Finding my runner's paradise

I feel good.  Really, really good.

Not that life is over-enthusiastically good right now.  My romantic life is still MIA, which is always fun.

And the first month of school has proved to be incredibly stressful this year.  Not in a bad way, I've just been so busy that I feel like I don't have a moment to breathe from 7:30 am to 4:30 pm.  I've barely had enough time to give myself 15 minutes to shove down lunch.

In fact, I just noticed this afternoon that I'm developing a small patch of eczema in the crevice between my middle and ring finger on my right hand.  My eczema is almost strictly stress-induced, and the last time I saw a patch emerge was when I was in the middle of working on my National Board certification back in 2010.

I also have officially been kicked off my own couch by the two little leeches that live in my apartment and feed off my hard earned living.

I mean, seriously, where do I fit?  Even though Lucy can somehow halve
her size by curling up into a tiny ball, I do not possess that skill.

But none of that matters.  Because I feel really good.

How is that possible, you might ask (and then probably be able to answer in the same breath, because you know me that well)?

Running!

I've been running a lot.  And for the first time in 2 years, running feels like it used to.

Now, I don't want to sound like a broken record here.  I know last winter/spring I wrote several posts that sounded like this:

"Oh my god, running is so great again!  I mean, I know I said that in my last post, but I was really just trying to convince myself that running was great, and it really wasn't.  But now it really is!"

Let me just call bullshit on myself here.  In all of those posts, those "I'm-trying-to-be-really-positive-but-in-reality-I'm-not" posts, I was grasping at straws.  I probably had a good run here and there, but if not physically, then at least mentally, running felt like crap more often than not.

As I mentioned here, I had lost my running esteem.  And it's taken a really long time to build it back.

Two years ago, right around this time, I was getting deeper into training for the Goofy Challenge.  That fall, I found myself chronically sick all the time--I couldn't breathe right, couldn't stop coughing and just generally felt down (later I learned that this was probably due to a wonderfully large amount of mold in my apartment, but that's a whole different story...).  And after that, I never really felt quite right.

I fell in love with running because I liked the way it made me feel.  In the years prior to the fall of 2012, running made me feel strong.  I would finish a run thinking "I killed that pavement!"  I finished runs feeling proud of the hills I conquered, the miles I covered, and the time I spent out on the road.  I finished runs in a mental state of mind that I wanted to get back to as often as I humanly could.  You may like to call it "runner's high," but I prefer to think of it as "runner's paradise."  Only great runs can take you there, and once you're there, everything seems perfect.

For two years, I struggled to find that runner's paradise, trying to convince myself that every once in a while maybe I did.  And perhaps I did.  But if I did, my visits there were very few and very far between.

But not now.  Now I really remember what good running feels like.  And I'm not trying to kid myself here.  Take a look at a recent page out of my training log:

I code each run with a smiley face, straight face, or sad face according to how I felt on the run.  During my Eugene training, I'd say about every other run was straight face, with a few sad faces thrown in.

But now, in my last 12 runs, only one hasn't been a smiley face run.  And the one straight face was because I was physically exhausted and running on low energy last Thursday after a long week at work.  Mentally, I was doing great.  And look at those little notes.  The exclamations of "felt strong!" and "felt really good!" are true expressions of surprise and excitement.

For every additional smiley face run I have, it builds my confidence that I've got more in me.  My legs feel more solidly strong and reliable than they have since that fateful autumn 2 years ago.  It's like I've developed muscles in them that haven't existed over the past two years.  Which is entirely possible.

Of course, I have theories about why exactly I've been able to find my runner's paradise so easily in the last few weeks.  And I will mostly like expound upon them.

But not yet.

With more to write, it gives me hope of more blog posts to come.

For now, I'm going to go to bed dreaming of my runner's paradise.

I hope you do too.

In runner's paradise after Beat the Blerch on Sunday.  Another blog post I
have yet to write...

You can't have your cake and eat it too

Hi friends!

I've missed you!

(Really. I have.)

But before we dive into any tearful reuiniting or uncomfortably long hugs, bear with me for a brief moment.  It will all make sense in the end.  I promise.

Picture this:

It's your birthday.  You've just eaten a fabulous dinner with the most important family and friends you can think of.  The ones you care the most about and the ones that care the most about you.  They are all there.  You sit at the head of the table and they are stretched down the sides where you can see each and every one of them.  You can look into their eyes.

Dinner has just finished.  It was amazing.  You are full of joy, laughter, and food.  So much food.  You are stuffed and overflowing.  You are unbotton-your-top-button and unzip-the-zipper full.  You are wish-I-was-wearing-pregnancy-pants full.

Suddenly voices hush.  Lights start to dim.  And coming from the other end of the room, you see the flickering of candles approaching you.  As the candles get closer, you see that they are delicately perched atop a deliciously beautiful cake.  Your absolute favorite kind of cake (yellow cake with vanilla icing for me, but I'm weird like that).  As the cake makes it's way toward your end of the table, you see the scrumptiously thick and voluptuous sugary flowers artfully crafted in icing (or you notice the wonderful lack of icing, if that's more your thing...).

The cake is placed in front of you and the world's most enthusiastically tuneless and tone-deaf chorus of "Happy Birthday" is sung.  Internally, you push aside your overly stuffed tummy to make room for the air that must fill your lungs in order make those flickering candles lose their flame.   When your lungs have emptied, the are candles finally out, and your belly has returned to it's large and rotund position, you look up to see them all staring at you.

The handle of a serving knife is shoved in your palm and small stack of plates are placed on the table.  Forks are passed around.  It strikes in an instant that, full bellies be damned, they expect to eat this cake.  They expect you to eat some of this cake.  And you want to.  You really want to eat some of this cake.  Because it looks delicious.  It looks perfect.  It looks like a lot of effort was put into this cake.  Your friends and family are invested in this cake.

So you want to eat it.  But not now.  Tomorrow.  When your balloon of a stomach has deflated to its normal size.  Tomorrow this cake will be unbelievable.  But not now.

Slowly, you slice the cake under their watchful eyes.  You pass each piece around the table until everyone has a slice.  They watch you as you cut your own piece ("Not that small!"  "Cut yourself a real piece!"  "It's your birthday!").

Then there you are.  No one eats a bite.  They wait for you to take the first bite.  They watch you.  They expect you to eat this cake.

So you do.  Somehow, somewhere deep inside, you find a place to shove this cake (was that a pop?  Did your stomach just explode?).  You force the entire piece down.  They smile and they are happy.  You are happy because they are happy.

But this cake...this cake that could have been so amazing, is begging to crawl back up out of your stomach.  It could have been the best cake you had ever eaten, but you had to force it down.  And all joy and pleasure was lost.  No matter how happy your friends and family are, you regret eating that cake.  You wish you hadn't done it.

Now back to reality.

I realize that this little scenario may be a remarkably over-exaggerated way of describing why I haven't been around here in the past few months, but I'm a writer and that's what we do.

In the past 6 months, as my blog posts started to dwindle and disappear into nothing, it had a lot to do with that piece of cake.  For over two years of writing this Doggedly Running thing, everything was great.  Then something in my gut told me I was feeling done for a while.  But for 6 months after that, I forced it.  All of a sudden it felt like everything I wrote was crappy and I was embarrassed to hit the "publish" button.

But I also kind of felt like I had to write something.  So I kept on trying.

Until one day, as I was trying to recap the Seattle Rock N Roll half marathon back in June, I realized it felt like crap and I never finished it or hit the "publish" button (the half-finished post still sits in my list of posts when I log in with a big huge DRAFT in front of it).  And then when I ran the Eugene Marathon at the end of July, I didn't even try to write about it.  That familiar old urge to write just wasn't there.

But now, for some reason, I'm feeling the writerly urge return.

So today, I'm just writing to say hi and I miss you.

Maybe I'll be back again soon.

The girls say hi.  They miss you too.