The mid-week long run

I feel like I'm waiting for my bubble to pop.  This bubble of happy, feel-good, running delirium that I've been living in for almost a month now has to come to an end soon, right?

Not that I want it to pop.  I want to continue to live in this bubble forever and ever and ever and ever.

And ever.

But there's this weird little feeling creeping over my shoulder every time I go for a run.  Like somehow I managed to outrun that grey rain cloud that's hung over my head on almost every run for two years, but it's going to catch back up.  I keep thinking that eventually that rain cloud that's so far behind me that I can't see it anymore will catch up to me.

But then every day, I go outside and go for a run, and I find myself still floating along the street in my bubble.  No grey rain cloud in sight (metaphorically, that is--there are plenty of real grey rain clouds...I do live in Seattle).

The last two days have been no exception.  I felt unstoppable on my last two runs.

Part of that might be attributed to the fact that last week I finally bought a long overdue new pair of running shoes.

Purple!  And shiny!  I'm trying Brooks Ravennas for the
first time.  I'm usually dedicated to Brooks Adrenalines and
Mizuno Wave Inspires, but am unhappy with the current
generation of both of those.  So, time to try something new!

The two pairs of shoes I'd been running in had been in rotation for well over 7 months.  I had even written notes in my training log that started weeks ago saying things like "knees hurt--need new shoes" and "mild shin pain--BUY NEW SHOES!"  Finally, after yelling at myself enough I went out last week and bought this shiny new pair.

When I went for a run wearing them yesterday, my feet and legs felt so good that I accidentally clocked an 8:45 average 5 miler.  I'm still making a concerted effort to keep my runs nice and slow while base building for the New Orleans RNR Full, which means trying to average somewhere between 9 and 10.  But yesterday, even though I kept trying to slow down every few minutes, my legs kept flying and the pace unintentionally fell below 9.  

But I wasn't too hard on myself for it, because I still finished the run feeling good and feeling like I could have gone further.  And that's my current goal for every run right now.  I'll let the pace slide for a day.

So that was kinda great.

And then I went running today.  Which brings us full circle back to the title of this post: the mid-week long run.

When I went to the Lydiard Coaches' training last May, one of the big differences between the way I was used to training and the Lydiard way was the mid-week long run.  The theory is this: there's no need to beat up your body with these crazy long Saturday morning long runs (no 20 milers people!  No one needs to be doing that except maybe elites and ultramarathoners).  Instead, you run more miles mid-week and build your mileage over time in a way that your body can handle better.

Then come Sunday/Monday morning, you aren't feeling so completely burnt out from your Saturday long run that the idea of running seems dreadful.  Instead, you're ready to plod out some more long slow miles throughout the week.

The mid-week long run isn't quite as long as a weekend long run.  Say you're running 120 minutes on Saturday, then you'd run maybe 70 or 80 mid week.  Right now in the peak of my base building, with 120-150 minute weekend long runs, I'm doing 90 minute midweek long runs.

I started the mid-week long run when I was training for Eugene last spring.  At first I thought it would be miserable.  I was used to logging no more than 5 miles tops in midweek runs.  The idea of adding another 2 or 3 miles to my Wednesday run seemed absurd.

But I was enthusiastic to give this Lydiard thing a try, so I went for it.  And turns out, I loved it.  Which shouldn't have really been all that surprising, because I love long runs in general.  They're kinda my favorite for more than one reason.  But let me walk you through a run to explain it better:

This is how a typical* 90 min long run plays out for me in my inner monologue (*typical meaning before and after the 2 years of grey rain cloud running):

10-30 mins in: Ughh, I have to run so far.  This is going to suck.  Slow down.

30-40 mins in: My legs feel like lead, am I really not even half way done yet?  Slow down, you've got a long way to go.

40-60 mins in: Wow, I feel really good.  I could just run forever.  Is that a hill up there?  Let me go smash it.  My head feels so clear.  I have a super good idea for a blog post!  Whoa lady, slow the pace down.

60-90 mins in: [silence] [the sound of pounding pavement] [steady breathing] [singing along to my Pandora station, ignoring the odd looks of passersby as I silently mouth the words to myself] 

The finish: I can't believe it's over already!  I could totally do a few more miles...[smile]

This inner dialogue could be altered to fit anything between a 90 and 120 minute long run on a good day (by 150 minutes, I'm having to fight the mental battle a little more at the end to get to the finish).

But the main idea is this: it is only on long runs that I am able to reach that highly prized, otherwise unreachable silence.  I get to a point when my brain shuts off, the inner dialogue stops, the constantly running to do list for work disappears, and time suddenly stops moving (or moves so quickly I can't see it anymore--I struggle to figure out what really happens to time in these moments).

And the great thing about mid-week long runs is that now I don't have to wait until Saturday morning to find my silence.  Now, I can experience that silence right smack dab in the middle of the work week.  And what I'm finding is that in middle of the work week, the silence seems even more silent somehow.  Because everything else so much louder on a Wednesday than it is on a Saturday morning.  

Today, I had a great mid-week long run.  Today, I found my silence around 45 minutes and maintained it until I stopped running about a block away from my apartment.  My legs felt strong, my body felt good, and my brain--in the middle of one of my busiest work weeks--stopped turning.

Now, two and half hours after completing that running run, I'm still resting inside my happy running bubble, crossing my fingers that it doesn't pop.

My Running-Esteem

I've spent the vast majority of the short life I've lived on earth ashamed of who I am.  Or, let me rephrase: I spent the vast majority of these years ashamed of who I thought I was.

No, that still doesn't sound right...

I spent the first five sixths of my 30 years in this life being disappointed in myself for not being who I thought I should be.

I wasn't as short as all the other girls.  My hair wasn't straight.  My boobs weren't big enough and my feet weren't small enough.  My stomach wasn't flat enough and my skin wasn't flawless enough.  I wasn't outgoing enough.  I wasn't interesting enough.  I wasn't as comfortable talking to boys as all my other friends.

I spent the entirety of my teens and early twenties wanting to be an ideal version of myself that had absolutely no connection to who I actually was as a person.  Who knows where the image of this ideal version came from, but I honestly didn't think people would ever really like me until I became that person.  I was insecure and I was unhappy.  And I hated myself for that too.  I wouldn't look in the mirror and I spent my evenings filling diary after diary with all the things I hated about myself and all the things I thought I should be.

Let's just say that my self-esteem wasn't quite the best.

But somewhere between the ages of 24 and 26, events, emotions, and locations collided enough for me to finally realize that I was a person worth knowing.  I was interesting.  I was nice.  People liked being friends with me.  I could be funny.  When I talked, people actually listened.  And suddenly, as I realized that other people thought I was worth knowing and being around, I began to acknowledge who I was to myself as well.

Slowly, I let go of all of the preconceived notions of who I thought I should be, and started to get to know myself as I was.  And, turns out, I kinda liked that person.  I began to shed my layers of insecurity and bolster my self-esteem with newer, stronger layers of skin.  I couldn't grow those new layers of skin until I let go of the old ones.  From those new layers, I've grown into the person I'm proud to be today--and I couldn't have done that unless I let go of the image of myself that I thought I should be and accepted the person I actually was.

I realize that this story isn't unique.  I'm not the only one who has faced the tortures of low self-esteem and the discovery of oneself.  But we needed to get through all that understand what I'm currently experiencing in my running.  It's time to switch gears from self-esteem and begin talking about what I'm now going to term my "Running-Esteem."

Running-esteem could be defined as the belief in yourself and your capabilities as a runner.  We all have our own levels of running-esteem, which affect the way we see ourselves as runners.

When I started running in 2008, I didn't consider myself a runner.  I didn't care about my running-esteem because I didn't view myself as a runner.  After my first half marathon in 2009 and even my first marathon in 2010, I still didn't really see myself as a "real runner" and therefore had no expectations for myself as a runner.  But after my second marathon in 2011, I started to develop an image of myself as a runner.  Which also meant that I started to develop an image of the runner that I thought I should be.

When I ran my third marathon in 2012, I PR'd by 10 minutes, but I wasn't really happy with that race.  Because in my head, I thought I should have run faster.  I let loose a little in my 4th marathon because it was part of the Goofy Challenge in 2013, and I gave myself a brief reprieve from the expectations of what I thought I should be as a runner and just had fun.

But then came marathon number 5 that happened just about a year ago.  Let's call marathon number 5 the late teens of my marathon career.  I had an ideal image of who I thought I should be as a runner.  I should be faster.  I should be stronger.  I should feel better.  I should...I should...I should...

Because I had this image of who I thought I should be, which in reality I wasn't, my running-esteem plummeted.  Running wasn't fun anymore.  It was the constant torture of trying to push yourself to be someone you aren't.  And we all know that you can't will yourself into being anyone apart from yourself--not really.  We can all guess how marathon number five turned out.  Crushed hopes, frustration, and anger.  And then anger at myself for feeling that way.  Let the spiral of a plummeting running-esteem commence.

For about a year and a half, I've been stuck in that spiral of trying to be the runner I thought I should be and then getting more and more disappointed as I struggled through endless uncomfortable, painful, and unpleasant runs.

But now, two and a half weeks into my very short Eugene marathon training plan, I find that I'm crawling out of my low running-esteem hole.  And it is one simple, major difference that has allowed me to finally raise my running-esteem:

I've finally realized that I am who I am as a runner.

If there was only one important thing that I took away from my Lydiard coaches training and my conversations with Coach Shelby since then (there isn't just one important thing, but I do think this is the most important), it's that I must be true to myself and who I am as a runner.  My body is capable of doing exactly what it is telling me it can handle.  Pushing it and pushing it to the extreme in an effort to be the runner it think I should be only works against me.

For the last 2+ weeks, I've been doing nothing but listen to my body.  I changed the display on my Garmin to show only time--no paces, no mileage, nothing else.  All I get to see is how long I've been running.  The rest I gauge completely based on who I am right now as a runner.  I listen to my breath.  I feel my legs and my lungs.  I take stock of my energy level.  And those factors are the only ones I pay attention to as I run every day.

I've accepted the runner I am right now and have shed the insecurities that resulted from constantly trying to be the runner I thought I should be.  I finish every run now feeling good and happy.  Not exhausted, frustrated, and angry at the numbers on my watch that just won't seem to register the way that I want them to.

I've felt better about my running in the last 2 weeks than I have in much too long of a time.  I've left the early twenties of my running career and have entered the mid-twenties.  I've taken the first step necessary in growing into the runner that I may one day be.  I've learned to love the runner that I am right now.

My running-esteem is right back where it should be.  And I'm ready to keep building on that strength.

How Lydiard training made me feel great again

Today was a great day.  For so many reasons.  It was one of those days where everything seems to mesh in the right time, in the right way to make you feel wonderful.

I had a great day at work.  Even though it was 80+ degrees in Seattle today (way outside the normal Seattle comfortable non-complaining range of 40-70 degrees), which makes first graders cranky and somehow motivates them to do everything possible to annoy their classmates, I still had a great day at work.  It's the time of year when I look back at where these little guys started in September and clearly see how amazingly far they've come.  Even as they're squabbling over who's touching who on the carpet and who cut who in line, I felt like I had the big picture in my head all day.  They've come so far.

I've also been getting a lot of positive feedback from coworkers, my principal, and even district-level employees in the past couple days.  My love for problem-solving based math instruction has somehow trickled its way through my district, and now I'm getting emails left and right from teachers and district leaders who want to come and watch me teach.  I'm not trying to toot my own horn here, but I've put a lot of work into becoming the teacher I am today, and it feels absolutely amazing to have my name being tossed around the district as an expert at what I do, after less than a year in this district.  And while the recognition alone is exciting, it's even more exciting that I get to help other teachers learn to teach this way.  A few people have expressed how surprised they were that I was so willing to open my door to let people into my classroom, but for me that is the most exciting part.  Helping spread the love for an instructional technique for teaching math that I believe truly works is something I'm MORE than willing to do.

And then, after this great day at work, as the kids went flying (yes, I'm pretty sure they flew) out the door, one thought popped into my head: "Today I get to run."  It wasn't "today I need to run," or "today I have to run."  It was "today I GET to run."  It wasn't a feeling of dread or discomfort that accompanied this thought.  This thought made me happy.  Today, I wanted to run.  And, my god, that was a great feeling.  It's been a really long time since I've felt that feeling.

And then, after I went on my 60 minute run--the fourth (FOURTH!!) run in the past week, which also means the fourth run since October, that has been pain free--all I wanted to do was come home and tell you all about my day.  I felt that old familiar urge to write.  Which is another feeling I haven't had in a really long time.

The reason that I was so excited for today's run, and the reason that today's run felt so good was because I spent this past weekend being trained as a Lydiard Foundation certified running coach.

Check out their website here for more info.

I spent 2.5 days learning more about running than I have in my 6 year career as a runner.  This training was incredible.  While there is no way I could even touch on all of the things I learned over the weekend, there were a couple ideas that stood out for me, which I think will be really important as I start tackling my Eugene Marathon training (which started today!).  Here are my biggest take-aways from the weekend:

1)  Listen to your body.  The most important thing you can do for yourself as a runner is listen to what your body is telling you.  If your body is telling you that it's tired, it probably is.  If your body is telling you that your speed work is a little too much, you should probably cut back a little.  And if your body is telling you that it feels great, it's important to acknowledge that too.  I've spent the last few months preaching about how I need to listen to my body, slow down, and pay attention to what it's telling me, but I haven't really been listening.  I've still had this "pace" in my head, this idea that if I'm not pushing it or my watch isn't registering certain numbers then I'm not being successful as a runner.  And I had a certain amount of shame attached to that.  Today when I ran, I felt free from those all of the pressures.  I had forgotten what that kind of freedom felt like.

2)  Every runner is different.  What works for me may not work for everyone.  And what works for my running friends may not work for me.  This ties directly into the point above--we all need to listen to our bodies and tailor the training that we're doing to fit what our own body needs and what it's telling us.  It's important to figure out what works for each runner.  I found this to be incredibly similar to the how important it is for me as a teacher to figure out how each of my individual first graders learn best.  In fact, I made quite a few connections between teaching and running this weekend and then today happened to stumble upon not just one but two completely unrelated articles about teaching that compared the trials we face as teachers to running.  The way I adjust my teaching to fit the needs of each of my students, I must adjust my running to fit my own needs.  And when I start coaching again, I'll begin to adjust our training plan to fit the needs of each of those runners.

3)  Forget speed.  This one isn't new.  I know that when I'm training for a marathon I shouldn't be running fast on my long run or easy run days.  I shouldn't be worried about pushing my body to hit a certain speed or certain number of miles.  I've always known that.  The difference now is that I know why.  I'm the type of person who needs to know why.  Now I know that when I'm building my base, running my long slow runs, I need to be running slow in order to build up my aerobic endurance.  As soon as I start speeding up, hitting the threshold of my anaerobic system, I am no longer building endurance.  I have pushed myself into training a completely different system, defeating the purpose of the long run.  Right now, my body can only go as fast as it will go.  As I continue running and building endurance, followed by more specific hill and strength workouts, speed will come.  I can't force it.  And if I try to, I will only end up making myself slower.

4)  Recovery is everything.  Again, this ties into paying attention to your body.  If your body isn't recovered from the track intervals you did two days ago, don't go out and do track intervals again.  The are easily identifiable signs of recovery that you can track.  If you push your body to do more when it isn't recovered and ready, again you are working against yourself.  Instead of getting stronger and stronger, you'll depress the systems in your body further and further until running becomes something you simply don't want to do anymore.  I know this to be true, because I realized that that is exactly what I've been feeling for the last year and a half.  My body has been fighting for a long time to fully recover from the stress I've put it under, and I haven't let it.  Which is why running has been so miserable for me for so long.

5)  Your mind is as important as your body.  It is so important to feel good about yourself.  It is so important to end every run feeling happy and satisfied and proud.  Because if you don't, why would you go back and do it again the next day?  What possible reason could you have for going out there and doing this thing again that makes you feel miserable and horrible about yourself?  If you don't feel good on a run, slow down.  Say you are in the middle of a track workout, feeling spent but great, but the schedule says you have one more set to go.  Don't do the last set.  You know that your body can't handle it, and if you push it then you will end the workout feeling tired, miserable, and angry that you struggled through the last set.  If you don't do that set, you'll leave the track feeling good.  You'll want to come back again next week and see if you can make it through that last set.  Because next week, you probably will.  A positive attitude is everything, and if you find the negative attitude creeping in a little too often, it's time to take a few recovery days to get your mind and your body back together.  

6)  This training season isn't everything.  Each training season builds on the next.  As I build my aerobic base for Eugene, I'm also building a base for my next marathon.  As I go through the training pyramid, reaching my peak on race day, my next training season will have the foundation of this training season.  My next training season, I will get faster.  Which means that if I don't hit all my goals this season, it's ok.  Next season I'll be even better.  Because the great thing about Lydiard is that it's designed to help you improve with each training cycle, regardless of your age or fitness level.  It's designed to help you break through those barriers that either you or the world around you have imposed upon you.  Before this weekend, a Boston Qualifying race seemed like an unreachable goal for me until I hit a much older age group and the time demands lowered.  But now, I can see BQing as an attainable goal for myself in the next couple years.  It's not going to happen in Eugene.  It probably won't even happen in the next marathon.  But as I keep training, building season upon season, I think I'll be able to get there.  Suddenly a BQ doesn't seem like a pipe dream anymore because I'm making goals that are more than 3 months away from today.  I'm making goals that go past my current training season.

I learned so much this weekend about how to be a good coach, how to training for many different races, and how to design a training program for people of all abilities.  But I also learned a lot about myself as a runner.  The Lydiard training theory seems to have laid a lens over my entire running career, making every improvement and every defeat so clear.  I can see why things worked when they worked and why I crashed and burned in the last year and a half.  I can see why I loved running so much in the first 4 years, and why the last stretch has been so incredibly difficult, dissatisfying, and frustrating.  Now that I know the theory and the science behind it, it's amazing how clear it all is.

And maybe sometime soon I'll explain to you why my running career has taken the twists and turns it has over the years.  Maybe sometime soon I'll sit here and analyze it all for you, in the hopes that by thinking through my own mistakes and successes in a logical way, it can help you as much as it helps me.  But today is not that day.  

Because today was a great day.  Today, I officially started training for the Eugene Marathon.  Today, I had a really great, pain free run, and I don't care what my pace was.  Today I got a few solid confidence boosters at work.  Today, half my class brought me flowers because it's my district it's Teacher Appreciate Week.  Today, I realized how much I've taught all those little guys.  Today, I woke up feeling good.  And I will go to bed feeling good too.

I hope you can find a way to make that happen for yourself, too.  If not, just think...tomorrow will be a great day and everything will be ok.

It's all too loud

I had a thought today as I was walking Lucy and Penny on our 15 minute post-work walk route.  This was the thought that got stuck in my head on repeat: Life has been too loud lately.  And I mean that literally.  My life right now just seems to have too much noise in it.  From the traffic I can hear outside my open living room windows to the bass on my neighbor's music system that I hear far too loudly through my walls to the incessant non-stop talking of first graders in the springtime, it just seems like I haven't had a quiet moment in months.

I'm hyper aware of noises right now, which doesn't help.  Although Penny has adjusted by leaps and bounds to a life that includes much more outdoor time than I think she was used to (no more shakes on walks!  Unless it's raining of course--although that's getting better too!), the month or two I spent avoiding busy streets, buses, and anything close to Aurora Ave upped my sensitivity to all that noise.  While Penny has adjusted, I can't seem to get away from it anymore.

When I moved to Seattle from New York, I was amazed at how quiet Seattle was.  No sirens blaring at all hours, no cracked-out bums screaming on the street at 3 in the morning.  The silence here kept me awake at night.  But now I've recalibrated, and the noise has become grating again.

My girls.  Fantastically well-adjusted to the great outdoors.

So as I thought about the run I was about to go on--the run that I had thought about all day--I decided to do something daringly different.  I decided NOT to take my headphones.  This frightened me slightly because my headphones have always been my distraction on my solo runs.  They're my lifeline when I'm in pain.  My music is my source of emotion when the emotion I'm actually feeling isn't one I really want to face.  My audiobooks take my mind away from the movement of my feet and the steady rhythm of my breath.  Going for a run without these crutches pushed me out of my comfort zone.  But I was desperate for quiet, and the thought of throwing more sound directly into my ear canals had me cringing.  So I waved goodbye to my comfort zone.

There was another reason why this greatly anticipated run had me feeling slightly out of my comfort zone too.  I haven't run in 2 weeks (except for a run with the dogs at the animal shelter last Monday, but that doesn't count).  I took a self-imposed, potentially knee-healing two week break after my Team in Training coaching season officially came to an end.  Today was the day that I was officially allowing myself back into the running game.  Today was the day I would see if it was all worth it.

Once I returned from my walk with the girls, I strapped on my Garmin, laced up my running shoes, left my headphones in their drawer, and sat my phone on the table for a rest.  Then I stepped out the door with my fingers crossed behind my back.

After strolling for two blocks giving my Garmin the annoyed "comeonalready!" face, it connected to its satellites and we were off.  Let me lay out for you the thought process of what happened in the next mile:

"Yay, no knee pain!"
"Don't celebrate so soon, it's only the first couple blocks."
"Tighten your abs, push your hips forward."
"Use those glutes!  Run with your butt!"
"Man, those cars are loud."
"Oh, that was a pretty little bird chirp.  I wouldn't have heard that with headphones on."
"What is the name of that bird I hear so loudly from outside the zoo all the time?  Why can't I ever remember it's name?"
"Shoot, I think I forgot to make those copies for tomorrow."
"Glutes! Abs!"
"How's the knee?  Hmm, still feeling good I think.  At least it feels about the same as the other one right now."
"I need to remember to ask for more snacks from the parents at school tomorrow."
"What was it those two first graders were arguing about today?  Ugh, I need to talk to them in the morning."
"Push your hips forward!  Engage those glutes!"
"Could I be running on a louder street?  I don't think I could."
"The Sounders game on Saturday was fun."
"I wonder when the next one is I'm going to.  I should check my phone when I get home."
"OH MY GOD I'M RUNNING A MARATHON IN 12 WEEKS!"
"I wonder where I'm meeting my friend for dinner tomorrow night."
"This hill feels great, I feel like I'm flying."
"Stupid cyclist, get off the sidewalk.  There's a bike lane right there! Literally, RIGHT THERE!"
"Abs! Glutes!"
"Check in with the knee.  Yep, still feeling good."
"Sometimes I feel sad."
"But I'm not sad right now, what do I have to be sad about?"
"Oooh! Kids playing soccer games!  Scan the crowds, look for those first graders!"
"I wonder how far I'll make it today.  My breathing feels good."
"How fast am I going? NO! Don't look at your watch, idiot.  Just run how you feel."
"Tighten your butt!  What are your abs doing?"
"When will I ever find a boy who actually likes me?"
"The tag in the back of this shirt brushes the strap of my sports bra really loudly.  How have I never noticed that before?"
"I'm getting tired already."
"POSITIVE THOUGHTS ONLY! You're doing great.  This feels great."
"What am I going to write about in the blog tonight?  I hope I get inspired, it's been forever since I have."
"Is that...oh no, it just looked like her."
"Glutes!!  Abs!!"
"Those cars are SO LOUD."
"What should I make for dinner tonight?"

This endless stream of nonsense continued until I hit about mile two.  And then it hit me.  In fact, it punched me in the face.  And my mind, as it always does, went back to The Oatmeal who so eloquently said:

"And the buzzing road of the world is nothing compared to the noise inside my head. I'm an introspective person, and sometimes I think too much, about my job and about my life.  I feed an army of pointless, bantering demons."

YES.  This is where all that godawful noise has been coming from.  This is why I can't get away from it.  It's not the stupid cars or my headphones or my annoying neighbor.  It's the noise in my head that's so loud (that train of unconnected thoughts above plus all the more personal demons I omitted from publishing on the internet).  The Oatmeal, of course, explains how he quiets his demons:

"But when I run, the world grows quiet.  Demons are forgotten.  Krakens are slain.  And Blerches are silenced."

You know the Blerch.  The fat little cherub on your shoulder that urges you
to lounge on the couch and eat, eat, eat some more.

This used to be true for me.  There was once a time when running could silence all those demons for me.  Or at least provide the silence necessary for me to work against them and silence them myself.  But I haven't been running much lately.  And when I have, it all sounds pretty much like the random selection above, plus or minus a few things.

So for the second half of my run, I focused on silencing the demons and the krakens and the Blerches.  Generally, I focused on not feeling.  Just not feeling anything.  Until I realized that sometimes I run because it makes me feel.  Because there are certain feelings that I'm not very good at allowing myself to feel and when I run, I feel things like pain and discomfort and struggle--all those difficult feelings I like to ignore in my personal, non-work, non-running life.  And I realized that that is the exact opposite of what the Oatmeal likes about running.

And then I told myself to shut up again.

Just SHUT UP.

But I guess I'm not very good at that.  Because after struggling through a 4.5 mile run, trying not to feel anything and apparently feeling everything instead (except a pain in my knee--didn't feel that!!), I decided to come home and blog about it.  To delve even deeper into the noises in my head.

Which has all led me to the final big realization of the day.  It isn't running that keeps my voices quiet.  And it isn't writing that quiets them either (I have, in fact, been writing a ton lately despite the silence on the blog and while I'm happy with what's been spewing out, I wouldn't say it has promoted sanity).  It's this strange combination of the two that quiets the demons, krakens, and Blerches in my head.  This odd imbalanced equation where running plus writing equals sanity.

These two also, counter-intuitively, make my life just a little more sane.

With the amount of running and writing in my life both increasing on the near horizon, I'm growing hopeful that this "not-exactly-me" feeling I've had about myself the past few months will slowly disappear and the real me will return again.

But that's something I'll worry about later.  For now, after a good run and a solid stint of writing, I feel the world around me growing silent for the first time in way too long.

I'm going to go enjoy it.

Whidbey Island Marathon Recap: What I saw

I've been going back and forth for a few days about writing this post, because there's something about it that just doesn't feel quite right.  How do you recap a race that you didn't technically run?  And how do you document the events of a day that had very little to do with yourself.  And how do you tell a story that is comprised of one story after another that isn't yours to tell?  But I decided to write anyways, because I think I've found a way.

Just under two years ago, I wrote a detailed two part race recap after my 4th marathon with Team in Training in San Diego (see part 1 here if you're interested).  The main point of the entire recap, which I reiterated several times throughout both parts was: "it's not about me."  As I sat through our chapter's pre-race meeting, I listened to coach Nadine, who's father had lost his long battle with blood cancer not even two weeks before the race, I realized it wasn't about me.  As a mentor cheering a couple thousand race participants to their inspiration dinner, I realized it wasn't about me.  As I decorated my "rockstar" fundraiser race shirt, I realized that it wasn't about me.  And then in the race itself, as the tough, "bite me" miles presented themselves, I remembered that it wasn't about me and plowed through.  Finally, as I crossed the finish line clocking a 10 minute PR, I rejoiced because it wasn't about me.

But this past weekend, the Whidbey Island Half and Full Marathon was even less about me than that seemingly long ago weekend in San Diego.  Because this past weekend, I wasn't a mentor or a captain or even a participant anymore.  This weekend, I was a coach.  And I had one job: help everyone else get themselves across that finish line in any way I could.  The miles I put on my legs on Sunday weren't my miles.  They were miles for all my teammates out there running the race.  They were miles for all the survivors we run in honor of or those no longer with us we run in memory of.

These people.

Because they weren't my miles, I can't tell this story like all my other recaps. Sunday's story isn't my story to tell.  I'll leave personal recaps of events and emotions to those who deserve to tell them--those who raised the money and ran the race.  All I did was hope that somehow, somewhere along the way I could help someone in some way push themselves forward in the race.

So instead of a traditional recap, I've decided that I'm just going to tell you about what I saw as I was out on that race course for 5+ hours.  Here's what I saw:

Strength.  Of all kinds.  Those who raced on Sunday chose to not only run a half or full marathon, but to run one of the hilliest marathons I've seen.  I saw the physical strength acquired throughout a 6 month long training season filled with more hills than I'd care to count.  I saw strong legs and strong bodies.  I also saw strong hearts and strong minds and strong souls.  Because it takes way more than just strong legs to make it through a marathon.

Determination.  As I worked the marathon course from about miles 23 to the finish, I saw more determination than I've ever seen in a day.  By the final hours of the marathon, the temperature was hot and the sun was out, which made the hills seem higher.  But the determination I saw to conquer those hills and cross the finish line was unstoppable.

Perseverance. Perseverance is my favorite world lately.  Whether I'm talking to my first graders or the athletes I coach, perseverance is one of those qualities that will get you a hell of a lot further than you ever thought in life.  Perseverance is the amazing ability to keep going when the going is tough.  To keep trying even when it seems like trying will get you nowhere.  It is the ability to stick with it and not give up, even when everything else is telling you to stop.  On Sunday, I saw perseverance in the eyes of each and every person I ran with.

Grit.  Grit is becoming a new buzz word in the education world lately.  Education researchers have lately decided that it is the biggest predictor of success and the most important personality trait present in self-motivated learners.  One thing that people have kind of failed to do when it comes to this new buzz word is define it.  No one can quite figure what grit is or exactly how one goes about acquiring it.  Here's what I have to say to all those researchers and writers of education lingo: go watch a marathon.  A marathon will show you the definition of true grit.  From what I can tell, grit is the perfect combination of determination and perseverance.  Kind of like Captain Planet.  Individually, determination and perseverance are great.  But with their powers combined...you become a marathoner.

Kindness. Writing this just after the 1 year anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings, I feel that I need to mention this one.  On marathon day, you see an endless river of kindness, which reminds you that people are inherently good.  You see kindness that is exuded by race volunteers and organizers, families and friends, random spectators, and racers both on and off the course.  Kindness in the form of an enthusiastic cheer, an outstretched hand holding a water cup, and an embrace on the other side of the finish line.  Kindness in the form of a high five, a kick in the butt to keep you going, and a ride back to the hotel when you're done.  Kindness in the form of a smile.  There are so many smiles on race day.  They stretch for 26.2 miles and beyond.

After the race, and throughout my first season as a coach for TNT, I kept getting the same question: "Do you like coaching?"  Of course my answer to this is, predictably, yes.  But Sunday solidified exactly why I like coaching so much.  I realized that being a coach is like being able to cross the finish line over and over and over again.  Even though I never crossed the finish line on Sunday, with every participant from our Team that I got to watch cross the finish line, I felt just a little bit like I was too.  Because their success was my success.  Because each person I got the honor to coach rubbed a little of their strength, determination, perseverance, grit, and kindness off on me.

As me and my fellow coaches followed the last participant to the finish on Sunday, I felt what I always feel when I race is over.  I felt happy and sad and so full of emotion that it tried to spill out of my eyes.  But as a coach, all these feelings seem magnified because I knew, as I stopped my watch to signal the end of the day, that none of this was about me.  I simply had the honor of being a part of it and the pleasure of sharing in the triumph.  And after a day like that, you can't help but smile.

Congrats to everyone who crossed that finish line in Whidbey Island this weekend.  You are truly amazing.

GO TEAM!

How getting faster spoiled running for me

Somebody posted this article on Facebook the other day about how being a "slow" runner is really all in your head.  The writer made a lot of really good points.  For example:

1)  "While thinking you’re slow may seem harmless, every time you preface a statement with the phrase, 'I know I am slow, but …' you condition your mind to believe that you can never be fast."

and:

2) "The feeling you get after a new PR, the satisfaction from a tough workout well done, and the disappointment from a bad performance all feel the same no matter how fast you are."

and of course this:

3)  "Unless you’re Kenenisa Bekele, Mo Farah or Galen Rupp, chances are there is always going to be someone faster than you. Fast is relative."

then she drove it all home with this:

4)  "...speed is merely a state of mind."

None of the points in the article are earth-shattering revelations for me.  They are things that I've told myself time and time again as I realize that I am giving myself a mental beat down for "going slow" on runs.  They are things I've tried to convince myself of over and over in the past year.  But I still have yet to truly believe them.

And to be honest, in the realm of my running world, I'm not slow.  It was just three years ago that I was amazed by my ability to complete runs with average paces under 10 mins/mile.  But now, not all that much further down the road, I find that I feel a quiet inner disappointment every time I finish a weekday run that clocks in at an average pace slower than an 8:40.

As much as I mentally tell myself to listen to my body, to do what it tells me to, and to be happy with what I can do right now, in the not too far away corners of my mind, I am disappointed in myself.  And then I get ashamed of my disappointment.  Because, in reality, I know it's silly.  I'm still recovering from an injury.  I've been running much less than I usually do.  I can't expect myself to be hitting the same paces as I was a year ago while in the midst of two consecutive marathon training seasons.  But it seems like I just can't keep that nagging negativity out of my head.

So what do I do on runs?  I push myself.  I run fast.  I try to hit the paces I'm looking for.  As much as I preach about "listening to your body," I've been ignoring mine.  So how do I feel at the end of each run?  Exhausted, disappointed, frustrated...and then to top it all off: ashamed that I'm feeling all of those things.

How did I get this way?

When I first started running, "being fast" was not a goal, even in the farthest back, dustiest corners of my mind.  Back then, I ran because I had a crazy dog who needed to run more than my desire not to.  And I ran because I wanted to feel good about myself again.  Other reasons began to emerge after I learned to like running.  I ran because it became that wistfully quiet, enjoyable time of day that I'd look forward to each afternoon as I sent my first graders out the door.  I ran because it was the one time of day that I got to be alone with my thoughts.  I ran because it calmed me.  And it helped me make sense of the endless number of thoughts that traipse through my mind on a daily basis.

I ran because I enjoyed running.

But because I enjoyed running, over the course of a couple years, I started getting faster.  I went from a 2:16 first half marathon in 2009 to a 1:48 half last May.  I went from a 4:52 first marathon to a 4:18 a couple years later.  

I didn't try to get faster.  It just kind of happened.  Sometimes, after runs, I'd look down and my watch and realize that that run was way faster than it felt.  And then that "fast" pace would slowly become the norm.  Until I would look down again after a run one day, and find I'd accidentally gone faster again.  And the new fast would become the new norm.  And the cycle would repeat.  Over and over again.  Without really trying.  
Everything felt great.  I loved running and I kept getting faster.  Nothing could be better.

But then one day, I made a fateful decision.  I decided that I wanted to be faster.  I wasn't just going to let it happen anymore.  I was going to make it happen.

And that's where it all fell to pieces.  That's kinda where I fell to pieces.

After completing the Goofy Challenge last January, I was on a high.  I felt strong, and I felt fast.  So for my fifth marathon, I decided to set my first ever specific time goal.  I had had goals before (to finish, to PR, to have fun), but I had never set a specific time goal.  For marathon #5, I wanted to break 4 hours.

Four hours.  A very specific time.  With very specific paces.  And very specific numbers.  And I can get a little obsessive when it comes to numbers.

So when I put a number in my marathon goal, everything became about that number.  Runs became less about stress relief and enjoyment and more about clocking paces and being faster.  My favorite day of the week in marathon training (long run day!), became somewhat torturous as I pushed myself faster and further than I needed to go.  Running became less and less enjoyable with each passing week.

And the result of all that unhappy training?  Not exactly what I was hoping for.  Twenty three minutes slower than what I was hoping for, to be exact.

And then I pushed running to the side for a bit.  I tackled biking and swimming and my first half iron distance triathlon.  Then I walked a half marathon with my mom.  And then my knee started hurting and I faced months of slowly progressive recovery.

And now here I am.  Stuck in this hole of never feeling good enough, or more specifically, "fast" enough.

So not unexpectedly, as I stare down the oncoming road of Eugene Marathon training, I've been getting a little stressed out.  I thought I would be more physically and mentally ready by now.  The Eugene Marathon is supposed to be my huge comeback from the disaster that my last marathon was.  The Eugene Marathon is supposed to be my redemption.  It is supposed to be me finally achieving that sub-4 hour marathon.

But that's a lot of pressure.

So I've made a new decision.  I'm not going to do that to myself again.  I'm resetting my goals.  Instead, I'm going to aim for a PR.  I think that's reasonable enough.  A sub-4:18 seems much more achievable than a sub-4:00.  While I may always secretly wish for a 4 hour marathon, I'm not going to put pressure on myself to make it this one.

With that decision made, I already feel myself breathing a little easier.  I feel a weight lifted off my shoulders that I didn't really know was sitting there.  With my new "who cares about fast" frame of mind, I went for a run today.  I ran 4.5 miles and I tried my hardest not to look at my paces as I stuck to my 8:1 run/walk intervals (unfortunately I can't leave the watch behind because I'd be unable to keep track of the intervals).  If I felt like I had started breathing a little too hard and not enjoying the run, I slowed it down.  I went the pace that my body wants to go right now.

At the end of the run, the first thing I did (of course...) was check my pace.  9:12 min/mile.  I tried really really hard to be happy with this.  And I was.  But I still felt that internal pull of disappointment--because I'm not perfect and this change isn't going to happen overnight.  I realized that this is going to take some time.  I need to retrain my brain.  I've been feeding it these negative thoughts for a year, after all it had known was positivism for it's 4 years of prior running.  I need to start telling it positive things again.  Until it starts to believe it.

And as for the speed, here's my new theory: Right now, my body can do what it can do while still recovering from a bum knee and months of low-mileage running.  I'm going to let my body do what it can do and not push it.  I want to finish each run feeling good, not feeling as though I'd like to keel over and die and not run for at least a week.

If, after weeks or months of "feel good" running, my speed naturally returns to me, great.  If not, this is where I'm at.  And I'm going to try my absolute best to learn to be okay with that.

Uphill climbing isn't easy...

I've been suffering from 2 fairly serious set-backs in my day-to-day running life for the past several months.  There have been many posts about my frustrations with these things.  These set backs have severely affected the amount of time I spend running, the amount of effort I put in while running, and the way I feel before, during and after running.

In fact, let's just put it out there and refer to these set-backs as what they are: "afflictions."  These afflictions have manifested themselves into two very distinct categories:

1)  The physical affliction - a nagging overuse knee injury that's hung around since mid-October.

and

2)  The mental affliction - a mental "burn out" (otherwise known as the loss of enjoyment in running) presumably the result of 3 consecutive marathons (interspersed with some halves) followed by a half Ironman.

If I've learned anything concrete about running in my years of endurance training, it's that running success is a direct combination between the physical and the mental.

 +  =

Then underlying, overlaying, and encompassing all of that is this:

 Pure heart.

The body and the mind, supported entirely by the heart of a runner is what feeds success in this sport (the definition of the term "success" is widely open to interpretation).  The success of a runner then feeds the heart which restarts the equation.  And around and around we go.

When a piece of the equation disappears or loses it's strength, things begin to slide out of rotation.  Instead of continuing the endless spiral upward (think spiral staircase to the sky), things begin to level out and eventually start spiraling downward (think sink drain).

When two pieces of the equation start to weaken, the downward spiral only intensifies (more like a drain in the bottom of a swimming pool).

Getting stuck in this downward spiral sucks.  It is, for lack of a better word, disheartening.

And when you get stuck in this awful downward spiral, the question inevitably becomes: When will I get to see the light of day again?  How do I reverse the direction of this thing?

I claim to be no expert in any of this.  All I can talk about is me and my over-thought analyses of my experiences.  But after spiraling downward for 3+ months, I can proudly proclaim that I've switched the direction of my spiral.  Things felt pretty dark and hopeless for a while, but I'm beginning to climb the hill now instead of slide down it.

There are a number of factors that I believe contributed to my ability to turn around on that hill (physical therapy, mental recharging, a nice long break, etc.).  And now that I've turned it around, I can officially say that I am in "recovery."  The bad part is over.

Now is the hard part.

As much as it sucks to be down here, climbing out looks a whole lot
harder than staying put.  

In order for me to make the decision to start climbing, I had to realize something.  Something that I knew once, but had forgotten in training season after training season.  One day, this thought occurred to me:

I don't have to run.  I choose to run.

Almost 6 years ago, I chose to run.  I fell in love with running, which made me want to run more.  I chose to sign up for my first half marathon.  And then my first marathon.  And then more.  And somewhere along the line, running started to feel less like a choice.  As impending races compelled me to "stick to the schedule" and "get my runs in," running started to feel less like something I wanted to do and more like something I had to do.  Even though I was the one that signed up for all these races, I somehow forgot that running was a choice.

It become an item on a checklist of things I had to do everyday:

1) Wake up: check

2) Walk the dog: check

3) Go to work: check

4) Run: check

5) Eat dinner: check

6) Sleep: check

The day I realized that running wasn't a requirement on an endlessly repeating list was the day I finally wanted to start climbing out of the hole.

And now, as I continue the climb up, each day I have to remind myself that running is a choice.  Each day, I have to remind myself that I don't have to run.  

And here's the next important step that I've discovered on my road to recovery.  Every day, after reminding myself that I don't have to run, I do one very important thing:

Listen.

And when dealing with two afflictions, there are two things that I try really hard to listen to:

1) I listen to my knee.  I check in with how it's feeling.  Has it been hurting throughout the day?  How did if feel when we ran yesterday?  Is today a day that it can run or does it need a rest?  If, after some very careful listening, my knee gives the okay then...

2) I listen to my head.  Where is my mind at today?  Was it a stressful day at work resulting in that innate need to run?  Or am I just tired and done?  Is that little ninja fighter in my head feeling strong today or does she need a break?  If, after some very careful listening, my mind gives the okay then...

I run.

But I keep listening.

Because this isn't an exact science.  Sometimes I make the right choice.  Sometimes the physical says yes and the mental says yes and that results in an amazing run.  But sometimes it doesn't.  Sometimes one or the other or both change their mind once we're out there.  And when that happens, I go home.  I don't push myself through miserable, painful, unnecessary miles.  Because, right now, I don't need to.

Right now running is a choice for me.

And maybe there are days where I listen, and the answer is no, which means I don't run.  And maybe that's the wrong choice.  Maybe running could have been the best thing I did for myself that day.  And I missed out on that.

But right now, running is a choice for me.  And I'm willing to take that chance.

Let's put all this in a real life context and look at the choices I've made so far this week:

Sunday: After an 8.5 miler on Saturday with Team, my knee wasn't feeling happy.  But it was a beautiful day and I wanted to get outside.  So I chose not to run.  But I chose to take Lucy for a nice long walk.  And that was enough.

Monday: After a nonstudent professional development day at work (meaning I sat in meetings all day, something teachers aren't typically fond of), I was itching to get out and move.  My knee was feeling ok.  So I ran.  But once out there, my mind wasn't in it and my knee wasn't feeling great.  So instead of pushing myself through a planned 5.5 mile loop, I cut back early and barely logged 3 miles  And that was enough.

Tuesday: I felt good and my knee felt good.  I met Ironman Jason for a loop around Green Lake and then continued running as I coached for Team practice, logging about about 7.5 miles total.  I felt great.  And that was enough.

Today: I woke up hoping to get in another short run after work.  I did a lot of miles yesterday and while my knee was feeling ok, I didn't want to push it.  Another easy 3 miler would be perfect.  But throughout the day, my mind wasn't into it.  I ended up staying at work 45 minutes later than I intended to.  I had to run an errand on the way home.  And by the time I got home, I made a different choice.  I didn't run.  And that was enough.

"Enough" is what I'm striving for right now.  I hope that in a couple months, I'll be ready to push a little bit beyond "enough" again.  I hope to enter into Eugene training fully recovered from both of my afflictions.  But right now, the best I'm allowing myself to hope for is "enough."

Each day I listen and I make a choice.

And I keep climbing up the hill.

Which is enough.

For now.

I won't start over, but it's time to reset

I'm not someone who usually puts a lot of stock in New Year's resolutions.  I'm not super comfortable with the idea that the changing of the year, the ticking of the clock, and the movement from one day to the next should determine my motivation to improve my life.

I mean, I get it.  I understand it.  It's a big number that's changing.  It's a metaphorical re-start.  It's a point in time to look at and say "There.  There is where I'll make the change."  And more power to you for it.  If you choose to change your life for the positive, I don't care your reasoning for it.  Do it.  And keep doing it (don't give up when January peters out).

But for me, I've just never been a fan of looking at New Years that way.  I'm the type of person that is constantly evaluating, re-evaluating, analyzing, over-analyzing, reflecting, rethinking, and setting goals (or getting angry at myself for not meeting them).  I do not need nor want yet another reason to examine my life and weigh its successes and failures against one another.  Oftentimes I just get fed up with examining my life.  Sometimes I just want to live it.

This year, however, my bah humbug attitude towards the New Year seems to have become overcome with more optimism than I typically find in early January.  Maybe it's because of the challenges this past year threw at me.  Maybe it's just because of the challenges of the past several months, which seem to be fading away.  Maybe it's because in exactly 10 days, I will be 30 (2014 is a big number, but 30 is way bigger).

Whatever it is, I'm feeling glad that 2013 is over and 2014 has shown up.  I'm ready more than ready to hit the reset button.

Remember way back when we had Nintendo?  Not the stuff we have now.  Not Wii or Xbox or Playstation or whatever else is out there now that I have no idea about.  Real old school Nintendo is what I'm thinking of.

Yeah, this one.  From the days when we were tethered to the box by a cord.

Remember how it worked?  Pixelated graphics, only four directions to move.  Walk or run, no in between.  Duck Hunt was the most amazing invention we'd ever conceived.

I refused to play the actual duck shooting one--I'd only shoot at the clay
discs.  Such a righteous little child I was.

Remember when you were playing these games when sometimes the screen would just gradually start to turn to snow?  You wouldn't notice it at first, but pretty soon you'd start to lose your super fancy graphics to the stripey fuzz of an analog TV.

And the solution to this?  Give the machine a tap.  On the top or side.  Sometimes with more force than others.

Then, you'd keep playing.  Everything would be good for a little while, until things started to succumb to the fuzz again.  Give it a gentle tap (or more forceful slap) and all would be good again.

This would continue.  Minutes of clear pixelated fun followed by some bouts of fuzziness, knock it back to life, repeat.

(Bear with me, I'll get back to the New Year thing)

But sometimes, you'd get fed up with it.  When the fuzzies came more frequently or too quickly, or when the forceful slams stopped working, it was time to give up and hit the reset button.  Lose everything since the last time you manually saved the game.  Accept minor defeat by the machine.  Reset.

And after that, if the troubles still continued, the last resort was to power down.  Shut it off.  Pull out the game and blow on the little metal teeth, reinsert game, and power back up.  But that was only for major defeats.  When the machine really refused to work.

With all that in mind, here's what 2013 was for me:  it was that space of time between when the game hit the first fuzzy point to when you decided to reset.

Last January, things started off working great.  I conquered the Goofy Challenge with more than a smile on my face.

1 weekend, 2 races, 3 medals. Immeasurable fun.

I felt strong starting training for my next marathon after taking a forced 2 week hiatus from running (my meager attempt to avoid burnt-out runner syndrome).  February hit, and I entered what I termed the "February Doldrums."  This was the first little bit of fuzziness.  Not too much though, and with a little tap, all was clear again.

After that, I made it through my March Madness of races: Hot Chocolate 15K, St. Patty's Day Dash, and culminating with a pleasantly unexpected PR at the Mercer Island Half.

Even got an unexpected medal.

April and May were filled with peak marathon training.  There were clear ups and fuzzy downs.  Nothing too drastic.  Nothing that couldn't be quickly knocked back into focus once it got fuzzy.  But, the fuzzy points got a little more frequent.  There were more runs that didn't feel great sprinkled with some really great ones (the great ones being the ones that made it on blog recaps).  The clear spots didn't last quite as long as I wanted.

And then there was June.  The Seattle Rock N Roll Marathon.  And let's just say, that didn't go so well.  You can go back and read the blog recap if you haven't already.  A race recap titled "I got it done" doesn't show a whole lot of enthusiasm about how it went.

And after that, the fuzziness stuck around for a little longer than normal.  For at least a month, things just weren't right.  Running wasn't what I wanted to be doing.  This time around, it required a big hard slap to clear things up again.  Which, luckily, happened when I ran the Ragnar Relay.

For the first time in what felt like a long time, I had 3 really
great runs.  Including one really awesome 9 miler in pitch
darkness at 2 am.

That little runner's high lasted a little bit.  But I quickly refocused my energies on my quickly approaching triathlon.  I turned my focus from running to swimming and biking.  I could easily ignore my lack of enjoyment in running when I had other things to focus on.  Swimming and biking kept me occupied enough to keep the world clear through the summer months.  As I approached my race day in mid-September though, things started getting a little fuzzy again.  I was ready to be done training.  Aside from my minor 2 week hiatus back in January, I had been training for one thing or another for an entire year.

That little fuzziness was cleared up by the completion of my first half-iron distance triathlon.  I even managed 3rd place in my tiny division.

I may not be a whole iron woman, but I can at least claim
to be half of one.

After that though, things seemed to go quickly back to fuzz again.  I was done.  I was burnt out, trying my best to keep myself motivated to be out there running ("rediscovering my love for running" as I termed it).  But it just wasn't clicking.  By early October when I crossed the finish line of the Portland Half with my mom, I had all but given up on trying to clear the screen.

Mom's first half!  Excited to do this again with the dad in tow sometime in the
future.

And then, just a short week or so later, my knee injury showed it's ugly face.  And since, then, as positive as I've tried to remain about the whole thing, things have pretty much looked like this without much relief:

Lots and lots of snow.  And not the good kind.

I took just about a month off completely from running, and did very little running once I started again.  There have been PT appointments, attempts at other forms of exercise, and many frustrating attempts at running.  There was the Seattle Half on Thanksgiving weekend.

A fun day, but that's pretty much all I can say about it.

After that, I ran off and on through December, hoping every time that maybe this time it wouldn't hurt.  Maybe this time I'd be able to go a little faster.  Maybe this time things would start to feel better.

But it didn't.  Not really.  No matter how many times I tried to knock that stupid Nintendo, the fuzz just wouldn't clear.  I even stopped keeping up with blog posts.  Because I didn't have anything very positive to say, so I didn't really feel much like publicizing it.

Just before New Years though (literally, a couple of days), something happened.  I decided to go out for a run.  I decided to keep following my 5:1 run:walk ratio prescribed by my PT.  And I paid really close attention to what I was doing.  I didn't think about anything else but running.  And here's what happened: I noticed that when I held my body the way the PT told me too (and I was able to now with my newly strengthened core and glutes from a few weeks of daily strengthening/stretching exercises), my knee stopped hurting.  Not completely.  The pain went from a 4 to a 1 (or 2).  There was still a nagging tightness, but when it started hurting, I could adjust my form and make it stop.

Control.  I found a way to control it.  And OMG the world is right again when I can control things.

I went to PT the next day and bragged about my new discovery.  I celebrated with my physical therapist.  I told her that I was finally seeing a light.  It was way down there at the end of a long long tunnel, but it was there.  Sorry to switch up the metaphor.  Bad writer.  I'll stop that now.

Then it was New Years.  I got dressed up super fancy with my friends, drank way too much, had a lot of fun, and celebrate the onset of 2014.

And after a couple more mostly successful runs, here we are.  And here's what I've decided about 2014: it's time to hit the reset button.  I'm not saying that I'm power off, shutting down, or starting over.  I don't need or want that.  But I needed a reset.  Enough of the quick fixes--the little taps to try to get myself back in place.  They aren't working anymore and were just a minor fix anyways.  I need to face the minor defeat and reset.

I have an inkling of a plan of what re-setting looks like for me.  But it's just forming.  For now, admitting that I need it is enough.  Knowing that, I went for a run today.  I kept to my 5:1, but I focused on what I should and enjoyed the struggle it took to push myself just a little faster.  I didn't and won't focus on pace in this reset, but at the end of it all, I was pretty happy to see a couple sub-9 miles even with my walking interval.  I've started the reset.  It's beginning to work.

I'm going to keep working on this reset, and will probably tell you about it at some point.  But not yet.

In the meantime, Happy 2014.  It's going to be a great.

I can literally feel it.

Amica Seattle Half Marathon Recap

I've said it many times before, and I'll say it once again: you never know what challenges or surprises a race may bring.  This Sunday's race was no different.

Weeks before the Seattle Half Marathon was on the horizon, I knew that it wasn't going to be the power-through PR race that it's been for me the past couple years.  It was two years ago in this race that I gave it my all on a rainy morning and finally clocked in under the 2 hour mark.  Then last year, with the ego booster of a PR at the Nike Women's Half Marathon just a month and a half before, I rocked through the hills, leaving everything I had in me out on the race course and clocking a time almost 7 minutes faster than the 1:59 I had eked out the year before.

This year was nothing like those last two races.  When I woke up Monday morning, a week before the race, I looked at the challenges put before me (some I set before myself, others unavoidable):

1)  A month and a half of very little running. When my knee started giving me troubles in mid-October about a week or so after the Portland Half, I decided to stop running for a while.  I was mentally, and obviously physically burnt out.  I took up hot yoga for a bit and ignored my running shoes for longer than I have in quite a while.  When I started coaching Spring season for TNT, I got back on my feet a bit, but not much.  I had few runs outside of coaching runs, and when I did they were less than 2 miles and very slow.

2) A bum knee.  Things with the knee have been touch and go lately.  The pain is barely noticeable some days, bearable on other days, and somewhat debilitating on others.  I've been choosing whether or not to run/how far to run based on how it's feeling throughout the day.  I've seen two PTs, and neither have suggested a complete break from running, so I'm still trying.  I've been doing my butt exercises and strengthening my hips according to the PT's orders, but things are progressing at a snail's pace.

3) Tired muscles.  Here's the self-inflicted challenge.  Sunday morning, a week before the race, I decided to go on my first trail run (a birthday run for a fellow TNT coach).  Keep in mind items 1 and 2 above, then imagine me on an 8.5 mile trail run with a ridiculous amount of elevation gain (we summitted 3 mountain peaks), and then just as much elevation loss.  The downhills killed the knee, and my muscles worked harder than they had since my half-Iron.  I woke up Monday morning feeling pain on a level with post-first marathon pain.  Then Tuesday hurt even more.  I hobbled through the week and could still feel soreness when I ran with my elementary school running club kiddos in the Seattle Kids Marathon Saturday morning before the half.

Look at that gorgeous group of trail runners.  The pain was worth it.  And,
according to Darren, this picture was taken by the lead singer of Death
Cab for Cutie, who also happened to be out on a trail run that day.

On the Wednesday before the race, I had another PT appointment.  The PT recommended me doing a run/walk for a while until my knee is feeling back up to snuff.  The reason: we run most efficiently at our normal pace.  I'd been doing a lot of runs at a slower pace on legs that aren't as strong as they normally are.  It is better for me to run 5 minutes at my pace, rest for a minute, and then repeat than to try to push through a long run on slow, tired legs.  When I run on slow, tired legs I'm not doing my knee any favors.

I thought about this advice long and hard as I ate Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, watched the Apple Cup on Friday, and ran the Kid's Marathon (just 1.2 miles, not as daunting as it sounds) on Saturday.  Then Saturday afternoon, as I was volunteering in the TNT booth at the race expo, I told Erica that I had decided to do the race at a 5:1 run/walk.  Somewhat surprisingly, she agreed to do it with me (she was also coming off a few weeks of very little running and wasn't expecting any big PRs this race).  While Erica is a wonderful running buddy and supportive friend, she is also one of the more competitive people I've ever known, so I knew this walk/run thing might not go over well.  But she graciously swallowed her desire to run as best she could and committed to tagging along with me.  What an awesome friend.

While this was not ideally how I wanted to be running this race, it was what life had dealt me.  So, instead of being upset or disappointed, I decided to look at it as a new opportunity.  I've heard lots of good things about the run/walk method, and I'm coaching people who are using it.  Why not give it a try myself?

After eating a delicious pasta dinner Saturday night with Erica after volunteering, I headed home and straight to bed.  I didn't prep my race belt.  I didn't take out my race outfit or pin my numbers to my race shirt.  I didn't "dress the chair."  In every aspect possible, I was more unprepared for this race than I had ever been for any other race.

Sunday morning, I woke up, feeling as though this could be just any other long run.  I layered up (it was supposed to be very cold and very rainy), found all my race items, pinned my race bib, and headed to the start line with Erica and Ana.  We broke the 5:1 news to Ana, who had only decided to do the race that Friday.  She also graciously gulped down the news and said she'd give it a try.

We went to the TNT tent to meet up with some other Teammates and hide out inside before braving the cold.

Me, Ana, and Erica, bundled up and "ready" to race.  I wore my sparkle
skirt, because I needed some sparkle strength (sparkle strength
is derived from this amazingly strong sparkly lady--the "therapy" she refers
to in her race recap is in fact chemotherapy.)

Heading out to the start line, it was a lot warmer than we all thought it would be, and the 100% chance of rain wasn't rearing it's ugly head.  The body heat of thousands of bodies at the start line always helps for warmth as well.

Ironman Jason started with us.  Yes, he is wearing a tutu and got a
lot of amazing shout outs from runners and spectators alike for it.

As we crossed the start line, I gulped big and simply hoped that my knee would hold out--telling myself that if my knee made it through last week's trail run, it could make it through this.

The first few miles went quickly.  I had set my watch to vibrate at me for my run/walk intervals, so I kept everyone hard and fast to them.  While running down 5th Ave toward I90, we were hit with some pretty strong sideways gusts of wind (one so strong that Erica lost her hat), but that was the worst of the weather we saw through the entire race.  The impending storm never showed up.

Once on 90, as we made our way toward the tunnel, Ana sped ahead of us.  The walk breaks were hurting her hips, so we shooed her ahead of us.  Some luckily timed walk breaks got Erica and I through the tunnel (and the TNT cheer/water stop) and down the steep, slippery hill off 90 onto Lake Washington.  Taking the left onto Lake Washington, I knew that we had the biggest hills looming up ahead of us.

My knee had started hurting a few miles in.  It wasn't too bad, just a dull ache, but it was certainly there.  Also, we had really upped the pace on some of our run intervals and my legs were feeling like lead.  My initial instinct, as we ran through Leschi, was to get mad at myself for being tired and hurting.  But it wasn't my fault.  Not being tired and not hurting was never a part of the plan for this race.

So instead of turning to frustration, I slowed down and looked around.  The Seattle half is a beautiful race.  Although it's hilly, it's a great course.  And the energy of the other runners on race day cannot be beat.  I decided to absorbed it all.  I was out there running--doing one of my favorite things on one of my favorite race courses.  I pushed the negativity deep inside and ignored it.  This day was a good day.

We hit the start of the big hills, taking a left up Galer (super steep 2 block hill) and then a left onto Madison.  A walk break hit at the bottom of the Galer hill, which I sincerely appreciated.  Erica, who likes powering up hills to get through them, sped up ahead of me and waited for me at the top.  We ran the Madison hill together (which seemed easier than it ever has before even though I didn't get any walk breaks on it) and continued down through the Arboretum.

When we hit the big hill to go up Interlaken, Erica powered up it again to wait for me at the top.  I told her I'd probably walk most of it because my knee was hurting, so she knew I'd take a little longer.  I made it to the top, physically feeling surprisingly ok (except for the knee) and looked around for Erica.  When I didn't see her, I figured she'd run ahead to the TNT mission mile, which we knew wasn't too far ahead.

When I got to the mission mile, I slowed down a little to look at all the remembered angels we were running for.

Heather, Erica's sister, was one of the first signs I saw.  The butterfly I wore
on my shoe that day was for her.

I asked every teammate and coach out there on the course that I saw whether or not they had seen Erica.  When they kept saying no, I finally figured that we must have missed each other at the top of the hill and she had waited a while longer at top.  I hoped she hadn't waited too long.  

For the rest of the race, I waffled back and forth between enjoying the beauty and expecting Erica to catch back up to me at any moment.  When we finally saw each other again at the finish line, I found out that she had waited for me for 10 minutes at the top of the hill before she decided to keep going.  And then she felt guilty the rest of the race, worrying that she had possibly left me behind injured on the hill.  Again: best running buddy ever.

In the final miles of the race, I settled into paces that felt comfortable.  I saw Ironman Joe, who ran with me for a bit, reminding me to take it easy, especially on the downhills.  For once, it was advice I had already been following and took easily.

I cruised through the final couple miles, sticking to my 5:1 interval and feeling pretty great (other than the knee pain, which had dulled a bit since the middle miles).  I crossed the finish line in the stadium at Seattle Center in 2:09.  The last two times I had crossed that finish line, I was exhausted, drained of all energy, and dizzy.  Not this race.  That's not what this race had been about.

Obviously, finishing 21 minutes slower than my PR, this was not my best race.  And as Erica reminded me later, nor was it my "worst."  But when I thought about those 2 halves I had run that were worse, "worse" wasn't really the adjective that fit.  In 2008, I ran my first half marathon in a 2:16.  This was in no sense of the word a bad race.  I was more proud of myself than I had ever been.  Then the Goofy half, Erica and I strolled through in a 2:30.  This was fully on purpose and in preparation for the marathon we were running the next day.  And it was in no way my "worst" race.  In fact, to this date, it was the most fun I have ever had in any race.

In terms of time, no this was not a great race.  It was not a soul-testing, will-pushing race.  But I hadn't expected it to be, and I was not disappointed in myself in the least.  I ran smart.  I was taking care of my body, my knee, and being realistic about what I could handle endurance-wise.  I didn't finish with that wonderful "I gave everything I had" feeling, because giving my all that day wasn't what was healthy for me.

I'm patting myself on the back.  Look at me making smart choices about my addictive running habits.

Sunday was a great race.  It was a race unlike any other.  A race that I ran/walked, that I tried hard not to push myself in, that I didn't hit a wall in, and that I enjoyed every minute of.  All in all, I'd call that a success.

Happy finishers.

And now, I'm ready to focus on getting healthy again.  I will take it easy and I will run smart.  Because for my next race, whenever that may be, I'm beginning to crave to good fight again.  I'm ready to re-test the limits of my soul once more.

The desire to run is officially back in full force.  It's about time.