Ready?

I've got a race tomorrow, the Share Your Soles 10K.

I'm as ready as I can be, I guess. I know I'm stronger than I was at my last 10K six weeks ago - I've done some good speed workouts and long runs since then.

Mentally I definitely feel more prepared. I've done some "mindful" runs without music, have studied the course map and know approximately where the miles are, have figured out realistic goals for each mile and will write them on my arm tomorrow morning. I know it will be hot and am prepared for that. I know the course is not flat (it's Chicago, so I can't exactly say it's hilly, but it's not flat) and it's a out-and-back course so whatever elevation I find on my way out I will also find on my way back.

I've been fighting a cold for two weeks now and today it got a little uglier, so I'm not happy about that, and I didn't sleep well last night. Plus this week my ankle has been a bit noisier. But I'm going from the keyboard to some relaxing yoga, Tension Tamer tea and ice on the ankle, and then bed, so that's about all I can do about those things.

Wish me luck and cooler temps all morning!

Oops, I Did It Again!

Getting ready to go out for my run this morning, reached into my bag to grab my iPod, and... nothing. I left it at work last night.

Sigh.

Today's was an easy 4-mile run, and again, I think it worked out for the best that I didn't have my tunes. I needed to make this easy, so that I don't wear myself down before Sunday's race, and I have a hard time keeping myself to an easy pace once I get warmed up and excited, especially if I've got rocking good music to run to.

So what did I do instead?

~ Focused on my breathing again, making sure I kept everything nice and easy, smooth and constant.

~ Looked for irises, one of my favorite flowers. I always forget about them until they're in bloom since they're not often used in bouquets. But I love how rich they are, all different colors and textures, and how fragile they look but how tough they really are.

~ Admired gardens. Lots of pretty gardens in these neighborhoods, plus some "interesting" ones. I espeically liked the front yard all lined with wood chips for the three big fluffy dogs residing there.

~ Said "good morning" to anyone who looked like they might respond, and nodded at anyone who didn't.

~ Fantasized about someday qualifying for Boston. (Hah! Maybe if I'm still running when I'm eighty - and don't get much slower in the meantime.)

~ Sang to myself at the beginning of the run, when I needed a little help getting on. "Yell Fire" by Michael Franti.

~ Enjoyed all the green! Today was a beautiful sunny day, the first in a while, and by now all the trees are in full leaf and all the grass is grown back from winter. Everything looked lit from within, all that chlorophyll busy throwing off oxygen and energy. Glorious!

I may just start doing all my pre-race runs without music!

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!

Oops

I left my iPod at home today. I was halfway down the block with Buddy when I realized I didn't have it - I knew I'd been travelling light this morning but not that light - if I hadn't had him I would have turned around and gotten it. So today was my first track workout ever without my tunes.

I was a little nervous about it since track workouts always require some extra oomph and music is the easiest way to get that. But I figured this would be good practice for the race on Sunday (Share Your Soles 10K) and just good practice in general. Also, it was a fairly easy workout as far as track workouts go, 6x400m.

And you know what? I think it worked out for the best! Right from the start I focused closely on my breathing, my form, and how my legs felt. I was trying for as consistent a feel as I could get, checking my time halfway through each repeat to confirm my pace and then adjust as need be. I used my breathing to slow me down when I suspected I might be going too fast, and then changed my breathing pattern at the very end when I wanted that last extra oomph and didn't know where I was going to get it from. And my repeats were the most consistent they've ever been, all at 2:13 with maybe a second's variance in either direction once I got through the first one.

Of course, it's one thing to focus this intensely when I'm only doing 400m at a time. After next week, when I start my marathon training in earnest, my track workouts are all mile repeats and that's a long time to focus so closely, especially given how slow I run. I will really want my music then. But I might try turning off the iPod for some of those repeats... you know, just to see how it feels.

Tracking My Obsession - Part 2 - Off to the Races!

Once I moved to Chicago, in 2000, the running scene was hugely different. Chicago is a city full of runners and great running places. I mean, you can't go anywhere without seeing runners, and if you're anywhere close to the lake you can barely keep from tripping on them. I had taken a break from regular running during my last months in Massachusetts as I become more and more involved in martial arts study, but now I started again, and even signed up for another marathon training program that did not involve fundraising.

Part of this training program involved my first road race, the 2001 Chicago Distance Classic. It was not love at first race. It was brutal. It was hot, of course, August on the lakefront, and a distance I had not covered before (20K, or about 12.5 miles). Nor was I in any way prepared for it. I finished - I even managed not to finish last - but I had no fun, and stopped my training program shortly thereafter.

Over the next four years I started and stopped and started running again. I stopped because of injury, or because my life got complicated - I started because there was nothing that made me feel as good as running did.

I had just started running more regularly again when I met The Dude, in 2005. There is nothing like being involved with another runner to affirm your own love for it. The Dude did not think I was crazy for heading out in all kinds of weather. The Dude understood how I felt after a good run, and that even a bad one was better than no run at all. And The Dude inspired me with his stories of marathons and half-marathons and running with his mom and their tradition of running the Ohio River Road Runners Turkey Trot together every year. That year I ran the Turkey Trot for the first time with him. There were old guys in sweatshirts and young women in tights, middle school kids, lots of middle-aged folk just like me, dogs barking furiously from the sidelines. It was hard, it was cold and windy and rainy, and it was AWESOME.

Chicago is a city where you seriously could run a race every single weekend of the year and not leave city limits. Add in the surrounding suburbs and you could make it every Saturday and Sunday. After that first one, if I'd had more money and time I would have run another race every month, I loved it that much. Instead I got married and worked weekends, ran a couple more a year later, then got pregnant. I kept thinking about races, though, kept planning, kept hoping. Kept having dreams of running a marathon.

So to start running again last year, to improve so much through better training, to be consistent in my training, to find ways to safely continue through injury, to build on the work of last year instead of starting all over again yet again, and to be in a place where I can realistically train for that long-awaited, 14-years-in-the-making marathon... why this is heaven indeed.

Marathon Running With Girls On The Run

So I'm training for the Chicago Marathon, raising funds for the organization Girls On The Run (GOTR).

I think what excites me most about their organization is the non-competitive nature of it. That all girls, regardless of their ability, can take part in the training and the fun and the accomplishment of finishing a 5K.

It's also important to me that the advantages attributed to exercise for girls - better self-esteem, making healthy choices, improved body image - are made explicit through the GOTR lessons. It's done in a fun, playful way for the elementary school girls, more seriously for the middle schoolers.

I loved being active as a kid. I was always taking some class - ballet, gymnastics, jazz dance, horse-back riding, even rhythm gymnastics. I went hiking and cross-country skiing with my parents, swam by myself and with my dad, and biked everywhere.

And then, you know, as a girl things can just change for you in high school. At least they did for me.

I had always been aware that I was heavier than other girls (no surprise, as I started sneaking food starting at age 8), and was unhappy with my body. With puberty this unhappiness just exploded. All my physical activity became focused on losing weight. I still biked and hiked and skiied, but the fun in it dwindled as I obsessed about the calories I was or was not burning, and made plans to stop eating that I couldn't ever fulfill. I read the teen magazines and did the exercises promising to get you a bikini body by summer - I didn't. And then I got to college and gave up, and my weight and my health paid the price.

It took a while to get back to enjoying physical activity just for the fun of it. I've written recently about how I got started running after college and fell in love with it; I also started studying martial arts at that time and got introduced to the spiritual aspect of sport. And I had always remained a walker, covering long distances, both out of necessity since I didn't drive, and out of satisfaction in being able to get everywhere on my own feet. But I needed to work out some of the crap I'd accumulated in my head about my body and food and fitness and health before I could truly let go of my compulsive eating and thereby truly enjoy moving just for its own sake. I'm grateful to say it's been a good number of years that this has been true.

My hope for the girls taking part in Girls On The Run is that by taking part in the training, in the lessons and by being part of a team, that they may never lose their love of movement for its own sake. It is a blessing, every day, to be able to run, to have a healthy body that is for your own use, not someone else's. Girls On The Run shows these girls that blessing, and so I am grateful to be able to train with them and for them as a member of their SoleMates team.*

*Even if it is a cheesy, cheesy name.

Just An Ordinary Run

Good day for a run today. Somewhat cool but not cold, air comfortably damp, no noticeable wind. I went out for 5 miles on my favorite run-before-work route, which takes me from Buddy's daycare up a smooth gradual hill, through a pretty residential neighborhood with lots of flowering trees, then some not so interesting bits until I hit the park that I love, from which I then go back into nice neighborhoods until I get home.

On my easy runs I am working on keeping a slower steady pace. It's very easy and very tempting to start off quick, but then I fight through the last two miles. If I manage to avoid this initial temptation I then struggle with the urge, once I'm warmed up, to deliberately pick up the pace, thereby turning it into a tempo run. But I need to remember that at the end of the summer I will be attempting to run 26.2 miles, and the only way to do that is to learn how to temper my pace. I have enough other opportunities for speedwork, so I tell myself, "Anne, sometimes an easy run gets to stay an easy run."

Lots of birds today, skimming across the fields, lots of May flowers, good music on my shuffle. Just an ordinary day, and what a blessing.