when wrestling the best way to personalize my fundraising page, that I found the best way to tell Mom – by telling everyone who loves her.

Dear Mommy,
Remember the journal you gave me when I was younger – the shiny red one with the Labradorpuppies on the cover? You told me if there was anything I wanted to know and might be too embarrassed to ask out loud, I could write it in a note to you in that book and you’d write back to me. We only wrote back and forth a few times before one of us lost track of the book…but I found it on a bookshelf the other day. My silly questions – written in teeny tiny handwriting and all signed “Me” – made me laugh, but your careful, considered responses, written so non-judgmentally and with so much love, made me cry. I’ve put the book in a safe place, where it can still be our little secret.

When I couldn’t think of what to write here, that book was the first thing I thought of. Twentysomething years later, confronted with the need to “write something meaningful” on this page, the only way the words are actually coming to me are in a letter to you – and believe me, I’ve tried pretty much every other angle possible. I think this is what they call “coming full circle,” except, in a horribly unfair twist of fate, you’ll be the only one who doesn’t get to read it.

Remember the time you decided to move that ugly white-tiled coffee table from the living room to the family room and you had a 5 year old Max screaming and crying, clinging to your leg, begging you, “Don’t change! Don’t change!” I’m not sure if anyone else actually remembers that, but for some reason, I think of that moment a lot lately. At the time, I thought he was being stupid…but nowadays, there’s a big part of me that screams every time something happens that wouldn’t have if you were still healthy and wholly you. We know you’re not getting your memories back, and that your Mom-ness is gone, but as all of our lives move on without you, I think it’s like we feel the space all the more as time passes. Does anyone ever get used to having their heart broken over and over again? Would anyone ever WANT to?

If I were a more religious person, I could fill that emptiness with my faith in God and my belief that he has a plan for everyone…but I’m not. I believe in God, but I’m also pretty sure that this couldn’t be part of anyone’s plan. It’s horrible and evil and awful and we miss you every day, even though you’re still, in the vital signs sense of the word, with us. There are so many things I’d like to ask you, and so many moments I wish you could have been a part of, that it could crush me if I let it. I know the same is true for Hanna, Max, Alex, and Dad.

It seems like people pat me on the back an awful lot these days and tell me to take care of my family. But really, I think we take care of each other. After all, we learned from one of the best, and I think we do you proud in the way we’ve come together. It’s for you and Grandma that I’m signing up for this, but it’s with the strength of Hanna, Max, Alex, Dad, and everyone that loves you and misses the real you with all their heart that I’m going to be able to finish it. I can’t think of a nobler cause to run for than the end of this terrible disease that’s robbed you of your you, and so many families of the people they love most. I wish you could be there with me, but in a sense, you’ll be with me every step of the way. With any luck, we’ll get a chance to talk about it someday.

In the meantime, don’t worry if you can’t remember. We’ll never forget.

Love always,
Me

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for all your love and support.

Love,

Elizabeth

If you read this, would YOU donate?

eStarstruck!!!

I received a Twitter mention and a retweet from Bart Yasso today, in honor of Mom and the cause. Runners are the most awesome, most generous people ever.

Random Thing I Wish I Could Ask Mom

This will be the first of (I hope) many posts centered around the "Random Thing I Wish I Could Ask Mom" topic. VERY random. If anyone has any insight into any of these questions, or thinks they can fill the memory holes, please let me know.

For Memorial Day this year, Brian and I packed up the dogs (both of them) in his single-cab truck and drove to Randolph, Nebraska to visit his mother. The weather was cold and damp and didn't lend itself to doing much outdoors, so we spent some time driving around and looking at the town - the schools, the businesses, the homes of his friends. It took about 20 minutes, tops.

That his city actually has enough kids to support its own school system kind of surprised me - seems like most of the people I know that grew up in small towns have seen their schools bulldozed and students sent to some consolidated school a couple towns over. Brian and quite a few of his high school classmates wound up going to the University of Nebraska and studying engineering, so the Randolph school system must have been doing SOMETHING right, at least in math/science education.

And yet, they never did science projects or had a science fair.

My suburban-raised response: "What do you MEAN, you never had a science fair? How can you consider yourself properly educated if you never did a science project?"

Of course, if you asked Brian, he'd probably tell you I didn't do a science fair project either - Mom did. Which might be about 40% true, and that's a pretty low percentage for where I grew up. Smart parents were the #1 weapon in a Westwood View Elementary School student's arsenal. They may not have technically done the work, but in a time before Internet made all the finer points of a science project and professional-looking presentation available to a fifth grader, having willing/able/eager parents made anything possible.

The first and pretty much only project stipulation was that we were not permitted to experiment on animals. I understood why that rule existed - the thought of a bunch of budding grade school animal torturers comes to mind - but I was still sorely disappointed that I couldn't do something with dogs, my favorite animals after I figured out unicorns probably didn't exist. So somehow, Mom came up with the idea of working with spiders.

And not just any spiders - specifically, the Spiny-Backed Orb Weaver (gasteracantha cancriformus), a small crab-like spider that looks like it hitched a ride straight out of hell. Apparently, they're quite common in the south, between Florida and Texas, but I'd never seen anything quite so creepy looking in person.

I never remember Mom showing any particular interest in spiders one way or the other. She was neither disgusted nor fascinated - webs were just another thing to clean out of the corners of the ceiling or point out to us, if she saw a particularly large and interesting one. (I also remember carefully pressing an orb web suspended on the back porch into a piece of sun-print paper and laying it out in the sun. As the paper darkened, the web stood out in bright contrast. Pretty cool.) But because she was a teacher, and a good one, she made ordering a bunch of red-and-black monsters from Carolina Biological and observing the effects of light on their web-spinning habits seem...well, normal. So normal I never really thought to ask why she put that particular idea into my head.

Twenty years later, driving down a muddy gravel road in a small Nebraska farm town discussing the merits of science projects as a part of the elementary curriculum, I wished I knew. It's a memory hole - not a big one, but it's there. In this case, not knowing why makes it sound like Mom did all the work and Brian is vindicated.

I know she'd back me up, if she could.

The Long & The Short Of It

After last weekend, I'm pleased to announce my IT band and I are no longer on speaking terms.

This is fantastic news. After bitching at me for months and months of training runs and resisting my attempts to tame it with therapy, it finally threw such a temper tantrum that it took me out of the running - literally - at the Illinois Marathon. After a day of legs so stiff I couldn't walk from the car to the front door of the place we stopped for lunch, it went quiet.

After a couple of days, I went for a very easy 4 mile run on Dauphin Island's asphalt trail, just to see if I could. Followed up with lots and lots of walking - on the beach and the streets of New Orleans. No word from the IT band.

I cautiously eased myself back into a regular run routine to see if it had anything to say. Nope.

Against the advice of my sports chiro, I ran the Hospital Hill Half-Marathon (at very easy effort. It was a HOT one!) Still, nothing.

So this weekend, with 14-18 miles on the schedule, I took it for a 17 mile spin at my shiny new long run training pace, just to see if it had any famous last words. Nope. Crickets.

Unfortunately, my GI tract decided to fill the silence - it had all sorts of things to say, and none of it was good. I was in luck that there were 3 bathrooms on the course, instead of the 1 that was marked on the map, because I needed all three of them in a bad, bad way. I'll spare the gory details, but let's just say the subsequent dehydration slowed me down a little and gave me a whole new appreciation for people who die of dysentery. Once I'd emptied my system completely and was sufficiently rehydrated, I was able to salvage the run and picked the pace up for a nice 10:14 average. I consider that permission to proceed from "cautious" to "cautiously optimistic" that the demon has been exorcised and my IT band will scream no more. (Knocking on wood, though, just in case!)

Even with fresh painful memories of an angry IT band, I wasn't too concerned about running 17 miles in the heat. I never have been. I'm a good student of distance running - I know all about conservation of efforts, holding back/settling in/finishing strong, adequately refueling at the aid stations, gauging my effort by my breathing (never over conversation pace!), and running at 9:30, 10, 10:30, and 11+ pace.

What got inside my head and psyched me out was not the prospect of a 17 mile run, it was the prospect of a 2 mile run - a time trial for the speed sessions I'm enrolling in to train myself to be a faster, more efficient, stronger runner.

Confession: I've never run anything shorter than a half-marathon. I limped (shin splints) most of a 4 miler just to get the notch on my belt and the experience of having run a race prior to my first half, and I did an easy-paced 8K a couple weeks after the Kansas City Marathon, but neither left me with much of an impression about what "run all-out for 2 miles" meant...except not to go out so fast that I'd wind up walking - or vomiting - along the way.

It's actually sort of ironic - I have a horrible habit of running down the first mile of a weekday training run like it stole something, instead of warming my muscles up at a lowered, reasonable pace for a mile or two before taking off. It's something I've been trying to train my way out of, but when your runs are the best parts of your day AND the only way you decompress, it's kind of hard not to get started as quickly as possible. So it wasn't really the first mile that scared me - it was the second. Thinking back, I'm not sure I've ever actually run two consecutive hard miles before without SOME kind of stop. 10 seconds, say, for Recon to go to the bathroom, 3 seconds to stretch my hamstrings, fix my hair, get a drink, a traffic light - things so insignificant that the only impression they leave is the tiny dent in the Garmin pace readout, but things that would give me that extra couple of seconds to rest, stretch my muscles, drink, catch my breath, whatever - before I took off again.

Either way, I was going into this with absolutely no expectations whatsoever. Because I'd been so plagued with injuries since I started racing, I knew all about playing it cautious, stopping to walk when it hurts, etc. and had absolutely no idea of what 100% effort feels like for me. I figured with any luck, it'd be something BELOW the lowest mile split of my training runs - 8:45 is the lowest for a mile that wasn't net downhill, I think. (I did an 8:20 last week, but that was with a stop for water in the middle.) But either way, I would have been happy with pretty much anything, as long as I didn't commit either of the above sins - walking, or vomiting. In fact, I'm pretty sure that would have been my first AND last speed session if I vomited. It's weird enough being known as "Brian's friend" by people who don't know me; I'm not sure if I could handle the "speed session vomiter" label.

When I first voiced my concerns, my Boston-qualifying (and speed session veteran) friend Jen reminded me that the time trial is just a jumping-off point from which to improve your times as the speed sessions go on. I tried to remind myself of that as I did a short warmup run with my friend Rachel, who's running her first marathon in September. "Warmup" probably wasn't a good word for what we were doing - it was, in fact, more like a slow wringing out of fluid. The thermostat in my car on the way home read 100 degrees, and the McDonalds billboard on the way to the session read 103. About one-third of the course was in the shade, but of course the breeze was totally cut off on the second third, on the sunny side of the abandoned strip mall. The final third weaved through a couple of medians, then we were back to the start - a 1/2 mile, mostly flat loop. And Brian was recording splits, so there wasn't going to be any hiding how I finished, either.

After warming up (2mi) and then icing down with lots of ice, wet towels, and drinking a few final cups of water, we were off. And yes, it was hot. The first loop was easy - I just let my legs fly like I would in the first mile of a regular training run. The second, I started to try to pick people off here and there, while still keeping an ear on my breathing and effort. I ran the first mile well - my Garmin says 7:47, but the split called was 8:02, so I took that. The third, I backed off a little, and my Garmin data shows it - instead of a pace mostly in the 7s, I ran a pace mostly in the 8s. It's almost like a brain scan - I was thinking, "Do I REALLY want to push this and wind up in a more difficult pace group that's going to kick my ass each and every week?"

For the final loop, I was pretty much out of gas. I started out promisingly with a 7:14 pace but quickly dropped back to 8s and even low 9s when I got in the sun and the breeze died. It wasn't until the finish line was in sight that I started moving my arms to make up for the deficit I was feeling in my legs, not giving a damn about how loudly I was breathing, driven not by time or inspiration or happy thoughts...I just wanted to be effing DONE. My pace jumped up from an 8:21 to a pretty amazing (for me) 5:51 and held there for 30 seconds...and then it was over.

16:18. I did it. My first timed short run, ever. I didn't walk, I didn't vomit, I didn't die. Winner, winner.

The icing on the cake was being told that my NYC Marathon goal - the one having so much doubt cast on it - was probably about 15 minutes...conservative.

"The average finishing time for a female marathoner, believe it or not, is a 4:30. You could probably easily finish in 4:05, 4:10," Eladio said, "or even 4. I'd say 4:15 is very doable."

So, if I can run slightly faster than needed for a 4:15 marathon, I can give myself a little bit of a time cushion. I can drink extra, if needed, at aid stations. I can take a couple of pictures, maybe one with my family. And I can finally stop worrying about getting waylaid by that all-important marathon-goal-time-killing X-factor - my GI tract.

NYC Marathon Goal: 4:15.

...if I can stay healthy, that is.