Less-Wordy-Than-Usual Wednesday: Stamps

I will not miss this passport photo.

OK, there was one nice thing about it: I never had to wonder what the worst photo ever taken of me would look like. Because I had that photo. It’s right there.

I was 20 when I got that passport. I remember standing in the post office in downtown Erie, PA, as the clerk took photo after photo, struggling to view them on the bulky digital camera they’d just started using for passport photos, finally declaring she’d gotten something suitable. I shudder to think what the others looked like.

So no, I will not miss this passport photo.

But I will miss these stamps.

A record of a life lived. Our honeymoon to Madeira, when we almost got stuck in Lisbon and boarded the plane with hand-written tickets. Paris, just months later, when we’d gotten paid a ludicrous lump sum to move out of our old apartment and decided to spend it in another country. Costa Rica, where we crashed someone else’s 30th birthday party in the jungle.

I didn’t plan for my passport year to line up with my decade, but I’m glad it does. Starting my 30s with a literal fresh book. Blank pages to fill.

I eagerly await my new license to adventure.

Wordless(ish) Wednesday: I Got My Snow!

I’d heard it was supposed to start snowing sometime on Tuesday, and when I finally parted the curtains mid-morning (after a late wake-up prompted by late-night Boggle-playing), I saw this:

Yeah, that's through a window screen. With an iPhone. Sorry.

I went upstairs and my brother-in-law gestured to the window and said, “No running today, eh?” And then he realized I was wearing running clothes.

It was thick, slushy snow, and the air was warm enough that it wasn’t really freezing — a little slippery, sure, but not slick like my one “OK-this-is-my-limit” run on iced-over snow-packed sidewalks last year. So I ran, slowly, carefully, as giant snowflakes caught in my eyelashes and flew with surprising velocity into my open, stupid-grinning mouth.

Wordless(ish) Wednesday: Playlist Redux

After all that buildup, I never actually shared my Miami playlist.

It didn’t exactly turn out to be “Songs for a Sub-2,” but it was “songs for not giving up on an overpass bridge somewhere in Miami and just walking the last four miles because who cares anyway.”

The only disappointment, actually, was the Pop Culture Happy Hour I picked. Man, I love that show, but as it turns out, I don’t want to listen to a segment about favorite Christmas songs when it’s 80 degrees.

Other than that, though, all my old favorites came out to play. “Shoreline” came on somewhere on an overpass, which seemed appropriate. And “Past in Present” and “Shine a Light” were the last two songs I heard as I ran to the finish, and somehow getting my footfalls to match their beat kept me moving forward when I really, really just wanted a nap.

The only downside of making one giant playlist with all my favorite running songs? Now I need some new ones for 2012.

Wordless(ish) Wednesday: Personal History

This is how I’ve gotten where I’m going.

Saucony Guides, November 2008-April 2010. My wonderful former podiatrist found these for me. I ran my first race in these, and I wore them so hard there’s a huge hole in the back inside heel lining.

Saucony Rides, April 2010-November 2010. Bad idea shoes, only purchased when the updated Guides proved to be too wide. Ran my first half-marathon in them, but they were way too neutral for me, and I ended up with Achilles tendonitis and six weeks off.

Asics 3020s, January 2011-June 2011. Love, love, loved these shoes. Ran the Kaiser half in them in February; ran all over Europe in them in May and June. But I wore out the mesh starting in March, poking a giant hole over each big toe, and had to give them up before their time.

Asics 3030s, June 2011-September 2011, still depressing. As great as the 3020s were for me, these were trouble from day one — blistering, painful, just not right. The IT band injury scapegoat.

Brooks Adrenalines, October 2011-present. The current champ — Nike+ pouch on one shoe, Road ID on the other. These are the 11s; I didn’t like the 9s or the 10s but these have been a dream.

Purple Brooks Adrenalines. The future. They’ll be safely tucked away in the closet until January or so, when the red ones will be easing into retirement.

(Not pictured: Mizuno Nirvanas, my favorite damn shoe I’ve ever run in except that they made both of my big toes feel bruised on any run over four miles; New Balance something-somethings, heavy and disastrous and it’s probably best that I don’t remember them.)

Wordless(ish) Wednesday: Meet Penelope

I don’t think we’ve been formally introduced.

She is hard to photograph well in my tiny hallway.

She’s a Trek Lexa SLX, found on super-sale at a sporting goods store that at first didn’t seem promising, given that it only sold Treks and had nothing in the size I was expecting to need. But she was there, and small enough, and perfect.

Penelope is actually a stolen name (it was also the name of my Powerbook). I don’t name a ton of things in my life, apparently just computers and modes of transportation, so it shouldn’t have been hard to come up with something original, but she looked like a Penelope to me. Especially that subtly-patterned-almost-floral-but-not-quite-that-girly silver grip tape.

She lives in the hallway, and I plan to take her out for regular care and feeding.

Wordless Wednesday: Hello, Lovah

Elevation chart for the Latin Music Miami Beach Half Marathon:

That is the way to a San Francisco runner’s heart.