Danielle, Queen of The Desert

Marathon Update: Week 8

Hello people of the world!

Among other things, Griffith Park and the adjacent neighborhood in Glendale are known for the equestrian adventures you can have there.  There are paths designated for horse travel, street signs are posted a bit higher than normal to accomodate riders, even bikers must share their lanes with horses.  And today during our group 10-miler we ran through these areas.

Couple this fact with that of my trying to squeeze the last possible mile out of my most recent pair of running shoes before having to get another pair closer to the Marathon itself, out of budgetary concerns-- and the fates collided today ... when I ran and stepped smack into the largest pile of horse poo ever seen.  Now, you'd have to be pretty self-absorbed to miss a pile as big as can easily be seen from space, but indeed that's what I managed to do. 

And so, following the "eeuuuww"s of my companions, and the "how did you not see that"s, a stench stronger than the power of a thousand red-hot suns followed me for the remaining 8 miles.  But no matter, because karma will someday be on my side!  I hope.

In the meantime, let's hear it for the free expression of horses!  And for the shoe companies who thrive on oblivious people like me who float around in our own little worlds until the s--- hits the shoe, and we then must buy more from them. 

Let's also hear it for the folks who are doing their best to live the best life they can in spite of fortune's other ways of providing landmines.  AIDS Project LA does what it can to provide them with the services necessary to assist them where assistance and prevention is needed.  And they can't do that without us.  I have until August 25th to raise at least $3000 more dollars and make the difference I can make, and I in turn can't do that without you.  So, if you can and would like to give a tax-deductible donation in any amount, or even are able to be a water volunteer for our training runs, please go to http://www.aidsmarathon.com/participant.asp?runner=LA-4492&EventCode=FL06, or www.aidsmarathon.com, click on 'Sponsor a Runner' and enter my runner #4492 to read more about what's provided by your generosity.  Or call me directly at 323.828.2040.

Thanks again for your continuing kind attention.  We're having fun, shrinking our thighs, and making a difference, and I can think of no bigger a win-win situation.  And for those of you who've already contributed, you are my knights in shining armor, riding ... horses ... that leave a spotless trail.  Thank you!

xoxo

Danielle D.

Marathon Update: Week 7

Hello, My Life's People!

For this week's update, there are two things I'd like to say:  1) it's hot, and 2) no, really, it's HOT!  Whatever part of the country you're in, it seems we have this in common.  So perhaps you can well imagine that when someone says to you, "...and now we're going to run 8 miles," you want to laugh, or cry, or possibly even hose that person down as you pull the back of their shorts over their head and set their car on fire.  Yes.  Perhaps you know.

But run we did, through Griffith Park toward Toluca Lake on Sunday.  And everyone was a trouper.  Even the clouds of gnats (ah, summer) that we'd run through and occasionally accidently swallow to their death as we tried to sneak a breath.  Why, no kidding, this was an unparalleled marriage of nature and human.  Walt Whitman might write it like this:

                           

'Sort me for Nature's sake,

Souveneirs of summer, gather the welcome signs,

the elastic air...

the smoggy haze, the clinging smoke of wildfires,

the lingering flies searching out the horse poop all around

yum, a warble of joy

Thou, Soul, unloosen'd-- the restlessness after I know not what;

Come! let us lag here no longer-- let us be up and away

Before I hurt myself or someone else!'

Okay, so he didn't write that.  But really, folks, the 'icky' was put in 'sticky;' it was hot.  Heat stroke hot.  So hot I don't remember a thing about the run.  I think my right knee hurt, but I was in a version of a coma by the time I threw myself in a cold tub upon getting home.  I vaguely recall thinking, "What is a knee for, really?" just before speaking in tongues.

One thing I do remember, though, pretty clearly.  At a water stop around mile 5 was a gentleman who said, "Thank you," after I thanked him for the nectar of the gods he had set up there, which I was guzzling.  He went on to tell my running partners and I that, living with AIDS, he'd been the beneficiary of AIDS Project Los Angeles' services for several years, and that the quality of his life wouldn't have been possible without the money that is raised and donated each year, most particularly by the folks taking on these marathon challenges each year, as he put it.  I swallowed a gnat and got over myself.  I was brought back to what we're really up to, and to what is at stake.

We are living in a world where it often seems that more people will die tomorrow at each other's hands than will live because of them.  We are confronted with the world's 'problems' every day, increasingly so, it seems, and on top of it we have those of our own.  And so I use this moment in which I've got your attention to thank you for even giving this matter that, whether you've chosen to donate to APLA on my behalf or not.  Here you are, reading, and lending your awareness even in spite of the many 'problems' calling for your attention.  Even that degree of generosity has it's own kind of ripple effect in the world, don't think it doesn't.    Whitman would like that, as I do:

'I am larger, better than I thought;

I did not know I held so much goodness.

I give you my hand!

I give you my love, more precious than money,

I give you myself, before preaching or law;

Will you give me yourself?  Will you come travel with me?

Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?'

              --Walt Whitman, "Song of the Open Road," [1900]

                                                   

Thank you for who you are, no matter what,

Danielle D.

P.S.:  Feel free to please foward this email to anyone you think might appreciate an opportunity to make a difference.  As ever, to learn more, you can go to www.aidsmarathon.com, and after reading, you can enter my Runner #4492, and make a tax-deductible contribution in any amount, should you choose to do so.  You can also click directly on the link below, or call me directly to discuss it: 323.828.2040.  And as always, my deep thanks to those who've already taken this step.  You are an inspiration.

http://www.aidsmarathon.com/participant.asp?runner=LA-4492&EventCode=FL06

Marathon Update: Week 6

Infamous rapper Eminem's biopic was called '8 Mile.'  A pretty good flick, really, if you consider it really could have been quite bad, given the soap operatic nature of his life theretofore.  This is apropos of nothing, other than as I managed to fold my sweaty self into my car after Saturday's group training run, I considered the soap operatic quality of my own pursuits in my own overblown mind-- even my biopic flashed across it's screen (IMAX, of course), entitled: '7 Mile.'

Yes, this past weekend we worked it up to 7 miles (more on my pace group in the weeks to come).  I myself had bronchitis, a chronic condition that-- when it chooses to suddenly knock on the door and want to borrow a cup of sugar-- reminds me just how valuable being able to breathe freely really is.  But during the run, I felt relatively great and familiar and also reminded that some wheezing and hacking never hurt anyone, especially when I know it will eventually pass.

(Eminem's mentor, hip-hop artiste Dr. Dre, had a multi-platinum, Top 10 album called 'The Chronic.'  Again, apropos of nothing, other than discovering in my running adventures that everything about me is chronic.  Yo.)

In even bigger news, however, for my chronically inflamed knees I finally crossed that river Denial, ventured into the arthritis/incontinence/general-decline section of the drugstore, and bought some individual liquid ice packs that drape nicely over each as I put my feet up and read a fine novella titled, "WHY Am I Doing This Again?"  (But, at least no more making the most of bags of frozen peas which would suddenly burst open at the most inopportune times last year.  Yum, dusty peas from under the couch.)  Unfortunately, with first use I missed the warning label on these packs... you know, the warning label that reads: 'With sustained direct contact, this will rip your skin off if you don't put something like a towel between your skin and this.'  Luckily, I prefer pants to any other article of bottom-half clothing, although my clueless lack of vanity goes wasted as my raw and skinned knees remain innocuously hidden from the public and I am subject to no askew glances whatsoever.

I joke, of course.  This entire project, as regards my getting back in shape, is all in good fun, and the HIV/AIDS community I'm also doing it for by and large has a lot more at stake and much more to contend with.  Life and death stuff.  You know. 

But truthfully my knocked-knees are quaking in their boots because I've so far raised $265 towards the $3,800 minimum I must reach by August 25 (7 weeks from now) in order to qualify to run for AIDS Project Los Angeles in the Florence Marathon-- a finely-tuned, bionic woman by then or not.  By this time last year (and granted I started earlier last year), I'd raised $1845 from over 30 sources, and that was before ever staging an official fundraiser event.  I was told about this... Tougher the second time around?  For who?  'Ain't nuthin' but a G thang'.  Almost four 'G's, as a matter of fact!

Thanks to each of you who've contributed so far, and so quickly-- it's only because of your faith and generosity that I've been driven to single-handedly keep the ice-pack industry in business over the past 2 weeks.  It's only because of you that men, women and children living with HIV/AIDS are provided the services that are vital to them, and similars in other communities see what is possible.  The place to go for the rest of you who might want to know more, or give of yourself again, is www.aidsmarathon.com.  Click on 'LA', and enter my runner # 4492.  Or just go directly to my webpage: http://www.aidsmarathon.com/participant.asp?runner=LA-4492&EventCode=FL06.  Your contribution is of course tax-deductible, yet priceless.

A great sage, Eminem, knows:

"But the beat goes on
Duh duh doe, duh doe, dah dah dah dah...

So here I go, it's my shot
Feet fail me not
Cuz maybe the only opportunity that I got...

You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow
Cuz opportunity comes once in a lifetime, yo'

...Lose yourself"

Grazie !