Catching Scents

Ah, we've entered into the dark months, always a hard time for me. (I appreciate these months, but they're hard.) I came across this piece from about 20 years ago, about the end of winter and thought I'd share it.

I’ve been catching scents: crossing the parking lot at school when suddenly I smell the mud, just briefly, and then it’s gone again. I know that mud, I know that smell, I think, it’s the late winter smell that comes after several days of thawing, the ground soft underfoot, water coming up as you press the earth down. It comes with the sideways sweep of wind on your arms until suddenly you know, without knowing how, that maybe you won’t need to wear a sweater tomorrow, and you start watching the trees for budding. I look for the moss, delicate sharp flowerlets of bright green, no larger than a thumbtack. The grass is still brown, the soil looks dead, but bending closer under the cover of withered grass is the moss: luxurious, rampant, abundant, if oh so tiny. From here on in I know that spring is coming, even if it snows again. I live in this world, I am embedded in this world, I am the world, and even if I forget it sometimes the truth remains because, see, there’s a whiff of mud suddenly as I cross the parking lot at school.

            I hear the birds so clearly now. I woke up this morning thinking kids were playing on the street and it was the birds: loud, joking, calling their good-mornings to the sky and to each other.

            I went for a walk today through town, up by all the older houses and the cemetery. I was going along, in my own head, when I was struck by a rosebush in front of me. How else can I say it: the sight of the tangled branches, the thorns, the dried rose-hips stopped me as surely as if I’d been hit. All the many shades of brown in the new stems, now gray, lined, no longer thorned but weathered, crisp; the delicacy of the rose-hips purple-red-brown and tough, their hard shiny surface surrounded with a lace of leftover leaves. These had lasted the winter, the storms and the wind, the carelessness of people passing no longer looking now that the roses were gone. The roses told me: stop, and, slow down, and I did, I did, in time to see the tree limb weaving the air into being for me, in time to watch the rippling of water beneath my feet. I stopped and looked below the grate and saw the coursing of water two feet below me. There is water beneath my feet! I stood and listened to the water flowing by, on its own way, water tumbling over itself and joined by more and more water winding its way down the streets to the grate, to… I realized I didn’t know where the water went to after that. I left this for another day and continued walking, but before I had even gone five feet I was stopped by another call of water falling, running. Two grates! one on each side of the street, and I stood there and listened to the water running on both sides of me, running down, running down from everywhere, and now I could hear the plink, plink of water dripping onto slate below a tree and the faster fall of water in the gutters and drainpipes along the houses. Everywhere was water, water, and I stood in the middle of it all and listened.

Cheers -
SA

#FinishUrBookFall - Oct. Update

This year instead of NaNoWriMo I’m taking part in a new challenge, #FinishUrBookFall. Since the summer I’ve been alternating between two projects (described here) and at some point I realized that I maybe had enough material for the first to start thinking about it as a collection. Possibly a book? Certainly a chapbook. Then the #FinishUrBookFall challenge came along and I figured this would be a good way to focus my attention and really get some work done on this.

What can I say, I like challenges.

And it’s been working. I have more energy and direction around this project than I’ve had before, I’m seeing things come together. At the same time, of course, I’m visited by doubt. I’m repeating myself (ideas, themes, words) – I have nothing new or worthy to say – my writing is obvious, trite…

Then at the same time I read other people’s collections, ones that are meaningful to me, that have given me inspiration or encouragement, and I see ideas, themes, words repeated… only in their work I see it as resonance, or echoes, or other ways of describing the ways that coming back to something again & again strengthens it, or turns it, or fragments it in ways that allow you to put things back together in new and insightful ways. So maybe mine will be useful to someone else in the same way.

(Of course there are the works I read that are so virtuoso that there isn’t any expectation of approaching, I’m content to merely kneel at their feet…)

I was blessed to see Ada Limón recently at the poetry book club I go to (author of Bright Dead Things, The Carrying). Among the questions she answered were ones on how she forms her collections. So I was blessed not only with her presence overall but also with very specific notes on exactly what I’m curious about right now, resonating with thoughts I’ve had about this. Her process isn’t mine, of course, but I think it’s similar enough in ways that I can get guidance from her words.

I currently have about 20 in close to final form, or if not finished, at least ready for other eyes, and another 20 or so in larval form. Not everything will go in so yes, I think chapbook is the right answer. Though I’ve also been wondering about what is missing, what needs still to be written, so who knows… I think perhaps quite a lot. It looks like I will come to the end of #FinishUrBookFall and see I have at least another year’s writing in front of me, let alone revision. But that’s okay. Already this exercise of thinking about putting together a book has led to good questions and new determination. And I find the more I write the more endurance I have for it, the more drive I have. The more ideas. The more I want to study as well…

Sometimes it feels my body can’t contain all I want to do. I remember this feeling from other times in my life and back then I got overwhelmed, more than once… I know better now how to ride it out, the rhythm of pushing forward and then, maybe not quite pulling back but allowing myself not to push for a while. To rest in the other rhythms of my life, the other things that need doing. It helps also that I’m working with all of me these days too, in fact, that’s the only way I could do this.

So onward I go!

S.A.

What I've Been Up To (Part 3B)

Back to the writing. Sometime in June I had the thought, when I'm dying, what will I most regret not having done? And the answer was immediate: Not writing the book(s) I always thought I would. Because I have always assumed that I would write one book at least, someday. I just always thought it would come from whatever work I was doing. Since that wasn't happening, I thought I'd better just start writing, instead.

Once I allowed myself the time to just write whatever I wanted it didn't take long to realize that I had a novel I wanted to get out. And once I allowed myself that, all kinds of memories and ideas came pouring in. In October I even uncovered a cache of story ideas and beginnings from ten years ago, the last time I took a writing class, including one that was eerily like the novel I'd started three months before. I guess that idea decided I was still the right person for it.

Of course all this gives me permission to read more! And with that the realization that there were books I had not been allowing myself to read, out of wanting it too much, without knowing that was my thinking ("This is the sort of stuff I want to write, but I could never write that, so I'm not going to read it...") Funny how we work against ourselves, yes? So I'm enjoying reading novels again.

I do not think I would believe I could see a longer work of fiction through to its end if it were not for marathon training, and running in general.* For knowing the results of putting in daily effort, one step in front of the other. For learning how to build habits, outside of will power. For setting concrete long-term goals - goals that no one but I care about and no one but I am paying attention to - and seeing them come to fruition. It's exciting, and inspiring. Funny to think I can be an inspiration to myself.

With determination,
Annie

*I have written longer non-fiction works in the past, as well as short stories, though have not tried to see them to publication. Some time soon I want to look through that cache I found and see if I can do anything more with any of it.

No Más

I've started physical therapy for my shoulder, and the first thing the therapist told me - after listening to what I do and what I did and poking me and measuring muscle strength and range of motion and that good thorough physical therapist stuff - was, no boxing. At least, not until I was allllll better.

I had slowly started doing some again - only what I felt I could do without pain - but my PT said even this was too much. That if I continued I would only be wasting our time.

So we're looking at a couple of months here, minimum, and by then I will be well and truly in the thick of marathon training and unable to fit anything else into my schedule, so that effectively means no boxing until after the marathon. Which is why I was trying to integrate a little bit back into my schedule, even 5 or 10 minutes a few times a week, so that it could remain just part of what I do.

But now, three weeks into that command, I find I'm surprisingly okay with it. (For now.)

As I read more accounts of the study of fighting the more I come to think that for me physically it's all about refining my running anyway. (Developing more strength and explosiveness. More guts.).

And that in the rest of my life it's about sharpening my focus and strengthening discipline and developing fearlessness.

I have no desire to hurt or be hurt, even if I like to hit. But there is so much to learn from the study of fighting.

From my favorite writer on the martial arts: "We are all fighting something."

What am I fighting?
What might I accomplish in that fight?

Seems like a good time to pick up meditation again.

Always striving -
Annie

Word for the Year: Vision

Some of you may know (or have realized) that I spent a fair bit of time thinking about self-improvement, professional development, etc. A couple of months ago I even went through a 31-day exercise in goal-setting and action steps. So it would make sense that I would have a list of goals for 2015 and plans to implement them.

But all my reading and reflection these past months has led me to a different conclusion. That goals, as worthwhile as they may be in the short-term, aren't really going to help me become the person I want to be. For that I need to look at habits, and consider if there are habits I want to break, or, even more constructively, if there are habits I want to take up.

And to guide me in choosing these habits, I need to think about my visions for the future. What do I hope to have done in ten years? Who do I hope to become?

Other questions, borrowed from Jeff Sanders:

• Which projects mean so much to you that you would regret not doing them?
• Which goals would radically change your life more than any other?
• What have you been dying to share with the world?

And then last year I found it tremendously helpful to think about a word for the year, something short and concrete that could serve as a touchstone as I went about my everyday life, making all those quick, immediate, unceasing decisions that we all make in the course of a day.

I'm sure I don't want to share my list of habits with everyone, and I'm not sure that I feel ready to share my deepest vision for myself either. But in the spirit of all the 2015 resolutions/goals posts out there, I give you my word of the year: Vision. So that I may continue to develop mine, and to view all those habits and goals and decisions with those visions in mind.

What would your word be?

Always growing,
Annie

P.S. While I reference Jeff Sanders above, my two favorite personal/professional development blogs are Leo Babauta's Zen Habits and Seth Godin's Seth's Blog. And I would not have found them without Matt Frazier's No Meat Athlete. Do you have a favorite self-improvement blog or resource?

Evolution of an Injury

First, start with one truly exhausted mama.
     It's gotten better in the last week, but for nearly three months I had not been getting more than 6 hours of sleep a night, and that, interrupted.

Next, add in overly ambitious training plans.
     After my challenge went so well I continued with my plans to run an ultra in May, suddenly bumping up my overall weekly mileage as well as continuing my regular long runs.

Don't forget to underestimate the effects of running a marathon distance.
     With my previous marathons I had "hit the wall" by running out of fuel. This, oddly enough, had the effect of protecting my legs as I was forced to stop and slow down significantly. In last month's challenge I had locked in my nutrition which meant I was able to keep pushing - and even speed up - in the last miles. I truly had not expected, or previously experienced, the fatigue and wear that I had after this run.

And then don't make any accommodations for those effects in the days and weeks following.
     All good marathon training plans would have you rest for a least a week and take another two weeks to slowly return to your regular mileage. 

Then, right before you have a long run, eat poorly.
     I wrestled with Girl Scout cookies and sadly, they won. Not only won, but smacked me down and dragged me all around. And then sat on me.

Oh, and get woken up by a youngster for several hours in the middle of night.

But don't change your plans based on how you're feeling.
     No, I was regretting those cookies and made the equally poor decision to "run them off".

And don't change your plans mid-run, no matter how you feel.

Even if you start experiencing shin pain two-thirds of the way through.

Sigh.

******************************************

The verdict is out on what this is. Shin splints? Stress fracture? Inflammation? I've seen my doctor and had an x-ray done, which neither of us expect will tell us anything useful, but has to be done so that insurance will agree to the more useful MRI. We're waiting on the results (or rather, non-results) of that. In the meantime, how to treat it? Rest to the extent that I can. Icing seems to be helping. Waiting on ibuprofen (which would help with inflammation) until we can rule out a stress fracture, since ibuprofen impedes bone healing.

I haven't been taking anything for pain (at least, not since those first two awful days) since I have a pretty high pain tolerance and often just don't think to take anything. And honestly, the pain I do have is useful. Does it hurt when I do this? That? It gives me guidance on what I can do since the other option - not doing anything - goes against every last bit of my being. I mean, I will if I really have to, but if I don't really have to...

I am grateful that both of the races I have already registered for are meaningful to me beyond an opportunity to race. I'll be able to take each of them as they come and enjoy them at whatever state of fitness I'm at. And I want to keep that in mind with all future races.

My mother asked if it bothered me to have to reduce my training. I'm feeling really grateful right now to be able to say no. This is just what is going on right now. I'll swim more than I have been and have switched to more strength training, especially leg exercises so that I don't lose too much there. (Hello, squats!) I see this as an opportunity to start over again, correctly, for the long-term goals I have in mind. And as an opportunity to assess more realistically what some of those goals might be. (No worries, Ali, I still want to run an ultra someday.)

And maybe in the meantime I'll work through my stack of mending and actually get started on my next quilt.

Ever optimistically.
Annie

So Now What?

Of course I've given this a lot of thought this week. The Dude's first question to me when I got home was "Do you think you want to do another one?" and my answer is a resounding "Yes!" And I may have sorta promised not to do one until 2015... but I may kinda be doing some retroactive finder-crossing on that... you know, if the right one comes along sooner...

Here's what I do know. I'm going to take a break from active training until March 1. This gives me the winter off (holiday/ice season) and also happens to end with my birthday. I will enjoy my running / swimming / rowing / yoga / hiking without thinking about it being for anything. I'll want to build up my distance and speed again starting in a couple of weeks, but not with a particular race in mind. Then in February I'll start to think about the season and making plans.

As for marathons, I think I need to develop some guidelines for myself. This is what I've come up with so far:

1. My knee pain at the end (mostly gone now, by the way) was, I think, my usual IT band stuff, aggravated by all the pavement pounding - I had always done some of my long runs off pavement so I hadn't been prepared for that. If I want to do another city marathon I need to a) work on rehabbing that ITB more seriously than I have, and b) get more serious about my walk breaks.
2. For the same reason I want to look more into trail running, my first love. That will involve needing to get my driver's license back (I rarely drive and forgot to renew it last time so now I have to take the test all over again) and then getting more comfortable driving. But we have an automatic now so I have no excuse not to anyway.
3. I was so inspired by all the people running as part of a charity team that I'd like to take part in that myself. Maybe that will be how I do the other ones in the World Marathon Master series(Tokyo, London, New York, Berlin, Boston - certainly the only way I could get into that one). I have raised money through both my marathons but with both I trained and ran alone - I think it might be fun to do it as part of a team.
4. And I think my goals for my next one are a) to have fun and b) to finish strong. No time goal, but to run more consistently throughout, and not needing to walk at the end as I have had to both times now.

I took the week off from running and am now excited to go again! I will be slow and steady in returning though. Seriously. No finger-crossing there.

Yours excitedly -
Annie

No, I'm Not*

Some people use their blogs to announce what they plan to do, to put it out into the world and for everyone (who reads their blog) to see and hold them accountable to it.

Me, I'm going to post what I'm not going to do. So that if later I start frothing at the mouth you all can stop me and say, "Hey Annie, now wait a minute. Didn't you swear not to do this?"

I'm not going to train for a marathon next year.

Oh, I want to, I want to.

To repeat: I am not going to train for a marathon next year.

No? Really? Maybe just a little one?

I am NOT going to train for a marathon next year.**

Sigh. Whimper.

I make no promises abut 2014, however.

*And no, I'm not pregnant, either. I swear, I've been getting asked that question a lot lately.

** I hardly need to explain why not, given that I haven't even managed to get a simple blog post written in the past two weeks despite having plenty to talk about. I'm thinking I might try having balance and simplicity be my mantras for next year.

One Step Back to Leap Forward

Just been evaluating my training this season and thinking about what works for me and what doesn't, as I move into the last month of race training and start thinking about next year and what I'll do over the winter.

I like that I've added in rowing, it's great to have an intense workout that isn't running since I'm not a fast swimmer and don't want to be (and I'm building some nice arm and back definition in the process!)

But I need to add swimming back in as a regular workout because it helps me recover from long/hard runs in a way that rowing doesn't.

And while it was ego-satisfying to increase my mileage by adding in an extra run most weeks, I can't make this a regular practice, as I don't have the time to do all the recovery stuff I need to do to make that work. You know, since I'm forty now, and seem to be falling apart. I'm sure my fragmented sleep schedule doesn't help with that either.

I want to keep all this in mind this winter as I read up on marathon training plans and plan out my racing schedule for next year. Winter itself will be about maintaining my running base and losing the last pounds (knowing that winter here is defined as November through March).

And yes, I realize that I've chosen the hardest time of the year to make a weight-loss push, but I do not want to go into marathon training with any thought of trying to lose weight. I've made that mistake before and it was ugly.

So here's to smart training!

The Half That Wasn't

So, I don't really need to drill too deep into this (or at least not any more - it's a good thing I rarely manage to write right after an event). About half an hour after posting about the Chicago Half, I decided not to do it after all. I felt that my reasons for doing it, coupled with the impact it would have on my day/week, were not worth the risk of injury to myself. Not when I have another race in eight weeks that I am actively training for. Plus in talking with The Dude (who has done the half) it didn't sound like a fun race as much as a fairly serious one - not something to just go do on a whim (unless I didn't have kids or were in a lot better condition than I am now).

Instead I slept in a bit and then went out for a ten-mile run in the neighborhood. I decided I would make it a time trial and aim for 11:00 pace for the first half and 10:00 pace for the second (faster than any of my long runs). I struggled during the first half - not physically but mentally - it took me a while to stop feeling sorry for myself, and the music I was listening to was all over the place so that didn't help. Things finally started clicking about halfway through and I enjoyed pushing myself to keep at a steady, yet faster, pace. Then, with what I thought was 1.75 miles to go, I saw I had 16 minutes to hit my time goal, so even though a stretch of this was uphill I leaned into it and pushed as hard as I could until I rounded those last blocks and made it home. And then realized that I'd failed to turn my watch back on after one of the last traffic lights and so had no way of knowing for certain whether or not I'd made my goal. Utter dejection, and back emotionally to where I was at the beginning of the run.

Utter foolishness, yes? Because I still ran that 10 miles, and the second half considerably faster than the first. And it was a beautiful day, and I was out running, and my kids were having a great time with The Dude at home, and I had no reason in the world to feel sorry for myself at all.

(I've since mapped out that last stretch and found that it was only 1.6 miles, not 1.75, so I was in no worry of not meeting my goal for the morning anyway. The danger of trying to convert minutes into miles at the end of a run.)

I still had to go through a couple of cycles of alternately feeling sorry for myself and counting my blessings before I was done with it and could embrace the day. And it was a glorious day and I was so glad I was there to be available to my family, not trying to recover from a race I had no business running.

And the lesson learned from all this? To not mess around with my racing schedule too much once I've set it for the year. 5k's and 10k's excepted, of course.

Although, as a friend pointed out, I did end up getting those long runs in that I'd had trouble with...

Keeping It Short So I Can Keep Going

For the last two weeks I've been sticking to shorter distances and taking them slower as well (and after taking a week's break, thanks to the baby and his nighttime demands). I'm liking the laid-back routine --- I feel I'm beginning to get back some enjoyment to my runs and with that more excitement about what I might do this season. Day by day I find my runs getting smoother and the recovery faster. I forget that in addition to needing to build my heart and lungs and muscles back up, which is relatively easy, I also need to get all that connective stuff back on track, the tendons and ligaments and fascia, and that takes longer.

I just entered my workouts into dailymile.com (you can see them on the right) and can now look over the whole year at once --- when I did that I could see that I had jumped back into multiple runs way too quickly, increasing distance AND speed AND frequency all at once. I was so happy to be able to get out on my own again (once I went back to work and Champ was at daycare) that I just plunged back in without giving my body time to accomodate to the new stresses. I think I also felt that these shouldn't be new stresses since I've been running for years... but of course not at these distances/speeds/frequencies since getting pregnant.

The other thing I'm excited about is returning to SWIMMING! I didn't swim much while pregnant, first because of the smell and then because the awkwardness of getting in and out of a swimsuit, and then I didn't have any good opportunity in the months at home with Champ. But the other day it suddenly occured to me that swimming would be the perfect antidote to all the baby-carrying and nursing I do. (Plus the hunching-over to minimize the current ridiculousness of my breasts, which I know is stupid but I can't help it.) I've been trying to do yoga at home to help with my back, but honestly the minute I step into the house it's all about chores (and baby-carrying and nursing...). But with the boys starting at the same daycare soon I'll have time to go to the pool again and I am positively giddy at the idea of slipping into cool water and str-e-etching out with each stroke. Lovely. Now I just have to go through my swimsuits and see which one actually fits.

Other Races

Not that I'm trying to be coy about what races I'm training for this year, but... I don't quite know myself. I'm trying to not be so intense about racing this year, and just train for the heck of it. My focus right now seems to be more on recovery and weight loss and building up my base. Plus, I want to leave myself room to be in a more, ahem, delicate condition, and not worry about how any such changes may affect racing plans... So no signing up for races months in advance this year.

But I've been upping my mileage (slowly) and my overall number of workouts, and am swimming steadily again, plus fitting in more yoga and strength training, so overall I feel pretty good about where I'm at and where I'm going, even if I don't have any amazing progress to report. Trying to practice balance in all things...

Change in Plans, That's It, Just a Change in Plans

Yesterday I scheduled myself for a nice, easy, 4-mile run. You know, nice and easy to recover from Saturday's race.

And then it was so beautiful outside... I decided to make it six.

Do you know where this is going? That's right, at mile 4 (and still 2 miles from home), my right knee started bothering me. And then some more. And then some more. I kept going because frankly it was easier to keep going than to stop and start up again, and I was still 2 miles from home, and I didn't want to walk (I didn't think it would feel any better to walk), but by the time I got home more than my knee was hurting.

Now, thankfully, I don't think I've done anything serious to myself. I could walk around mostly fine yesterday (just some problems after going down steps), and I haven't had any major pain today (just twinges... but a bunch of them). But I'm taking this as a big red flag to back waaaay off the running for a while.

Last year, at about this same time, I started having problems with my left foot, and I didn't back off... until January, when I had to, and then ended up with about eight weeks of wondering if I'd be able to run again this year at all. And I still have to baby that foot. I don't plan to make that mistake twice! So from now until the end of the year I'm going to hit the pool and the gym, and if I go running, just something nice and easy (for real), maybe once a week.

Happy that I already decided to do a sprint tri next year! I'll be able to enjoy those hours in the pool and the gym and not chafe at "missed" training opportunities. Now I just need to find someone to sucker persuade into doing it with me.

Notes on an Inward Week

Travel always makes me introspective, and I spent much of the week thinking about where I am in my life, where I want to be, and how I might get from here to there. I'm feeling good about where I've come to after that thinking, and ready to start putting some new things into motion, but between my busy head, the travel, and work, I wouldn't say this was a restful week. I think maybe the whole notion of taper weeks doesn't really apply to working moms. Some good runs, though.

Sunday: Ran 8 miles in Englewood Reserve. I love running here. I love the trees and the wildflowers and the lake, and how the path opens up as you go along the base of the dam and again at the top. I love that the hills make me work.

I did not love that my favorite shoes are now officially dead, and I had to get new ones, a new style even, since my favorites (Brooks Axiom 3) are no longer around. The new ones are not quite right, but at this point I don't have much choice. I'll save my experimenting for the winter.

Monday: Rest / travel day.

Tuesday: Ran 5 miles (yoga).

Wednesday: Swam 21 laps.

Thursday: Ran 6 miles @ 10:10 (yoga). Wasn't planning to run at this speed, it's just where my body felt I needed to be. Pretty awesome.

Friday: Feeling out-of-sorts when I woke up, needing some extra time with Buddy and some extra time to myself. Rest day!

Saturday: Rest / work day (yoga).

Share Your Soles 10K Race Report

D.N.F. Did not finish.

In the end, it was just too hot for me. 89 degrees, long stretches without any shade, no breeze.

I ran the first half feeling okay. I kept myself pulled back the first mile, but then panicked a bit when I saw just how slowly I'd run it. So I picked up the pace and ran my next two miles progressively faster, feeling okay, and steady, slowing a bit when there was some shade to enjoy it, then running a bit quicker through the hot bits to get through them.

In retrospect, this was the exact wrong strategy, because then we ran out of shade and there were only hot bits left. But I'd already gotten myself hot trying to make up for lost time.

I have trouble with overheating, and once I got into that sun I realized I was uncomfortably close to my limits. I ended up completing the course - first giving up trying to best my previous time, then on finishing the second half faster than the first, and then I gave up on running altogether. I took off my timing chip and walked the rest of the way in, passing, along the way, the ambulance picking up those who didn't stop quite soon enough.

Overheating is such a frustrating experience. My legs felt fine, my breathing was fine, but my head - oh, she was not quite right. I've had enough experience with heat and with migraines to know that when my head is "not quite right" I need to immediately pull back, re-group, and get outside assistance if need be. Especially since that feeling usually comes with its playmates: bravado and stupidity.

So, I finished. I gathered up my gear bag. I ate my salty snacks and drank my Gatorade. I started the long walk back to the train stop. At my transfer station I had a long wait: long enough to feel completely fit again, long enough to feel completely dissatisfied with my morning's experience, long enough to doubt my decision and wonder why I left my darling child on a Sunday morning and why I bothered to race at all.

And then I got home, to my nice, shady, green neighborhood, and I decided I wanted to go for another run.

I went out for three miles, assuring The Dude that I would be careful (sort of). A few blocks in I realized what I really wanted to do was take it easy for the first half, pick up my pace for the second half, and finish with a strong kick for the last 400 meters. That I just hadn't gotten enough oomph in my day and I was going to get it now.

And so I did. And it was great. And once I finished and was walking around cooling down I realized this was exactly what I had visualized for myself as I trained for the race, for weeks now, and what I hadn't gotten from the race itself. And also that it was this feeling (starting steady, picking it up, picking it up, picking it up and then kicking. it. in.) and not the time, that I was really looking for in my race experience.

Ah-hah!

So, going forward, that's how I want to train and race. By feel more than by the clock. It makes sense - I'm never going to be fast - and weather conditions (and how much I've been sleeping) are always going to be out of my control. And that's okay. I loved running when I was super slow and getting faster has opened up some lovely new possibilities for me, but if I want to become like that "running granny" I wrote about last week then I've got to love the experience of it and not the results.

I got so excited by my new insights that I signed up for more races, just for fun. Next up, on June 6 - a 10K at the zoo with Buddy and some friends, untimed. And then July 18 another 10K at my favorite race location, Montrose Harbor, for pre-marathon practice in "racing by feel" - and dealing with the heat.

The day - redeemed. The excitement - back. The times - well, we'll see.

Hero of the Day

Wow! I just read about Mavis Hutchison, South African ultra-runner, who is in her eighties. Today is the anniverisary of her 1978 run across America. That's right, the whole country.

Here's the article in Runner's World, with a super-cool photo of her in her racing singlet. I'm printing this one out and putting it on my wall of inspiration at work.

Run on, Mavis!

Ready to Race!

Race day. 6:02 a.m. Sick child, sick mama, not enough sleep. Par for the course this season - par for the course of having a young child. I am revising my race goals upward, back to my original one of an 11:20 pace.

But it looks to be sunny and clear with only mild breezes. The trees have not yet lost all their leaves and we are beginning and ending at Montrose Harbor with their gorgeous fields of wildflowers - a beautiful day and a beautiful course for a race. This All Saints' Day I will run in memory of all our mothers and all the women who have come before us and made our world a beautiful place, using their strength and determination and endurance to move forward and to make things better for their children and for all children - that is to say, for all of us. I am privileged to be able to spend my energy and focus on running, and I hope in some way, through this sport I love, to be able to make the world better too.

What a Week --- Part 2

Lately I've been reading the book "Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen" by Christopher McDougall, and there's lots and lots in it I could talk about, but what stayed with me this week on these tough runs is when he talks about the joy of running, how children and certain athletes and the Tarahumara Indians that he's writing about all have this profound joy in their running, a lightness in spirit, and how that ends up being a lightness in their physical running as well. And how his own running is transformed in trying to emulate that lightness.

This speaks to me because I feel that I frequently have that joy in my running - so often when I pass people on the street I see grim, intense faces (and I'm sure the same is true for me too sometimes) but so often I know I'm smiling instead.

And sometimes when the running is hard I can call on that lightness, think about being light on my feet, imagine myself breathing in light, see all my muscles and tendons and ligaments and bones being held together loosely, connecting lightly, instead of being tense or locked together --- and it helps.

I called on this for the first run with Buster in particular, both at the beginning when I wasn't yet warmed up and when it seemed impossible to do this kind of run with a stroller (remind me again why I chose to run 6 miles with a baby in tow*) - and then again at the end after I ended up running an extra mile and a half... a little bit too fast... in the sun... and was hurting, oh, just a little bit.

And that lightness carried me through.

*Why am I doing this? Because I love it, and I want to run much more, much farther, and I want to love it all the way. And if some days that means taking the baby along, well, endurance is endurance, yes? Seems like good practice for the kinds of crazy-ass races I want to run someday.

Trying Something New

I did a tempo run yesterday on the track, and it was awful and it was glorious. Awful because of the heat and humidity, glorious because I managed it despite the heat and humidity. This was the first tempo run I had done under my new program and I was nervous about my ability to do it, especially in this weather. But I got through, on pace, thanks to just enough of those beautiful moments when you feel that all is merging together perfectly to bring you, the run, and the world into blissful harmony. That, and the garden volunteer who kindly watered me when I asked him to.

For those of my non-running readers who don’t know what I’m talking about, a tempo run involves warming up at an easy pace for about 10-15 minutes, then an extended run at a middle race distance pace (that is, not as fast as you would do a 5K, but not as slow as you would a marathon), and then cooling down with an easy jog for another 10-15 minutes. The idea is that they teach your body (and mind) to run at a fast pace for a long period of time, thus getting you ready for actual racing conditions. This is something new I've been doing this year, and aside from being fun to do on its own, it has also really boosted my confidence about my abilities.

As I said, this was the first week of a new training program. I’ve been getting mine from the Runner's World Smart Coach program, and previously I had been working with one created from my 5K time of earlier this year. But as I started incorporating speedwork and tempo runs into my training, I realized I was improving much faster than I had expected, and that in fact I was finding it harder to go at the slower pace set by the program than to just go at a faster one. Was it possible that I had already improved so much as to need a new program? It seemed so - every time I changed my planned runs to go faster the transition was effortless, even at the longer distances. I was tired of the endless tinkering I was doing, and worried that I might end up "improving" my program to the point of overexertion, so after a few weeks of this I decided to recalibrate and create a new one, based on the actual speedwork I'd been doing.

Of course I worried that I was being too ambitious, but after a week it feels just right - hard enough to have to put more physical and mental effort into it, but temperate enough to feel like it's a challenge I can continue to meet, week after week. (I hate the word "moderate.") I really do need to be able to stay the course on my training - as the mother of an almost-toddler who relies on my runs to keep me happy and grounded (and pleasant to be around), I cannot afford to be injured or to burn out.

I would love to be able to do more - I read the blogs of other mother athletes and envy what they are doing. But I have a thirteen-year history of not managing to string more than two years of running together, despite my great love for it. I am determined this time to keep it going, which means, for this first year back at least, I need to keep my ambition in check. Or rather, to recognize that in order for me to realize my running ambitions, I need to maintain a steady, measured effort over the long haul, and not succumb to the allure of a fast dash out of the gate.

Because I have dreams, baby, I have dreams. And I have sat on them for thirteen years, and I am not content to sit any more.

Talking myself back down...

I so nearly signed up yesterday to do the Chicago Rock'n'Roll Half-Marathon in August. I had even pulled up training schedules and started taking notes to compare them. But the reality of trying to pull off the kind of training schedule I would need to establish (since I'm starting, if not from ground zero, then from ground 2), convinced even me that it wouldn't be a very satisfying attempt this year.

As in, if I managed to maintain the schedule my daily life and my sleep would suffer (I don't think it's possible for me to function on any less sleep than I already do), if I didn't maintain the schedule yet tried to run the race anyway, my body would suffer, if I ended up giving up on the schedule and the race my pride would suffer, and I'd be out a bunch of money to boot. Bah.

But my desire to train more intensively made me look again at my current schedule and think about how I might increase the number of runs I do each week. In particular I've started looking at how I might do some runs once I'm already downtown in the morning, and I think I've found a way. It will involve schlepping even more stuff with me on my commute, but oh well.

And then next year, once I've built up a better foundation, and Buster is in a different daycare... Chicago Rock'n'Roll Half-Marathon 2010, here I come.