Do You Play Through the Pain?

I’ve had a lifetime of joyful physical activity. From a childhood on the beach with hours spent in the ocean, on bikes, in the sand playing soccer and volleyball or hiking in the cliffs, there was never a day we kids weren’t in motion. As a teen I learned to love running and as a college student I took up mountaineering and cycling, both on the road and on the trails. Early adulthood brought me back to running and it was only during the 2007 City of Angels Half Marathon …

RA and Non-Remissions

I hate the word remission because I’m not in one. I’ve never been in one. I mean technically the first 38 years of my life were a remission and the next 50 will be something else. Today’s an injection day and one of the reasons I’m grateful for an every 25 day injection schedule is that I only feel like a patient every 25 days. For some reason aches and pains don’t make me feel like a patient. Fatigue does. I find the fatigue to be the most debilitating part …

My Running is About to Become a Figure of Speech

Running hurts too much. I’ve got this weird space in my life where I love to run and being in motion makes me feel centered and sane. Unfortunately running is doing permanent damage to my joints. I feel great when I run. Who doesn’t? It’s an incredible feeling when both feet are off the ground. Unfortunately by the end of a run I feel throbbing in my feet and then an hour later in my hips. The next morning my toes feel like they’re on fire. This is the arthritis …

Training with Rheumatoid Arthritis

I used to love running. Running has been my link to sanity in every difficult moment of my life. I ran as a child, as a teen and as an adult. I ran short and long distances and I’ve always loved running in the hills. I love running downhill and taking flight almost as much as I love running up hill and feeling fire in my lungs. When I can’t shut my brain off I go for a run and it fixes everything. It’s been my meditation, my therapy and …

Grace Jones Licked my Arm and I Went Running with Snot on my Shirt

Last night Alexander had a baseball game that didn’t end until almost 7pm. I threw two tired and dusty kids in the car, ran through the drycleaner to grab Mr G’s clothes (they love it when he doesn’t come to work naked), and then headed off to my favorite Gastropub. Mr G says that Gastopub is a horrible name made up by elitist hipsters. I tend to agree with him, but it is a gastropub and it’s frequented by families like ours who want to cling the mistaken notion that …