Lauren Lamonica

After recently becoming pregnant, I’ve been forced to answer certain questions, for myself and others: “are you going to continue working?”, “how long do you plan to be away from work?”, and “what are your day care plans?” It makes me wonder why our normal work environment is designed in a way in which families have to choose between leaving their children for a full day, and staying home.

Just prior to an important birthday, I hiked Mt. Shasta . Like life, the top is higher than you think. I didn’t make it to the official summit this time, but I got very far, and learned what I need to get to the top. I made it above "the heart", and "red banks" and up to lower Misery Hill and Thumb Rock at 13K ft . We began our descent after sunrise at 6:30 a.m. It felt and looked like the top, walking along the crevasse between Avalache Gulch and Konwafkton Glacier.

Shasta isn’t miserable. Shasta is beautiful, especially along the ascent. The bleak white landscape creates the illusion of flatness and shortens the distance to the summit. While I was hiking up through the clouds, I realized why I love the architecture of Hugh Jacobsen, who uses white and gray to play with depth. I saw one of his houses years ago on a snowy day in the Berkshires and fell in love with the elegance and minimalism of his work. So beautiful and mysterious, like Shasta.

This was my first mountaineering experience. The trip required planning, as well as lessons in the use of crampons and an ice axe. For anyone who wants to summit Mt. Shasta, here are some things to know.

• You will need a bunch of gear and can rent almost all of it in Shasta. Things I rented were: Boots (for hiking in snow, and must fit crampons), crampons (spikes that attach to boots, to hike in ice), ice axe, climbing helmet, warm sleeping bag and pad, leg gaitors (go over pants to keep snow from getting in boots). I rented all of this at a place called Fifth Season and the total was about $145. You can buy most other necessities at the shop, too. We had a big checklist of things to bring, and I’d be happy to provide it upon request.
• You can do this hike in 2 or 3 days (or in 45 minutes, according to local lore!). The first day you can either hike to Horse Camp (about 9K ft) from Bunny Flat, or you can hike all the way to Helen Lake (10.4K ft). The difference is a day.
• Helen Lake is not a lake. It’s a ridge of snow, behind which is “tent city.” This is where hikers camp out the night before the summit to 14.1K feet. At Helen Lake, you camp until around 1:30 am and then begin the last leg of the hike. Getting up at 1:30 in 20 degree weather is…um…refreshing.
• You have to be in really good shape to even mildly enjoy this trip. It’s beautiful but aerobically tough and technical.
• Don’t take a camelback to the summit. The mouth tube will be frozen when you wake. Take a plastic bottle like a Nalgene. It will still begin to freeze, but the mouth should be wide enough to use for drinking the unfrozen water.
• Don’t leave or walk ahead of your group unless you have food. I hiked ahead, and at one point, I had to bum food from a descending hiker to get enough energy to make it to Helen Lake.
• Do the first 2 legs in 1 day, not 2. If you can’t do the first 2 legs in 1 day, you probably won’t be able to summit. The people who fell behind on day 1 did not attempt the summit.
• My main reason for not getting from 13K ft (lower Misery Hill) to 14.1 ft (summit) is that I couldn’t feel my right foot. Not sure what to do about that, but you must not let water into your boots. It will freeze overnight rather than drying, and then it will melt when you begin hiking—and proceed to freeze your feet. I found some battery-powered foot warmers online that I may have to get before my next attempt.
• My crampons kept falling off. So, be sure to get quality crampons or just learn to keep fixing them. Nothing is more disappointing then having them come off over and over again, in the dark, with little sleep, in freezing weather.
• Go with someone who has made the summit before. If you’re nice, they’ll help you put on your crampons (thanks, Chris!)

I went to NY a couple of weeks ago to join an annual tradition in Long Beach, NY - jumping into the Atlantic Ocean on Superbowl Sunday. I did this for the first time last year with about 5,000 other Long Beach Polar Bears. This chapter was founded back in 1998 by my uncle, Kevin McCarthy and his friend, who wanted to do something crazy for their upcoming birthdays. A few years later, with about a hundred members, they decided to turn the event into a fundraiser for Make A Wish. In 2008, the event raised 350K. This year’s event, which has doubled in size over last year’s to almost 10,000 Polar Bears (a Guiness World Record), has been expected to raise almost 1 Million Dollars.

I am very proud of my uncle and everyone else who jumped into the cold Atlantic on this beautiful NY winter day. My family was all there in orange “staff” hoodies volunteering and collecting money for Make A Wish. What a great day. Here is a video, which features my uncle talking about the event.

So I didn’t make my goal time of 3:40 (got a 3:53 - and could have been a 3:50), but it’s now pretty apparent that shaving 20 minutes off my San Francisco Marathon time will NOT come from just changing my course and adding speedwork. I think it’s going to take a few more marathons, better preparation for new course types and weather, better diet before the race, and a few more races in general. For myself and anyone who wants to hear it, here are some California International Marathon (CIM) tips:

1. If you’re not used to running in the "cold," which to me is anything less than 60 degrees, wear a hat, gloves, and a long-sleeved shirt—all made from a material that will not absorb moisture. You need to be warm, but once sweat gets into your clothes, it gets cold and miserable. Running in cold weather seems to expend as much energy as running in hot weather. Just the prep is different.
2. Just because a course is flat doesn’t mean it won’t be tough in other ways. In fact, I found the lack of range required for my leg muscles caused my hamstrings to get a lot tighter, a lot earlier than usual.
3. Be realistic about your pace and race goals. Even if you hear the course will be "25 minutes faster," it’s best to assume you’ll finish 10 minutes faster than you would on a hilly course like that of the SF Marathon.
4. OH YEAH! If you’re planning to run a lot faster…YOU ALSO NEED TO EAT A LOT MORE…both along the course and beforehand. I only carried 3 GU packets and had to find 2 more along the course, as well as bananas, oranges and hippie bars. You’ll need more glucose if you’re pushing harder aerobically. Also, I should have eaten a much larger breakfast, which requires getting up at least 2 hours before the race to begin eating…and digesting. And THAT food should be rich in protein, something you can’t replenish along the race.

In the end, the race was educational although not the most fun race. There were high school cheerleaders in every town along the way, lots of suburbanites waking up early with their kids, and some very serious pace team leaders.

Another cool tip: A bit disappointed and definitely hitting a wall at around mile 20, I found a partner in crime (Eric from Modesto) who was also getting burnt out, stretching alongside the road. We were both hurting bad. We ran the last 6 miles together, walking for 30 seconds at each mile. We pretended we were doing a casual Sunday jog and asked each other questions about school, family, etc. When you’re super sore and no longer pushing for top aerobic activity (meaning: you can have a conversation), finding a "jogging partner" in the last few miles is a great way to take your mind off the pain and motivate.

Hope this gets linked to somewhere. I was looking for CIM info prior to the race and couldn’t find much. Feel free to message me or comment with your CIM story!

Got inspired today and decided to sign up for the California International Marathon, which takes place in Sacramento on December 7th. This gives me 3 months to train.

I have run two San Francisco Marathons; the first in 4:00:58 and the second in 3:59:50 or something. I’ve learned that I’ll have to train harder and faster if I’m going to shed time and *possibly* qualify for the Boston Marathon. I’ll need to go from a 9:22 marathon miles to a 8:22 marathon mile, which is no small feat.

My gear:

1. A killer Garmin GPS sports watch, in the picture above, to track my pace. The watch was $350 and includes a heartbeat tracker and software that logs your workouts. I haven’t figured out all it has to offer, but it has an excellent built-in, see-it-as-you-go electronic tutorial…which is good because the handbook is completely useless
2. My fourth pair of Mizuno Wave Nirvana running shoes in orange
3. “2x the caffeine” Espresso Love Gu in…gross
4. A downhill “top 5 Boston Qualifier” course choice
5. Oh yeah…Roxette’s “Joyride” now on my iPod. Hello. You fool. I love you. C’mon join the joyriiiiiide…

No comments

When I was a little girl, I had a lot of dolls. One was named “Charity Elizabeth” and another was named “Dawn Alexandra” and another was named just “Elisabeth.” I had a thing for Victorian-sounding doll names as did many little girls. I took really good care of each of them. Each night, before I went to bed, I spent almost 10 minutes making sure that each doll had both a pillow and blanket with which to sleep. Sometimes the task became so overwhelming that I found little room for myself on my own pillow. My mother would have to coax me into allowing “Emily” to sleep without a pillow so that my body wouldn’t wind up contorted to accommodate a plastic figure concocted by the toy industry.

One time, and this is a sad, sad story—I found a deflating helium balloon in my suburban front yard containing a smiley face and a name. I “took it in” until it deflated, which was a 3-day journey into the death of a new friend. It was a boy balloon.

I didn’t like getting new dolls, because it was a burden. Like, “please stop giving me your bastard dolls. I have too many already.” Because, at some point, I had to put my dolls to rest in a wooden hope chest.

I don’t know if they died then.

Have you realized that there are hardly any posts by w4wm on Craigslist’s "casual encounters" but an abundance of posts by mw4w, and they are super picky (require big breasts, specific racial preferences, and so on). I wonder if they have any luck. My guess is that they must resort to mw4mw. But what does "full swap" mean?