runner. cave diver. SQL nerd. weirdo. writer. bird lover. cat person. melomaniac.
The inevitability,
A staccato muted drum
Spaced at an interval far enough apart
As to render it barely perceptible
Beneath the ebb and flow of the daily mundane.
It waits,
Subtly tugging with barely the friction
Of a thick carpet pile’s drag, pushing with the resistance of a mild headwind.
Just present enough to remind you that eventually,
The time will come.
© pinarosana 2024
Dream report, from my nap just now. (TLDR) Never mind me; I do this.
I was so tired and was like “why am I staying awake; it’s Saturday?” I lay down for a nap and was out fast. I went into a deep sleep for an hour and a half. Weird dream.
I was at my condo in Sarasota. I parked in the carport and the person next door got home and put like 5 pairs of big gothic boots down at her door on the way in. I asked her if they were her shoes. She seemed young for a 55+ community; she was maybe my age, or a little younger. She said yeah, but I could have them. I walked over to her door and saw inside along the wall were racks of videos and cassette tapes along the wall. I thought that was a good idea; I had so many video tapes and cassette tapes. I saw that she had a Skinny Puppy VHS. It was the 1996 video collection.
Her daughter came home. She was super tan, like too tan really, with dark hair and side braids, wearing a bikini top and jeans, I think. Looked like a crusty bartender from a beach bar. She passed by me and went inside. They started talking amongst themselves. I moved on, looked for my car and realized I had parked it at the wrong condo. Went to find it. (It wasn’t my actual car in the dream.)
As I headed towards where I thought I had parked it, a big construction excavator scoop was throwing dirt everywhere. I got to my car, and it looked like a tractor had driven over it. It was dirty and covered with tracks, but was unharmed, so I got in to move it to the right place. Some old man was walking around the circle, so when I was trying to move it down the road and across, I backed in between 2 other cars on the side of the road first, to get out of his way. He shook his head at me, because that wasn’t a parking spot, and kept walking while scowling at me disapprovingly. I drove off, around the circle, did a donut in the road and headed back to my condo. I had apparently inherited this condo from some older lady who I didn’t know. There was some stuff in there.
The lights were dim. I couldn’t get them to turn on fully. My friend Garrett was there, and he was going to do some work on the condo for me. He was asking me what I wanted done. I started telling him some things. As I was telling him, I walked into the next room. In the center of that room was a large rectangular thing, about 7′ long x 5′ wide x 8′ tall. It had vertical sections about 2-3 feet tall, in which there were various pets.
I told my friend, “oh my, there are bunnies in here, and a bunch of fish” They probably need fed; I don’t know how long this lady has been gone. I don’t know how to feed fish. Can you help me? And what about these bunnies? There are so many of them.
My friend came in the room, climbed in the top section of the thing, all sideways-like. There was some sort of jungle environment with a parrot (a Red Lored Amazon parrot) perched on a rope in there. There was also a chicken (a hen) in there, and some other animals I couldn’t see in that top jungle section. He had his whole body in there, lying inside the top of the terrarium, and he grabbed the parrot by the body. I warned him that the bird was probably going to bite him. The bird bit him. He let it go. Then the hen grabbed the parrot and stuffed it in her mouth, like a magic trick, and the parrot popped it’s head out of her mouth. They had done this trick before, it seemed.
I told Garrett that I definitely needed the electrical worked on soon, because it was way too dark in there, and that I would probably need a cat door to go from the living room into the screened area, which I wanted made into an enclosed sunroom. He was out of the terrarium by then.
Then I woke up, with a headache.
If you read all of that, you really need to find something else to do with your Saturday. And so do I, now that I brain dumped that here and my headache went away in doing so.
I ran the REVEL Mt. Charleston Marathon on April 6, 2024. This was my 29th full marathon, in my 16th U.S. State. My official finish time was 3:44:34, an 8:34 pace. It was extremely painful. Also, this was my first real altitude run (7633 ft. elevation at the start) and the altitude made some things very difficult. I really didn’t expect it to be as difficult as it was, for either my muscles or for my lungs. It was a struggle to get enough oxygen. There were lots of complications when I tried to do anything. Shredding layers of clothing, for example, put me over the edge every time because of the additional effort that took.
The muscular pain began at mile 7. It really intensified around mile 10, by mile 16 I felt like I was dying because my legs hurt so bad. A runner encouraged me at that point, and it truly did help my mental state so much, although the pain never went away. In the second half of the marathon, after the pain had me reeling, everything was bothering me. There was this one person who was doing intervals and kept passing me and then I would pass her. Normally it would have been great, but she had a very loud foot strike, and it was just getting on my nerves. As this went on over and over again, and I was in the pain bubble, it was very difficult not to associate her with the pain. I know better, but it was overload for me.
I got some GoPro footage of the race, although less than I would’ve liked because it was all so much to deal with. In the beginning my dexterity was really bad, between being very cold and having on so many layers of clothes. Later I was just in too much pain and was more concerned with managing that than doing much else.
When I tried to turn on my Shokz OpenRun (bone conduction headphones), which I had never run with before (rule #1, nothing new on race day, was broken here), I couldn’t figure out how to get the power on and had a mild panic attack. I had waited until the last minute to power them on. Thankfully, I found someone to help me.
The start of the race was icy and there was snow everywhere. I was very worried about my footing initially. The first couple miles were particularly icy. I never felt a slip beneath me though, not even a little. They were cautioning us to be careful, so I was. Mile 1 was slower than it would’ve been because I didn’t want to fall. It was in the low 20s and windy. I bought a big wool overcoat at Goodwill, something nobody would ever run in, and ditched it at the start. I also bought a fluffy jacket to wear underneath that, which I ended up ditching around mile 3. I had planned to wear it to mile 5, but I didn’t need it. My heart rate was really high from the elevation, and that warmed me. The sun also came up and that made me more warm. Later I removed the second pair of gloves (those were throwaway gloves), then the ear warmer headband, then the buffs (I wore 2), my hat, my arm warmers, and finally my primary pair of gloves, all at various stages during the race. I ended up losing one of my buffs somewhere. Thankfully that was the only accidental loss. Removing clothing was difficult while going fast, but I hate being cold, so I wore a lot of stuff. I also had hand warmers in my bra and in my gloves, which I ditched (always at an aid station, where there were trash cans.) I checked a pair of underwear, pants, a long sleeve shirt, and a mylar blanket in my gear check bag for the finish. I’m glad I did that. Once the race was over, I got cold very quickly. During the race it was full sun, which was helpful at the start, but I didn’t love it towards the end. I prefer overcast. It still wasn’t overwhelmingly hot, but the Sun was bothersome, and just a bit too warm; it would have been better without it.
I felt my muscles threatening to cramp several times during the race, and I was really not able to bother with getting my BASE Electrolyte Salt out of my handheld. I had forgotten to bring the sublingual Hylands for before the race. I felt like I had too much going on with the pain, the GoPro, and the shedding of clothing. I just breathed through the cramps and thankfully, that worked to keep them at bay.
After the race I met up with my friend Jacque, from the Atlanta Track Club. She completely crushed her goals and is truly an inspiration. It was nice to have someone to hang out with afterwards. I met a couple of her friends and we stayed and talked for a while before getting on the bus to head back to the strip.
I set an “official time” personal record by 2:21, and I now have a 10:26 buffer on my Boston Marathon qualifying time for 2025! Apparently, my marathon distance time was still better at Marine Corps in 2017 (thanks, Strava, for pointing that out, so now I still have to beat that) but my official time wasn’t as good as MCM because of the amount by which I exceeded true marathon distance at that race (26.6), whereas this one I got closer to accuracy with 26.32. Every little bit matters.
I achieved my goal, which was sub 3:45. I abandoned my stretch goal when I felt like I was dying from the pain during mile 16; I renegotiated with myself to do whatever I could to at least hit my primary goal. It was questionable, because I was in a lot of pain for a very long time. I’m so thankful I was able to make it happen.
I’m calling it a win. But not enough of a win that I don’t think I can beat it sometime. 
Sorry that I didn’t get to this sooner. I have now pre-dated the post to reflect the accurate timeline. I published it normally, when I first wrote it (much after the fact), but fixed the date to fit the timeline later.
Here is the race video I made to put on my Facebook profile and on my YouTube Channel. Go ahead and follow my FB and please Like, Subscribe, and Comment on my YouTube. I’d love to hear from you!!!
After getting cleaned up, I spent an hour in the sauna at my hotel, The Westin Las Vegas Hotel and Spa. The heat, and the stretching I did in there, felt amazing. I’m sure it helped a lot with my recovery.
The next day started with a free yoga class. That was painful and difficult, but very helpful. Then I walked around the Las Vegas Strip and then had a really nice dinner with the 5 team members from my company who were in Vegas for LeadsCon. The food at Bavette’s Steakhouse and Bar was delicious and the atmosphere was wonderful. It was great to see everyone. I didn’t get any photos, unfortunately, except for this one before I headed out. Wearing heels the day after a downhill marathon may have been a bit masochistic, but it was a nice restaurant and I wanted to look good!
I enjoyed my time in Vegas. Although this race was really painful, I am so glad I did it. I will do another REVEL race sometime, I’m sure. Now I know what to expect, somewhat. I will do more leg days at the gym next time beforehand!
It wasn’t the secondhand of an asynchronous clock; it was the cord rattling on a ceiling fan.
It takes a mirror to see yourself.
Sometimes, that mirror is a person.
This is such a difficult day. Your day, Tommy. I wish I could undo all the hurt.
I read things, from that time of life, and really just can’t believe what I’m reading.
I don’t need or want anything from you. I am so, so sorry for how things went.
I just want to undo all the hurt. I hope that you don’t hurt. I’m ok, for the most part, these days.
But every single year, on this day, forever, I honor you and the things that you taught me about myself.
I wish you well. I hope that you don’t ever think of me if doing so causes you to hurt at all. Be well.
Namaste.
On March 3, 2024, I completed full Marathon #28 and U.S. State #15 at Little Rock Marathon. I encountered a couple Atlanta friends at the airport when I was headed over there. It was cool seeing them and it also worked out nicely since I had a ride to the hotel. (I didn’t rent a car since I was staying within walking distance of the start line.)
The Residence Inn was a reasonable rate for a full studio with kitchen and it was very near the start and finish.
I forgot to bring my SpiBelt race bib toggles with me, and I had a mild panic when I realized this, because I didn’t want to wear a shirt, just a sports bra, for the race, since it was going to be hot. I ended up solving the problem by using hair ties in the same manner. It worked! Now I know.
My pre-race meal was some grilled Red Snapper with veggies, black beans, and rice, and some fried pickles, at The Flying Fish. It was delicious.
They put on a great race in Little Rock; I’ve got to hand it to the race director. He made an excellent call in moving the start time to 6am from 8am this year, a decision that was made during race week when the weather predicted unseasonably hot and humid weather. There was great communication about this change, everyone is very friendly, they offered real post-race food and good drinks, and it was nice to be able to hang out inside before and after, real bathrooms, cool medal, fun theme. They do it right!
The theme was dinosaurs this year. That was a fun theme! I enjoyed it. Who doesn’t love dinosaurs?
We also got very lucky in that it was overcast. It was still humid and about 5-10 degrees hotter than I would have liked, but it ended up being fine. I’m glad I went with just the sports bra and hydration vest and didn’t also wear a tank top. That would’ve been too much. By the first mile I was already so thankful I opted for less clothing.
It’s a hilly marathon; that’s for sure! Lots of hills but there is one that goes up for 3 miles, between miles 14-17. That was tough! It also finishes with some hills that are pretty tough, but by then I was able to get the finish excitement to push me, and I was trying really hard to get sub 4, so that helped me with the hills at the end as well.
I made a friend who is also running a marathon in all 50 states. He was actually on my same flight over and then we kept running into each other so ended up talking after the race and decided to remain in contact, so that’s cool. I love that part of this journey, meeting fellow 50 states runners all over the country is fun! I also made another friend after the race, a fellow member of the 50 States Marathon Club and Marathon Maniacs who had done over 200 marathons. I need to look him up on the maniac website so we can also keep in touch!
Also, the medal is amazing! It weighs like 5 lbs or something. It’s huge and really cool!
After I finished the race, a reporter interviewed me and it ended up in the paper. Never mind that the reporter referred to Peachtree Road Race runners as “marathoners” (which I obviously didn’t say), but they interviewed me after the race and it’s in the paper. Here is the link (I’m not sure how long it will work but here it is): https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2024/mar/04/little-rock-marathon-finish-lines/ and here is the screenshot I took of the bit about me.
I made a race video to put on my Facebook profile and on my YouTube Channel.
Here is the video:
Go ahead and follow my FB and please Like, Subscribe, and Comment on my YouTube.
I’d love to hear from you!!! Thanks!
I ran my 27th full marathon in my 14th U.S. State on February 10, 2024 at the Mesa Marathon in Mesa, Arizona. My official finish time was 3:47:20, an 8:40 pace. It was 25 seconds slower than my marathon personal record, which I had achieved in 2017 at the Marine Corps Marathon.
The start of the race was weird. It started late. I never heard the national anthem. I didn’t even hear a countdown or a horn or gun to begin. People started moving and it was like “oh, we’re going now?”
I really enjoyed myself for about the first 10 miles, but then the rain picked back up. I got cold, my feet were soggy, and my legs tightened up. The crowd thinned out. I started to lose my focus mentally as I began to worry, and I fell out of the game emotionally. Fast people were passing me, and, without the crowd support, this was pulling me further and further out of my confidence zone, which I really needed to get myself through it. I stopped filming to conserve what energy I could. I turned the camera back on at the end.
My goal had been 3:45, which would have given me a 10-minute buffer on the qualifying standard (3:55) for what my age group (F 50-54) will be at the 2025 Boston Marathon. I have a 7:40 buffer with this time, which is still most likely adequate to secure my entry. Only once in recent history was a greater buffer needed, and that was in 2021 when they had reduced the field size by 10,000 participants due to the pandemic. So, in all probability, I will be able to celebrate my 50th Birthday at the Boston Marathon. My birthday is the week prior, and I really want to have a huge 50th birthday celebration with 30,000 runners on the streets of Boston. This is meant to be. It will almost make it ok that I missed out on my other BQ (because it got cancelled in 2020) if I can celebrate my 50th with my first run of the Boston Marathon.
This is my GoPro footage from the first half race and the finish.
Please like and subscribe to My YouTube Channel at https://www.youtube.com/@pinarosana! Are you also a member of the 50 States Marathon Club, Marathon Maniacs, or the Atlanta Track Club? Do you run? Are thinking about running marathons? Maybe you stumbled upon this post some other way and just want to say hello? I’d love to hear from you; leave a comment.
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Thanks!
Since the Lunar New Year is tomorrow, I wanted to get this mixtape out first, as it represents the songs of my past couple months, and I will want to start a new one in the new lunar year. As always, this isn’t necessarily new music, although some of it may be. It’s just what I’ve been listening to recently. Let me know what you think. Subscribe to my page for more mixtapes, along with running and marathon stuff, cave diving, writing, quotes, and just bits of my personal journal. I can’t really have a proper blog because the stuff I share is all so unrelated to each other, so I just publish a window into my life, for anyone who wants to be a part of it. Welcome to my world. Stay a while.
A reminder that Spotify introduced a new feature in 2023 that allows listeners to exclude a playlist from their taste profile. It’s a great option for when you are listening to someone else’s stuff from their profile, or you have guests visiting, and you aren’t sure you want Spotify crafting playlists for you based upon their taste. If you want to explore my playlists and not have it affect your listening profile and song suggestions on Spotify, here’s how to use the handy “exclude from my taste profile” feature.
1 – Wisborg – Fall From Grace
2 – Love Ghost, Skold – Payback
3 – Rotersand – Silence
4 – Varials – Romance
5 – Necessary Response – Vapor
6 – Nostalghia, Tyler Bates, Joel J. Richard – Plastic Heart
7 – Cyberaktif – Nothing Stays
8 – Emilie Autumn – Swallow
9 – Sopor Aeternus & The Ensemble Of Shadows – The HA! Squares
10 – Oceans of Slumber – Poem of Fire
11 – The Cure – Push
12 – Solitary Experiments – Stars
13 – Mindy Jackson, Colt Crevar, Josh Hagee – Desire
14 – Moonspell – Vampiria
15 – Lights Of Euphoria – True Life
16 – Kirlian Camera – Nightglory
17 – Living Things – Oxygen
18 – Ruined Conflict, Lady Wicked Goth – The Silent Ones
19 – Seabound – Scorch the Ground
20 – Rotersand, Evendorff – Grey – Light Grey
21 – Icon Of Coil – Shelter – Single Edit
22 – De/Vision – Who Am I
23 – Beborn Beton – Another World
Here are the other mixtapes: https://pinarosana.wordpress.com/category/mixtape/
Here is my profile on Spotify.
I woke up at 4:44 and knew that I wasn’t going to get back to sleep, and so this day began.
The newlywed minister, wearing a bright green shirt, returned, with his new wife, and my Mom, to my condo in Sarasota, at 7am. The three of them had all been out dancing all night. I had been waiting up. The woman introduced herself to me. Her name was November. That was the dream right before I awoke.
I prepared the table, shuffled the deck, and drew a tarot card. It had been over a year since I had done so. I use the Salvador Dali deck. I pulled the 4 of swords.
There was certainly a theme emerging today in the number four. The four of swords represents stress, the need for recovery, and contemplation. The first things I saw in the card were the writing and the serpent. What that meant to me was that writing may allow me to transform myself and emerge from the state I have found myself in of late. It was also cautionary, that I should give great care to my words.
So be it. This was already the plan, but the card confirmed it.
There were a few other things:
Those various symbols and associations may be irrelevant, but I can tie the theme together through the concept of transformation and regeneration, so I think that unification makes them relevant. Today is groundhog day. The groundhog did not see his shadow; they say this implies an early Spring. Spring would be associated with the color green, as in the color of the minister’s shirt, and also with rebirth.
Four to transform, so mote it be.
the space between the notes 