My Top Three Running Anthems

In the book "Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life," Steve Almond (he's reading tonight to introduce songwriter Danya Kurtz at the Oberon on Arrow Street in Cambridge at eight—go, go, go!) writes about how "drooling fanatics" fall for different musical myths: the owner of an Air Supply album is pretty much guaranteed to harbor a different world view then, say, a Nine Inch Nails fanatic, for example.

But because most running playlists are built around a target tempo, it's almost impossible to get a clear sense of musical bias based on the tunes a runner throws together to encourage her feet to keep running around mile twenty. Case in point: no one would ever confuse me for the kind of girl who actually knows how to shake it like a Polaroid picture, and yet I get a goofy grin on my face every time my iPod shuffles around to "Hey Ya." And though I've been known to shake my hands like an idiot when André Benjamin demands I shake my aforementioned "it," no one's gonna confuse me with an Outkast fanboy.

But if you ask a runner for her top three running anthems, you can get a glimpse of that person's inner core, or as Steve would call it, her personal myth. And though I tend to be a handwringer in practice, most of my anthems are about quitting the handwringing already and embracing life. And frankly, it's refreshing to see the childlike optimism in me making a play for it, even if it's just bubbling up through a playlist.

And so without further ado, my top three running anthems:

"Life is Large" by The Kennedy's—A buzzkill once told me this song is the worst kind of saccharin, but I decided that the way this song makes me fly was all I needed to know about it merits. And I'm not ashamed to admit that every time Maura Kennedy sings the lyric—"How do you want to be remembered? A raging fire or a dying ember?"—some little girl voice in my head screams: "Raging Fire! Raging Fire!"



"Gone At Last" by Paul Simon—A Southern-Gospel romp by a Jewish singer-songwriter from New York? Why the hell not?! Although my heart may explode as a direct result of my legs trying to keep up with the rollicking tempo of the piano in this tune, there's nothing quite like a gospel choir insisting that my steak of bad luck is gone, gone, gone at last to put a little pep in my step at the end of a long run.



"Losing Streak" by The Eels—If you're dubious about how a song called "Losing Streak" could possibly qualify as an anthem, you haven't heard the horns that chase the tail end of this chorus. "I said my losing streak is done," indeed.




Catherine Elcik is running her first marathon to raise money for a scholarship fund for Grub Street, Inc, an independent writing center in Boston, MA. Sponsor the run (and quite frankly, her second wind) at www.firstgiving.com/runforgrub.

Unleashing the High Five

After eight miles this morning, my feet held up just fine (see "My Foot Goes Gangstah") until my sneakers burst into flame due to ridiculously high a.m. temperatures.

Running in the heat hasn't exactly been the highlight of this whole marathon training process, but it does have its advantages:

• I'm prepared should the temperature near blistering on race day;
  
• I sweat so much that my entire t-shirt turned a darker shade of grey instead of leaving a lighter streak in the exact shape of my sports bra; and
  
• I finally got the high-five I've been trying to inspire someone to give me since my long runs clicked up into the double digits.

Today was an eight-mile medium length run, and I decided to circle by Deer Island. Normal people drive out there and walk the few miles around the tip of the penisula, but I've found that if I jog there, loop the thing, and jog back, it's about eight miles. As I neared the end of the Deer Island segment of my run, a jolly man stood near a bench arms akimbo, shaking his head.

"You're doing better than me," he yelled, laughing. "I had to stop, and I was just walking."

I smiled at him, waved, and kept running.

The man yelled after me: "You're doing good, kid! Keep it up!!"

I waved again, my legs in their crazy left-right-left-right trance, when it hit me—for months I've bemoaned the fact that the secret running society amounts to a wave of a couple of fingers as joggers pass by one another.

Totally lame.

It's my firm belief that runners should great each other with way more ruckus than that. I'm thinking grand hellos and secret handshakes, but I'd settle for a high five. In fact, I've spent the last several weeks raising my hand in clear high five position, a move that has only succeeeded in bringing me bigger waves. Not a single, satisfying slap.

After a few weeks of this, it occurred to me that to make my in-medias-run-high-five a reality, I was gonna have to get into some faces, wave my hand, and make them feel silly for ignoring me. Which meant I pretty much had to give up my quest because let's face facts: I'm not really a channelling-Robin-Williams kind of girl.

But here was this happy Santa personality not a hundred feet from me. If there ever was a now-or-never moment, this was it. Maybe it was the false bravado of Eminem in my ear buds—You better lose yourself in the music, the moment, you own it, you better never let it go— go!—but I turned around and jogged back.

"Hey," I yelled. "Could I get a high five?"

The guy laughed and got his hand ready. As I neared, my hand went up, both of our arms sailed through the air, and then—here it comes!—the smack to end all smacks! Believe me when I tell you that there has never been a more satisfying high five than that sweaty thunderclap I shared with a stranger this morning.

The lesson?

Sometimes you just gotta ask for what you want. And because I'm SUCH a quick study, I've already thrown my head back and yelled my request to Mother Nature:

"How about a cold front before my 20-mile run on Friday?"

Catherine Elcik is running her first marathon to raise money for a scholarship fund for Grub Street, Inc, an independent writing center in Boston, MA. Sponsor the run (and quite frankly, her second wind) at www.firstgiving.com/runforgrub.

My Foot Goes Gangstah

I don't want to alarm anyone, but I have reason to believe my feet may have joined the family. My toes aren't packing or anything (though there is a very suspicious callous on my big toe), but what with the dull but pulsing ache in the top of my foot that reared its ugly head this weekend, I can't help but feel my feet are trying to send me a message I can't ignore.

Plus there's the gravelly gangster voice my feet use when they talk to me—you know—in my head:

What fresh hell is this, Toots? Huh? You make us foot those extra pounds all these years and when you finally lose them you think it's slam-the-sidewalk time?

You feel that twinge in your tarsal bones, babe? Do ya? Yeah, I thought so. Keep running, Toots. Yeah.

You just keep it up.

After running 18 miles on Friday, my feet were a bit tired, by Saturday they hurt, and following Sunday's five-mile run in the hellaciously hilly country my mother-in-law calls home, I was in pain. I iced. Four times, I iced. I took ibuprofen. I surfed my husband's iPhone for information on stress fractures. Fortunately, this was definitely not a stress fracture. Not nearly painful enough. What it was, in fact, was an embarrassment: I'm lacing my running shoes too tightly.

Well wrap me in a toga and call me Bam-Bam!

So before my walk this morning, I tied my shoes while arching my foot to allow for extra space, trudged up and down those same hills, and poof!—the bark of the don living in my foot was almost completely stilled. Good news, clearly.* But I do have one persistent worry:

If I spend an extra minute or two tying my laces just so before my eight-mile run tomorrow morning, does that make me the Tanya Harding of marathon training?

Catherine Elcik is running her first marathon to raise money for a scholarship fund for Grub Street, Inc, an independent writing center in Boston, MA. Sponsor the run (and quite frankly, her second wind) at www.firstgiving.com/runforgrub.

* Kidding aside, I want to go on record about how lucky I feel to have avoided injury. I know training for marathons isn't a smooth ride for everyone, and I'm grateful. Even when I poke fun, I'm grateful.

Grub Tales: Crystal King

Crystal King is a 15+ year public relations and marketing veteran who currently drives social media for CA, Inc., a $4.3B high-tech firm. She teaches graduate-level media communications at Boston University as well as social media classes for artists and writers at Mass College of Art and at Grub Street, respectively. Additionally, Crystal is a freelance writer and Pushcart-nominated poet who is currently working on her first novel. She holds an M.A. in Critical & Creative Thinking from UMass Boston where she centered her thesis on developing creative tools to help fiction writers in progress. Find her on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/crystallyn.

RUN FOR GRUB: I know you're working on a novel about Rome in the first century, so tell me what's harder: being a gladiator or training for your first marathon?
CRYSTAL KING: Ha! This is such a great question. I think the training is equally arduous, but in the end, I would have to go with gladiator. Instead of dodging potholes they're trying to avoid the jaws of death—lions and bears most likely being the scariest of the jaws. Additionally, people threw money and flowers at them. Marathoners usually have to hit up everyone they know for money before the performance, but I'd like to believe that there are flowers handed to them afterward!

RUN FOR GRUB: You're kind of the Grub guru on social media sites, and I've tried to use Twitter and Facebook and Blogger to publicize the Run for Grub. My question is this: could I have made a BIGGER pest of myself?
CRYSTAL KING: Oh, you haven't been the slightest bit pesty! I enjoy helping people figure out what they need to do to help promote themselves. It is true though, that some people "get it" faster than others. The good thing is that you are the former vs. the latter! In my high tech PR job I spend a lot of time answering the same questions for the same people who just can't manage to wrap their heads around what social media is and how to use it.

RUN FOR GRUB: How did you learn about Grub Street?
CRYSTAL KING: This is a funny story actually. Four years ago I was at a "Getting Things Done" seminar on organizing my life, schedule, etc., and while I was there I ended up meeting a woman named Michelle Toth, who it turns out was on the board of Grub Street. I had heard of Grub but hadn't really pursued getting involved, thinking that it was just taking classes and not knowing the whole picture. I talked with Michelle for awhile and we agreed to touch base after the seminar was over. We put each other on our "get things done" list and did we do that? Nope. By then, however, I was intrigued enough to sign up for a day at the Muse & the Marketplace. During one of the lunches Michelle spoke briefly and when I went to approach her afterward, she remembered me immediately and we both talked about how we never managed to call each other. She introduced me to Christopher Castellani and after that I became very hooked—not just on what Grub offers but by how special the people and the community are to me as a writer.

RUN FOR GRUB: What has Grub Street meant to you?
CRYSTAL KING: I like to think of my life as B.G.S. (Before Grub Street) and A.G.S. That may sound silly, but it's honestly true. It is 100% true when I say that Grub has changed my life. My outlook on my sense of self and as a writer is drastically different than before Grub Street waltzed in and declared itself part of my world. Before I was just someone who wanted to write—desperately wanted to write. Now I feel like a writer, my friends are writers, and I meet writers (NYT best-selling writers!! I'm still in awe of that) all the time. I worked in a vacuum B.G.S. Now I feel energized and excited about where my writing is going.

RUN FOR GRUB: Can you define your Grub community?
CRYSTAL KING: It's both small and large. I've taken several classes at Grub and they are all top-notch. I've taught classes on creativity and social media at Grub which is such a delight for me. And two years ago I pulled together three other Grub women I knew and we started meeting every two weeks and hashing over our novels. I also know a lot of writers both published and unpublished that I have met over the years at all the readings, the Muse conference, bi-annual parties, lock-downs, and other gatherings. It's a rich vibrant community that just plain makes me happy.

RUN FOR GRUB: What does Grub Street's magic feel like to you?
CRYSTAL KING: For being a writer I find that it's hard to put into words how I feel about the "magic" that is Grub Street. But it IS magical. I tell everyone I know about it. I feel proud to be a part of the larger tapestry that is Grub Street. I am so fortunate to live in Boston where a community like this exists. It's truly unique.

RUN FOR GRUB: What's your most magical Grub Street memory?
CRYSTAL KING: There are so many! Between all the writers I've met, the conferences, and classes it's hard to say. I think though, the way that I felt after I taught my first social media class at Grub—that would be hard to beat. I felt like I made a real difference for my students—who are my fellow writers. They loved the class so much that they had my career half planned out on how I could help other authors afterward. I tear up thinking about it even now.

RUN FOR GRUB: Grub Street almost closed in 2001, but—thank goodness—it reinvented itself as a nonprofit instead. What would you have lost if Grub had withered away eight years ago?
CRYSTAL KING: I'd still be working in a vacuum! I can't imagine going back to my life B.G.S.!!

RUN FOR GRUB: What was the best advice you ever received at a Grub Street event?
CRYSTAL KING: Again, there have been so many useful takeaways I've had from events. Chuck Palahniuk's keynote at this year's Muse & the Marketplace will always stick with me. It made me cry. It made me realize that the writer is, first and foremost, a storyteller. Anita Shreve also said something during her Muse session that will stick with me: "When something is stuck in real life you bang on it, you kick it—that's what you need to do with your writing."

RUN FOR GRUB: And now for the hard hitting journalism: I hear you have a new Grubbie to introduce to the world named Nero—can Run for Grub be the venue to introduce his stunning cuteness to the world? CRYSTAL KING: Yes! My new furry muse, a Ragdoll kitten, will be joining us in a couple of weeks. I'm hoping he'll sit on my desk and keep me company when the words just refuse to flow!

Miles Run, Money Raised,& Running Cuisine

Crappy Thing They Don't Tell You About Running #10: No matter how clear you are that the chocolate-flavored Power Bar gel that you're about to suck out of a bottle-shaped packet will not taste like chocolate, when you see that dark brown color bubbling up, your tongue's thinking hotfudgehotfudgehotfudge--an unrealistic expectation that will cause face convulsions when the flavor hitting your assaulted taste buds is pretty much the anti-chocolate. Rest assured, once the initial revulsion passes, you'll realize this allegedly chocolate-flavored gel tastes exactly like the aftertaste black licorice leaves behind. And while this isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's most certainly not a chocolate thing.

Training update: 18 miles today fueled by distinctly licorice-flavored gel, water from two Dunkin Donuts pit stops, and a small handful of very salty almonds. Eating almonds while running is be an odd choice, I'll admit it. But when I can successfully avoid inhaling almond bits as I struggle to chew and swallow while panting, the salt and protein do wonders to stave off the lightheadedness I suffered a few weeks back. Though I do end up feeling as if I owe an apology to everyone who's had to witness my open-mouthed chomping during their morning constitutionals.

Fundraising update: With four weeks before my marathon, the Run for Grub has raised a little more than 90 percent of the cost of four scholarships for first-time Grubbies. That means we have just $204.50 to go. If you've been planning on donating, do it now. I'd love to run my final training run (20 miles on July 9) knowing that the fundraising portion of this journey was done and all that was left was the little matter of me and 26.2 miles.

On Being Human

Yesterday was June 30. I intended to make much of the one-month-to-go milestone (my marathon's in Wakefield on July 30), but then I also intended to do my 5-mile short run at the end of a long work day. Instead, an urgent work project followed me home and swallowed up the end of my day.

And yet way, way too late I put on my running clothes and pulled my hair back into a tight ponytail fully intending to get my training in, dammit, before snapping safely back to my senses: Clearly, I needed to sleep more than I needed to not miss a second run. And just when I was starting to berate myself for missing a second run of my training season, a friend and fellow writer and runner sent me an email asking how the training was going:

"If there's one piece of advice that you won't hear too often, it's this: MILK IT! Eat that pint of ice cream, get a massage, let the dishes fill the sink, and yes, by all means, tell that cause-of-the-day-canvasser: 'I'm running a marathon for Grub, now fuck off.'"

But while I'm not ready to tell members of the unsuspecting public to fuck off, I'm positively a-tingle with the idea of unleashing an f-bomb (or thirty) on the harpy in my head that will not let this lousy missed run die already.

So harpy of mine, I tried to reason with you. Because really there's nothing earth shattering with a missed run here and there as long as I'm getting up on Friday mornings for my long run (I have and I will--18 miles tomorrow and why I'm not in bed right now is a riddle for another time). And though I'd say this seemed like a perfectly logical argument, my harpy just screeched all the louder (as harpies will), and I'm left with no other options. So here I am, pushing back my metaphorical sleeves, taking a deep breath, and telling my inner harpy exactly where she can shove that relentlessly shrill shriek of hers.

Now maybe I can finally get some sleep...

Catherine Elcik is running her first marathon to raise money for a scholarship fund for Grub Street, Inc, an independent writing center in Boston, MA. Sponsor the run (and quite frankly, her second wind) at www.firstgiving.com/runforgrub.

Grub Tale: Michelle Hoover

Michelle Hoover teaches writing at Boston University and Grub Street. She has published fiction in Confrontation, The Massachusetts Review, Prairie Schooner, and Best New American Voices, among others. She has been a Bread Loaf Writer's Conference scholar, the Philip Roth Writer-in-Residence at Bucknell University, a MacDowell fellow, a Pushcart Prize nominee, and in 2005 the winner of the PEN/New England Discovery Award for Fiction. She was born in Ames, Iowa, the granddaughter of four longtime farming families. Her first novel—The Quickening—will be published on Tuesday, June 29.



RUN FOR GRUB: How did you learn about Grub Street?
MICHELLE HOOVER: About seven years ago I was teaching part time at Boston University and was lucky enough to befriend Daphne Kalotay there. She invited me to a few events, and since I was new in town, these became my primary social outlet. Every time I went to a party or reading, I saw some familiar faces and couldn't believe my luck at finding such a ready-made social circle of oddballs and booklovers just like myself.

RUN FOR GRUB: What has Grub Street meant to you?
MICHELLE HOOVER: It gave me a vital social network, but also the best teaching experiences I've ever had. I think I basically stalked Chris Castellani until one day he looked at me and said, 'we should try to use you.' Of course I've learned more from teaching Grubbies than I have at any other institution, more about fiction writing in general, about why people write it and its everlasting appeal, and about my own work as well. Now I'm also doing consulting projects for Grub and had a chance to lead a panel about the organization (and those like it) at AWP. The teaching, consulting, and networking opportunities Grub has offered me (as well as plain old friendship) are incredible and I'll always be grateful for them. Grub is even going so far to host a party after my Brookline Booksmith event July 6. Where else can an early writer get that kind of support? And there's not a personality in their office or among their teachers who I can't help but love.

RUN FOR GRUB: What was the best advice you ever received at a Grub Street event?
MICHELLE HOOVER: The most recent came from Chuck Palahniuk's address at Grub's Muse and Marketplace conference. He said he used writing as an excuse to go out. I'd never thought of writing that way. He would force himself to go to parties, readings, whatever, and he would write there, often stealing a line of dialogue or an interesting gesture. Of course, I don't think I'm the type to sit isolated in a corner and wax poetic during a big shindig, but he has the right idea. You have to be in the world to write about it, and if you're paying attention, if you always have your writer's cap on, you'll find plenty of true stuff to put on the page.


RUN FOR GRUB: As a novelist who runs, tell me: Is there some secret to keeping my brain on my book when I run or do I always have to wait for inspiration to bubble up whenever it damn well pleases?
MICHELLE HOOVER: I'm too much of a control freak to wait for much of anything. When I'm flat out in the middle of a book, I often decide on a certain problem or scene I want to work out and then keep it in mind as I run. Sometimes I get nothing, but I've surprised myself. Writers often underestimate the power of simply thinking. They believe they aren't working unless something shows up on the page. Of course, even while running, my head will veer toward the pain in my knee or people I have to call or why that chubby dude isn't wearing a shirt, but then snap, there's an answer to my scene. It's not always a good answer, but it keeps me going.

Editor's Note: Catch Michelle Hoover reading from her novel at the book launch at the Middlesex Lounge at 6:30 tonight, or visit her events page for other scheduled listings. The Quickening, her debut, is available on Tuesday, June 29th. If you loved "Plainsong," "The Quickening" will make your heart sing. Poets & Writers agrees—the current issue featured Hoover as a writer to watch, and there was much rejoicing in Grubdom...