Today is one week since I ran the Boston Marathon. In that week I came cross a quote from Frank Shorter two times, saying “you are ready for your next marathon after forgetting about the last one.”  One week is certainly no time to forget, nor will I forget the honor of running in such a prestige’s marathon as Boston, but I am thinking about the next and the next.

With the pressure of Chicago marathon filling up I rushed to signed up.  I am not 100% committed to it yet as I also want to run with my teammate Audra in the Steamtown Marathon and they are on the same day.  Why is it such a hard decision? Steamtown is downhill, a net elevation drop of 955 feet. While downhill can sound fun and fast, as I learned from Boston is can also tear up your legs.  So right now I am signed up for Chicago and will consider Steamtown. I plan to race Chicago and three weeks later run New York for fun, if there is such a thing.  It will be my first time with such a short turnaround.

In my most immediate adventure I am getting ready to leave for Tasmania. I am putting my gear in order, making lists of what I need to bring especially since I am leaving the New York Summer and going into Australia Winter.  It is a busy month.  I have an exhibition luncheon at Pfizer Corp. where my show is up until July 15; I am also moving my artist studio.  It will be in the same building in Brooklyn but a different space so that I can set up my new printmaking equipment and Epson printers. My final project before I leave will be a design Front Runners, my running team,  sponsored New York Road Runners race T-shirt for the June Pride 5 mile run.

I received my Tasmanian ticket. I will spend two weeks in Hobart at the Art College where I will give a talk then head to the Cradle Mountains for six weeks. I will be in relative isolation making drawings, going backpacking, and marathon training. I have sponsors for the trip and I am working on getting a few more to help support this wintertime trip.

I look forward to blogging from my satellite terminal on a mountaintop.

The Boston Marathon Review

Yesterday, April 21, I ran the Boston Marathon. I had a goal of 3:38, which is 5% faster than I ran the New York Marathon in the fall. I trained much harder increasing my mileage by 20% with more drills and speed training. I drove to Boston with teammate Audra and girlfriend Lisa. I did a house swap with a woman from Boston and stayed only .6 miles from the finish, which was excellent.

The morning of the marathon I went to the buses at 6:30, by the time they were loaded and we drove to the Athletes Village it was 8:40. It was a very long bus ride with many of us jumping out to pee along the highway in the bus traffic jam. The Athletes Village was a large open field lined with portable toilets and tables of food. Unlike NY where runners go to their assigned corrals, which contain food and toilets, in Boston all runners congregated in one giant area waiting to be called to the start. It made for very long lines and long walks to get to the toilets. I was in wave two, for runners slower than 3:30. We were called to the start at 9:45 to begin at 10:30. Just then the sun comes out and I head to the start, and walk, and walk. I did not check the time, but it seemed to take 20 minutes to get to the start. The road came to a “T” at corral 25 with no way to get to the right or left without jumping over walls and peoples shrubs. It was a mess, people running and jumping and climbing to get to their corral. I was in 18, which was mixed with people from 17-20 all in the wrong corral. Suddenly we were off.

The beginning is downhill, a hard downhill, toe slamming with packs of people to keep you from really working the hill. By mile 3, I was hot and sweating. I thought then I might not make 3:38. My first mile was 40 seconds off; with all the people there was nowhere to go. My 5k was an average pace of 8:26, only 7 seconds off. Before I talk about my graduating slowing of pace I want to talk about the spectators. There are thousands and thousands the whole way. The course is packed with people to a frightening degree. Barricades try to hold them back but they push onto the course with extreme exuberance. It freaked me out. I tried to run in the middle. At one point another runner, both of us seeming to feel the same fear were trying to get away from the spectators. The road narrowed to one lane as the barricades were being pushed into the street by so many people. People hung over them, screaming and wanted to slap the runners. The children were handing out oranges and sponges. The sponges were very welcome but all the dropped orange peels were a recipe for disaster. In NY crews rake up the drink cups non-stop, it seems that no cleaning up or raking was happening in Boston, the streets were a carpet of paper cups. But you have to laugh at the folks grilling meat and standing on the sidelines handing out shrimp and steak to the runners, but nothing beats the 10-mile cake.

By mile 18 I did not want to see another spectator. I needed to block them out. Now I was tired, sunburn, and had chafed underarms. I waited the whole race to tackle the Newton chain of hills; I went over heartbreak without even knowing what it was. But that was because the whole course is hilly, the Newtown hills did not seem to be an exceptionally bad point, the whole race is up and town so it is just another chain of killer hills. My legs were already really beaten up. I was more freaked out by the people, they began to suck my energy, then sponge bob was suddenly running with me the next 3 miles and I was ready to kill him and everyone one screaming “sponge bob.” I saw Lisa at mile 17, a welcome site, and handed her my arm warmers and pacing bracelets, which I had carried for 15 miles, it was so hot I needed them off my arms. At mile 20 it was carnage. People were falling to the sidelines crying. One woman was stumbling and falling side to side as if on a seriously bad drug and alcohol trip. We were trying to run around her, the E.M.T.’s who were excellent, had not gotten to her yet. I am sure she had no idea where she was. One women was walking and a random spectator jumped the railing and run up to her screaming at her head, RUN, RUN, RUN, You gotta run, as if he was a drill sergeant. The Boston fans were like no other running fans, it was if if they were watching a Red Sox vs. Yankees game. At mile 25 Audra ran out, I gathered energy from her that was great. She said to me, “run the rest hard.” My watch read 3:42:48. I had 8 minutes to get to the finish to get under 3:50 a qualifying time if I ever want to do this again. I mustered up everything I had. I ran hard, drawing from my sprint drills and crossed the line at 3:50:54, I thought. It was not my official time. I crossed the finished line, a big painted road and stopped to a walk then saw the timing mats to follow. My official time was 3:51:01, two seconds over qualifying time. I wobbled, and then started the walk though the chutes. The chutes are a whole page in itself. This was perhaps the worst part of the race. No, the chutes and the huge extended families crowding the runners chutes was indeed the worst part of the marathon experience.

It is Wednesday April 16, 5 days until the Boston Marathon. I am a ready to get it over with. I would prefer feeling like I am really excited to go to Boston and race, but I am nervous and tired. It seems that I went right from running the New York Marathon in November to training for Boston without a break. I had a few weeks without speed work when I was on the Cape, but then I was running extra hills and in the sand. My weeks have consisted of 6 days of running, with two of those days either speed or hill training, plus two days of strength training in the gym with a PT, weekly chiropractic visit, and one or maybe two massages. My legs are loose, strong, and at the moment pain free but I worry about hamstring flare-ups. I worry about going out too fast. The wonderful benefit of living in NY is that I had the chance to run the course three weeks prior to the marathon. I have no idea what it will be like running Boston. Everyone has a different story.

Last Sunday I ran a 4-mile race. Most of my teammates who are running Boston did not do the race. I am sure they were smart to save their legs, but for me it was to earn points for the team and it was a good confidence booster. I had 12 to run anyway so why not make 4 of those a race. I pushed hard the whole way; I took off an astonishing 1:20 from my PB 4-mile race in September. All the late winter speed work does make a difference.

While I update this page I am doing my laundry and laying out my clothes, athletic tape, rubber ball to loosen tight muscles, foam roller, and gels. Oh wait, I am out of gels so I will have one more stop at the store. I am driving up on Saturday with my friend and teammate Audra. We are very excited to watch the women’s Olympic trials on Sunday morning. We watched the men’s in New York and seeing Ryan Hall’s finish was fantastic, man what a runner he is!

Sometimes I think how ridiculous this is. I have been training for 4-5 months, running up to 60 miles a week, easily doing 23 miles runs, why do I get so nerved up I cannot even communicate to my friends or partner. At times I wish I could just go out there and run it, have fun as they say. But I want to run it in a certain time, I want to be 5% faster than last time, I want this to lead to an even faster time in the fall. The distance is not the problem; it is keeping the speed that I want to run for the distance. It is not wanting to feel disappointed by putting in so much work for just a few hours of running on one particular day. Perhaps that is the source of the real stress, 4 months of work, for one three and a half hour run and if it does not go as well as one plans, it is a longer run. And certainly the longer one runs, the more painful it can become. So I sit at home focusing my energy, petting my dog, and watching running movies, or rereading my many running books for some last minute inspiration. Oh I will be so happy Monday, I just want to get started so my brain will quiet down, or perhaps branch out. Whatever it is, I am truly thrilled to be running the Boston Marathon, the world’s oldest annual marathon and one of the most prestigious road racing events. And finally I have to mention Blossom, a great teammate, runner and supporter who dubbed herself the very ingenious title of “The Original Hilraiser.” Now if that is not supportive I don’t know what it. I will ready to go and wearing number 18686.

You may notice that my tag line, “Art, Athletics, and Life from a winter C-scape Beach Shack” has changed to “Art, Athletics, and Life from a winter Tasmanian Rangers Hut.” That’s right, I am thrilled to say I have been selected for one of two 2008 International Natural and Cultural Residencies from Arts Tasmania. I leave the end of May for my 30 + hour flight to Melbourne then Hobart where I will take a bus to Lake St. Clair,  and spend 6 weeks living alone and working from nature. I have a great number of plans including hiking the 6 day Overland Track,  that I will share with you later. I will spend an additional 3-4 weeks exploring the island.

In the meantime, it is April 1 and all my attention is on the Boston Marathon in 20 days. I feel like all I have been doing is running and thinking about running. After my last long run, 23 miles, on Saturday, I am now in my official taper mode. After that I can bring my attention back to my exhibition still going on at Pfizer and working on a new edition of prints in my studio.

I decided to keep updating my blog in preparation for my trip, so you will be hearing from me on a regular basis now. I will keep you updated on running, new artworks, trip preparations, and daily happenings in NYC. Once I get to Australia, one of my sponsors Galaxy 1 will keep me in communication with the loan of a satellite terminal. the big difference on this trip vs. the 6 winter weeks on Cape Cod is I will have electricity. So no more dead batteries!

In the first weeks of my C-scape residency, I joked about how I will look after 6 weeks of not having a shower. Well here I am, 6 showerless weeks later, and frankly I look better than when I arrived.

I am writing this from my apartment in New York City. Am I happy to be home? Ambivalent,  but I am very happy to be with my dog, girlfriend and running club.  I must admit the light in my apartment was alarming, it was so bright and strange feeling after not having electricity and heat is nice.

I kept track of some of my usages and here it is, rather surprisings on some things.

My 6 week Log of usage

50 gallons of water
630 hours of darkness
378 hours of light
27:46:21 hours of running
145 miles walked
1.5 cords of wood (approx)
80 pounds of coal
20 drawing complete
16 novels read
360 photographs shot
1 hour of flying
16 AA batteries
3 pounds of brown rice
2 pounds of bean (mung and lentils)
1 pound steel cut oats
5 bags of pretzels
1 lb. of almonds
2 jars of peanut butter
2 pound of apples
4 gallons on soy milk

My next adventure is the Boston Marathon,  from now until April 21, I will be running every day. This will be followed by a possible 13-Day Backpack - 121.6 miles on the John Muir Train in Yosemite Valley,  the High Sierras, California. But if I am truly lucky  I will receive an invitation to go to Tasmania. My fingers are crossed.

until then; get outdoors…..

No more photos until I am home. My computer is no longer charged, the electrical cord is not working. But in 4 days I will be home and I must admit I am beginning to look forward to taking a shower.

I had big excitement on Thursday. Russ, a flight instructor who I met at the Ptown Airport took he up in his 1969 Cessna airplane. It was one of the coolest things I have done here. We flew from Provincetown down to Chatam first on the inner harbor, then the outer harbor. I saw piles of seals and the best views imaginable of the Cape. I managed to get one photo uploaded before I lost all power to my computer, it is shown at the right. I am now writing at the library. Three of the biggest assets I found in Ptown is the gorgeous new library, which rings it magnificent bell at opening, the airport which has wireless, a nice lounging room, and of course hot water and finally WOMR Radio, an all volunteer free radio with the best mix of DJ’s anywhere. Five assets, the Thrift Shop, especially for books is outstanding.

I have made lists of my major usages that I am going to post at the end of the week before I leave. I found it surprising interesting, one item is my 6 weeks of water usage is equivalent to an 8 minute shower.

That is it for today, rain and snow are on their way and it is a long walk back to the shack.

Today, my exhibition is being installed at Pfizer’s headquarters’ on 42nd street in Manhattan. The Essence of Nature’s Inspiration:  Selected Works on Paper by Hilary Lorenz consists of twenty-eight drawings and prints ranging in size from 11” x 14” to 50” x 80” and will be up for the next six months. The description and PR can be found on the tab at the top of the page. I am excited to see the exhibition when I return. Prior to leaving I dropped off the work at the framers and while I am gone the framer and curators coordinated delivery and hanging of the show. It is nice to have that going on while I am gone, framing and shipping is always the most stressful aspect of being an artist. Later into the exhibition Pfizer will host a lunch for me and 17 guests in the private dinning room, which is very nice, already begin a guest at one. But I am keeping in mind my business focus this year is to branch off and forge relationships with new galleries, ones. By the end of the year I will use my sales to expand my studio and printmaking equipment. It has been an outstanding opportunity to live in the C-scape beach shack for the past five weeks. It was certainly a much needed escape from New York and it has giving me time to investigate new types of drawing, mainly drawing from nature.

Also, this morning on the beach around 7am I saw what seemed like thousands of plovers. They must have stretch out over a 150-meter line; the shoreline was virtually covered with them. I wanted to run back and get my camera but at the same time I did not want to miss these funny little birds so I stayed and watched them run back and forth for some time. When I went out after breakfast most had left but still there were a number of them to take photos of. Well 10 days to go….I can’t to see what I find next.

My 14-mile run turned into 17 miles. I get carried away with exploring different areas of Ptown and end up running or hiking much longer than planned. After my 1.5 mile sand walk warm-up from the shack to the road, I ran 4 miles of the bike trail to Herring Cove Beach, then down to the jetty and the west end of Commercial Street. I ran the length of Commercial Street toward Truro and out to Beach Point. On my return I ran the length of Bradford back out to the jetty, over to Herring Cove and followed the bike trail back to the airport. It was a good combination of bike trail, road, the bike trail with deep sand walk to start and finish the run. The sun was out and the wind and rain were gone. A nice change from the 13-mile rain hike yesterday. The most exciting part is I finally saw a whale, or at least a whale spouting. I was stretching at Race Point Beach and saw something white, tall, and billowing. I kept watching and by the second time I realized it was a whale. From the shore it resembled a freight trail with it’s steam pushing out every few minutes. By the time I got back to the shack, hauled wood, built a fire, made and ate dinner; my brain was too worn out to draw. It can be difficult to balance running, hiking and drawing with the short days if I feel pressured to do it all. Because I do not have running water or electricity, I need to go to town to get water and/or to the airport to charge my computer or camera batteries, but never the less it is dark after 4:30 and hard to draw. I tend to pick and choose if it is a long drawing day or a long running day or a combination of the two in moderation. But what is important is that the running and hiking is a direct feed to my drawings. The physical endurance and interaction with the land is the vehicle that shapes my drawing and keeps me going every day. Fortunately my body holds the physical experience so that I can continue the essences of this work back in my New York studio. While I am in no hurry to leave the C-scape shack, in fact I do not want to leave, I can look forward to my giant drafting table and printing press at the studio and I will have a body full of beach memories to draw from.

At 9:30 Saturday morning I waved goodbye to Nancy from the airport parking lot. She drove here on Thursday from her home in the Adirondacks, 445 miles to go hiking on the shore. We met a couple years ago climbing the eastern high peaks of the Adirondacks and have gone on several backpacks since. She is always looking for a good adventure. Nancy arrived earlier than I anticipated which was great because we able to walk to the shack in the light, and take a short 5-mile beach walk toward Truro. We saw a couple of seals, which was exciting and arrived back after sunset in the deep dusk. It was beautiful to see the ocean getting dark as the sun went down. On Friday it rained, almost non-stop, but it mattered little to either of us. I thought since it was going to rain all day, we could start  on the bike trail, walk over to Herring Cove Beach and walk the beach back to the shack. It would be a modest 10-mile walk partially on asphalt and partially on the sand and through the beach forest. I have tracked it a few times on my wrist GPS as one of my running routes.

Around Bennet pond we found a woods trail and wandered onto that, first following footsteps, then animal tracks. We were careful not to walk on the plants or dunes that did not already have trails cut into them. I can’t say we were lost because it is not possible to get lost; if you walk in a straight line you will come back to the bike trail, but I could not find our way out. All the dunes looked the same. In every direction I looked I saw the same landscape with small trails running through them. It was more my fantasy that we were bushwalking through uncharted territory, but it was fun to think that was what we were doing. Eventually we decided to backtrack because I could not find the correct path. When we got to Herring Cove Beach, one of my favorite places because the sea is more angry and aggressive at this spot, it was pouring rain. We stood on the beach, eating our snacks, a few people sitting in cars watching the water probably thinking, “Who are those crazy people.” We walked the beach at high tide over to Hatches Harbor, a inlet of water with lots of tiny little ‘islands.” Again we had to backtrack because it was not possible in the high tide and rain to walk to the Race Point lighthouse via Hatches Harbor. So sheepishly we had to backtrack. I felt a bit dumb about having to backtrack again, clearly I did not plan our walk well, but I was so excited about seeing new places and all kinds of cool sites, my dumbness subsided. We walked the bike trail back to our starting point. We ended up walking over 13 miles; we had a few spots without rain but not many. We arrived at the shack, stoked up the fire, and Nancy made a delicious lentil stew. This morning she was up early, before sunrise and made a fire. It was nice to wake up to a warm living room. I made coffee and we walked out to the seashore to drink our coffee and watch the sun rise. It is a clear beautiful morning. Nancy is headed back home and I am headed out for a 14 mile run.

The Joy of Running on the Cape’s sand dunes.

I worry I am not training properly or training enough in anticipation the beginning of racing season with New York Road Runners in February or for the Boston Marathon in April.  Last November I ran my first marathon, the NYC Marathon with a time of 3:49:08 after only running for 8 months. I had not run in over 20 years. I was thrilled with my time and all my planning went exactly as expected.  I also completed about 13 races consistently coming in within the top 13% of my age class and even earning a 1st place overall women in a 5k cross country meet.  But now, I am away from my team, they are training indoors at the nice warm track, getting speedier and speedier. I wonder what the heck am I doing in all this sand, even if it is far more beautiful here.

Today is a good example of a typical day and to say why running is so difficult or not difficult but slow.  I needed to go into town so first there was a 3 mile sand walk to get to my car and back. Finally home and ready to run, there is a ¾ mile run or walk in the sand to get to the bike trail. I usually run it to save time, but that extra 3.75 miles of sand before I even begin to run really takes its toll. The bike trail is a whole other animal; it is all hills, up and down for 5.5. It never lets up and puts a real strain on my legs, a good workout. Just walking the bike trail makes my ass hurt. I have been alternating between running the bike trail and running the beach. I figure running in the sand will make my legs really strong, but in reality the distance I normally cover in 63 minutes, takes 1:45 in the sand. It is grueling and depressing to move so slowly! Running in the sand feels like I have 10-pound weights on each ankle. I worry that I am getting slower and slower.  Today’s workout designed by our coach is a 1 mile warm up, followed by 4 x 1 mile at ½ marathon pace (60 second active rest in between), then a mile cool down. I figure that is a pretty moderate pace, about 8:25, so lets give it a shot on these never ending hills, I will either finish happy or completed devastated and depressed. Mile 1, 8:17, right on! Mile 2, 8:05, not bad, but too quick, Mile 3 and 4 both 8:20. I know for my friends at home running in singlets and shorts on an indoor fast track this is an easy workout. But I am feeling pretty smug that I ran it over endless hills, in layers of winter clothing, against the wind and cold. I guess I could say that I got the better workout or they could say they are smarter. I certainly have the most scenic route. So today I do not need to feel depressed, until tomorrow when I go running in the sand.