MeSoFun Blog

This is about where the pain started Saturday. Why do you run if it sucks so much? This is a very valid question I was asked a month ago. Runners complain. Your hands go numb and you complain. You slip and fall and you complain. You get intestinal cramps during a run and you need a bathroom NOW. It's humbling. I complain a lot. Why bother? There isn't an easy answer to that. It was a question The Devil was asking over and over Saturday morning as I ran through a picturesque half-marathon on the Maine coast. Why bother with this? Like any large race, the Maine Coast Half Marathon started runners in a herd. About 350 of us took off from the Biddeford UNE campus at 8 a.m. Saturday. We headed across a busy road and shuffled ahead in the breakdown lane of a major road for a mile. It was horrendous. We were elbow-to-elbow in a pack of runners, and it was impossible to find a comfortable stride. Just don't fall over. I ran a 10 minute, 30 second starting mile; I had trained to run

Rat and Packie, as they are known in the family.  Mom doesn't like Mother's Day. Scratch that. She hates Mother's Day. She's serious about this. "It's just a way to sell ya a bunch of junk," Ma will tell you. She told me in my teens, long after she stopped receiving hand-drawn cards from her kids: "I'd rather you tell me you love me every other day of the year than on Mother's Day." Here we are, the longest possible period of time to next year's Mother's Day. Other moms got their cards and flowers and moved on to work today. Mom would have thrown her card out by now, probably. Scanning the Florida coast for her youth and vitality, stolen from her at the tender age of 27. By me. She's a pragmatic lady. She came by it honestly. Grandma worked as a vice president in a Florida bank back when women didn't work as vice presidents at banks. And she had four kids at home, which probably explains why she parented in a certain way.