Half Marathon Today in Corvallis

Today there is a half marathon event in Corvallis. The event was capped at about 1700 some participants. Each paid $55 to enter, which seems an astounding amount.

Click the post title to read a local paper article on people's reasons for running.

I used to run, but not long distances. In college I sometimes ran on average 3 miles, in my exercise stints. Most of any running I ever did was after I left college. I remember running when living in Seward Alaska with a nurse I met there. I also remember trying to cross country ski with her for miles to Exit Glacier, but the snow turned on the way, becoming sticky so that skiing was difficult. The snow stuck to the bottoms of our skiis in foot deep chunks. We barely made it out before midnight. We were both exhausted and dehydrated from the effort of sliding a step on a ski, then having to lift the ski and knock off all that snow.

We both were using waxless X-country skiis, but we had some waxes along, just in case. None of them helped.

We congratulated ourselves on even making it out that night.

Since my younger days in Alaska, where I even climbed mountains alone and with little gear, since returning to Oregon, being put in the mental health system, my lifestyle could be described as unhealthy. Especially the decades in the mental health system. Over drugged, bored, and seriously overweight. Many of the drugs I was forced to take had awful side affects, like weight gain, vision blurring, balance mess-up, slurred speech, tripling triglyceride levels. There is nothing healthy about the mental health system and its drugs.

Then came the beating by staff at Portland Adventist leaving me with serious pain issues. After that, however, I left the mental health system and began walking, hiking the Bald Hill trail over in Corvallis.

But then too soon came the eviction from the slum shack and the move to Albany, where I became re-acquainted with unhealthy inactive living.

I don't get enough exercise.

The reasons vary, all are just excuses. But here they are: There's no access to fun exercise around here unless you like to walk sidewalks to stoplights, then walk another block to another stoplight. I don't. I find nothing attractive about walking sidewalks. No nice wooded getaway trail systems surround this city. Albany is also flater than flat. You will be hard put to find an incline here.

I sold my two broken bikes on craigslist, after they sat unused and broken too long. I rode my bike a couple times after moving here, but I got run off the road almost immediately, by a bunch of guys in a pickup, who did not stop, but slowed down long enough to make fun of running me off the road. The event rattled me severely, besides damaging my bike.

So, I'm trying to make a plan for exercise. I salute the half marathoners, but I have neither the knees nor the money for running those events. But there must be something I can find to do that I can afford, that is close by, that I will keep doing. I do dance now, inside my place, to the music my brother sent me for my birthday.

I joined a hiking group on craigslist, but met with them only once, then they stopped going or didn't want me joining them again. I believe it to be the former. I'd rather think they are all too busy, too broke to drive out to the forest again, rather than think I wasn't a good hiking companion! I've not heard from them since the one outing, which, despite steady rain, was enjoyable. We hiked probably 40 minutes. Took almost that long driving to get to the location!

I like dancing in my place and will keep doing that while I search out exercise options.

I got a call from the Lowe's warehouse. They wanted to deliver a refrigerator and stove. I said, "What? I did not order a refrigerator and stove." He asked, "Are you, Erica ...sombody?" Didn't catch the last name because I was processing the thought "I sure could use a new stove." There was also a cell number associated with the order. He says "I'll have to investigate this," and hung up.

This is the second such call I've had in six months. The other order was for a fancy bed. But again, the person ordering had given my landline number.

I wonder if this has anything to do with the woman who used to have this landline and the fact she seems to owe everyone in the world money. I wonder now if she's stealing identities and using her old landline number as contact, along with a burner cell number. I just wonder that sometimes. I don't think it's normal to get two calls from two different companies, wanting to deliver shit, to a different address associated with this number. I think two such calls is maybe beyond coincidence and beyond a slip up in writing down a number wrong.

But maybe I'm wrong on that.