I Almost Gave Up

This morning's run was supposed to be a  5 minute walking warmup, 22 minutes running, and a 5 minutes walking cool down. Since I'm running a little behind my intended 9-week schedule because of time taken to travel, I thought I'd get a little ambitious and skip to the following workout and run 3 minutes more. I want to finish the app program by the end of October and then just keep running 3 miles until the 5K on Thanksgiving. Last week's runs were all really good, so I was sure I could do the 22+ .

I also told myself I wasn't going to look at the app. I was just going to run until I couldn't run any more. Things got off to a good start; I got to the end of the asphalt that's right around the 10 minute mark, maybe a little more than 10 minutes and I felt decent. Then I didn't. I started talking to myself earnestly. I persuaded myself to run to the corner and then to the next corner. Nah. Not that far. I'll just run to the corner. Well, maybe not that corner. Maybe to the tree. Yes. Stop at the tree. 

Stop at the tree.

Look at the app.

15 minutes running time. Five minutes fewer than Santa Barbara. 

Oh, dear. Walking fast, I headed for the fitness trail, an internal battle raging in my head. Clearly, I'm not making progress. Clearly. I'm three weeks from the end of this training program and I'm no where near comfortable running 3 miles. I'm not cut out for this. Clearly. 

I continued to walk. The app chimed the end of the workout.

.63 miles walking. 1.19 miles running. 25 minutes. 

 I kept walking the trail. I've read a ridiculous number of running books. They seem to fall into two camps. In the first camp, there is gentle encouragement to walk/run/ waddle if necessary. It's all good. In the other camp, there is the keep pushing, hone your work ethic, reach your goal and set a new one philosophy. 

My body is in the first camp.

My head, my heart, and my soul, and every male in my family is in the second. We eat the second philosophy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It seriously never occurred to me that I would commit to a 5K and walk a single step of it. I'm going to run the whole thing. Or not run at all. 

Because I'm married to a man who has raised elite athletes and apparently it's rubbed off on me. 

So, after the app disclosed the dismal results of the day, I decided I'm not going to sign up for the 5K.

Still, I kept walking. Because I love to be outside and I love to walk, too. (I think I might love to run, just not very far?  I don't know. I can't even figure out why I stopped. I just stopped.)

I thought about all those really long walks last summer. I thought about the early runs, on this very same trail, where running a full minute seemed hard. I thought about Isabel. 

You see, I told my kids about the 5K, and Kristin rallied a whole bunch of them. They said they wanted to run it with Kristin and me. Mary Beth, who has yet to even start training but is in great shape, told her friend, Isabel. And Isabel has already signed up. I haven't registered my kids yet, but if Isabel's already in, I pretty much have to register them.

I thought about how hard it would be to go and just cheer them on from the sidelines. This running thing? 

It was supposed to be what I could do with them. It wasn't supposed to be from the sidelines. 

I forced myself to look up. And there, was my familiar trail, looking all golden in the morning light. 

Nearly eight weeks until Thanksgiving. These woods, this trail--they are going to light up in the next few weeks. I don't want to miss it. I want to be out there, anyway. Might as well keep trying to run it the whole way. 

The app isn't going to work. Until now, I've trusted the app, but I spent the next half hour of my walk, thinking it through and holding it up to what I know about my body. By the time I got home, I wasn't going to quit. I was going to revise the plan. I texted my friend Nicole and ran the new plan by her. She assured me I had time to get to a place where I could run the whole way and she found a printed plan that looked very much like the one I'd devised for myself. 

I'm still dubious. But in this house, we don't quit. And we don't walk. 

So, Wednesday morning, it will be time to head out anew and work a brand-new plan. 

Happy Birthday, Michael!

Last week went by in a blur. We returned from the west coast, celebrated four birthdays, grieved with dear friends, and went head over heels into Nutcracker season. 

I kicked off the 31 Days series (and already missed a day), but I didn't get the traditional birthday posts in. So, here's to catching up.

When I was 24, I was diagnosed with cancer. Michael was a baby then, 18 months old and still nursing when our lives turned upside down. It was a long year and he was very much aware. He's also been very much aware of the shadow that is life after cancer. I knew that. What I didn't know is that Michael has always been a little afraid of 24. In his mind, people get cancer when they're 24.

When he was 24, sure enough, cancer came knocking. But it wasn't Michael. And it wasn't me. It was Michael's best friend, Shawn. That made 25 very, very hard.

The fall of 25 held deep and gripping grief. First, Michael lost his beloved grandfather. Then, he watched his best friend slip away very, very quickly. 

When Michael was little, we were big fans of Solomon the Supersonic Salamander. He sang songs from Proverbs. Michael and I belted out the beat about "a friend who sticks closer than a brother" every time we drove any where. It was embedded into who he was. I had no idea how deeply and truly embedded.

Shawn had two brothers. They're great guys--strong, faithful, unwavering. But when cancer took that strong body and distorted it into a swollen, painful unrecognizable mess, a third young man stood vigil with them beside the bed. Closer than a brother, or at least as close. And when the cancer started talking nonsense and Shawn didn't sound like himself, Michael bantered back to the Shawn he knew. When Shawn went home to Jesus, Michael stood tall and bore witness to Shawn's witness. It was truly something to behold. 

A few weeks later, the light shone through the clouds. In the very early morning on April 25, Lucy Shawn was born. The towheaded boy became a Daddy. From the depths of grief to life's greatest joy, 25 was quite a year for my eldest son. 

He did a few other things with 25. He went to Brazil and covered the World Cup. He carved a niche for himself in the world of sportswriters and truly became a world class sportstweeter*, with over 117,000 followers.He got nominated for awards. He turned heads.  But when he looks back on 25, this will be there year that he lost Granddad and he lost Shawn, and he welcomed Lucy into the world.  

Big, big year.

Now, he's 26.

I pray for peace for you this year, my boy. Peace and all that is good. 

*this is how Nick refers to Michael's job. 

Inspiration as the Sun Breaks Through the Clouds

Unedited iPhone shots this morning. It's good to be home:-)

If one could run without getting tired, I don't think one would often want to do anything else.

--C. S. Lewis

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Remember, the feeling you get from a good run is far better than the feeling you get from sitting around wishing you were running. 

--Sarah Condor

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If you can fill the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds worth of distance, run, yours is the earth and everything that’s in it, and — which is more — you’ll be a man, my son.

--Rudyard Kipling

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I always loved running…it was something you could do by yourself, and under your own power. You could go in any direction, fast or slow as you wanted, fighting the wind if you felt like it, seeking out new sights just on the strength of your feet and the courage of your lungs.

--Jesse Owens

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Believe that you can run farther or faster. Believe that you’re young enough, old enough, strong enough, and so on to accomplish everything you want to do. Don’t let worn-out beliefs stop you from moving beyond yourself.

--John Bingham

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Go fast enough to get there, but slow enough to see.

--Jimmy Buffett

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To be a runner is to learn continual life lessons. To be a coach is not just to teach these lessons but also to feel them in the core of your marrow. The very act of surpassing personal limits in training and racing will bend the mind and body toward a higher purpose for the rest of my runners' lives. Settling for mediocrity-settling instead of pushing-those who learn to be the best version of themselves know the secret to a full life.

― Martin Dugard

I Will Never Run a Marathon

Yesterday, was a "rest" day. Usually I walk between 5 and 8 miles on the rest days. I didn't get to it until nearly sunset. It had been a hard day--the day of the funeral of a friend who leaves behind a wife and two young children. I admit, I ran a little during the "walk" just shake the stress out.

I've read a stack of running books lately, listened to a ridiculous number of running podcasts. That's what I do. I gain a new interest and then I read voraciously about that interest. Over the years, I've acquired and borrowed books on all sorts of things: pregnancy, childbirth, babies, homeschooling, cancer, nutrition, theology, gardening, and more. My bookshelves are bursting. And now I have running books. 

They're interesting. Several of them are memoir-type books, or memoirs with lots of practical advice thrown in. It's interesting to read memoirs that aren't faith-based; an education in a whole new population of people. (I would love to read a Christian running book, though, because the ones I've read don't really feel "familiar.") What's more interesting is understanding the psyche behind people committed to running, running well, and running long distances. When I read those books, I'm sure I could run a marathon. 

Then I step away from the book.

I'm 48. My feet hurt. My knees hurt. I'm homeschooling 6 kids and frequently visiting 3 more. I bore all 9 of those children {ahem}. I'm nurturing several elite athletes. I'm someone's Nona. After all my reading, I think I know how to run a marathon. I even think I'd like to run a marathon. However, it is highly unlikely that I am well-suited-- physically or otherwise-- to run a marathon. and I'm pretty much OK with that. I have my own personal running goals, ones that suit my body, my temperament, and most importantly, my family. 

I am a terrible Tweeter. Wait! This is going somewhere. I promise it's all related.

The other day, I got on Twitter for the first time in about ten days. I just always forget about Twitter. I tried to be social and appropriate and respond to 35 notifications. In doing so, I found myself on someone else's Twitter feed, scrolling through all her tweets to find the one I wanted to answer. My goodness! She'd tweeted a lot that week. And most of her tweets were tweets about places she was writing and projects she was posting. The productivity was astounding. 

And I felt guilty. I know how to do all those things, write all those things. I've listened to more blogging/social media/ how-to-write books and podcasts than I ever listened to running ones. I think I can even objectively say I have a gift for writing. But writing isn't just lacing up one's shoes and running 3 miles in the morning any more. It's committing to a marathon a month and the strict schedule of tempo runs, hill repeats, and weekly long runs. I know how to be a prolific, successful writer. And I know that I am no more suited to that at this time in my life than I am to running a marathon. 

It has taken a summer of long walks and the sound of footfall over and over again to be okay with that. I admire the marathoners--both the writing ones and the running ones.  I've lived my whole life believing that if I just try hard enough, I can do anything. Mostly, that's come true. But now, at midlife, I recognize that I might be able to do anything, but it's not wise for me to do some things. Just as I do not have the body of a marathoner, I am not created to be a mega-blogger who devotes herself to the hard work of publishing prolifically. I can't do that and do this--this life at home--well. I can't train for a marathon and take care of my family, either. Besides, I'm not sure a marathon would be a particularly healthy thing for me to do. It works for other people--younger people, people who don't have my health history, people who are in a different time and place in their lives. But not me. Thank God for the marathon writers! What they have added to our collective wisdom is a blessing. I am not one of them and I don't aspire to be. 

I'm just shooting to be a 5 miles in the morning every day kind of gal. 

So, I made this button. I like it. It took me a few minutes while sitting in a parking lot. It doesn't click to any where. I don't know how to do that and don't have the time to Google it. I expect that somewhere along the way, Mary Beth might connect it for me. (Or not. She's really busy these days and she has decided she wants to squeeze some running into her schedule and do a Turkey Trot 5K with me. Go her!) I haven't done all the other linking and tweeting I'm supposed to for the 31 Days things either. I'm going to try to do that today, but I've got another birthday to celebrate tomorrow and I really need to put my brain to that. Oh, and we have a well-established tradition of birthday posts and I'm already three behind ... 

So here you go, my "quick morning run" button, which isn't even button-sized. But it will be. Maybe.

Resting in the Run

One day, in late June, I decided to start taking a walk every day. I bought a pedometer, promised myself 10,000 steps and started discovering paths. I walked my neighborhood. I walked trails near soccer parks all over Northern Virginia. I walked in Charlottesville. By the end of August, I’d walked 475 miles. I even climbed a mountain. September came, and I started to run. My body grew stronger. I got faster (but not by much). Slowly, I began to ask myself why. Why was I spending so much time covering long distances, mostly by myself?

Because every walk was a sabbath. And I was desperately in need of a sabbath.

I am the mother of a large family, a woman whose husband travels, a writer who is compelled by the industry to engage in social media. All day, every day, I am besieged by people who draw from me. Recently someone asked me how I found the time to log that kind of mileage in a summer. I replied that a younger me would have said it was a very selfish summer. The wiser me says it was long overdue self-care.

Motherhood is a 24/7 “job.” At a time when all the other mothers from the 1989 playgroup with my firstborn are now settling into empty nests, I am still doing four loads of laundry a day, homeschooling six children who remain at home and scurrying from soccer to ballet and back again. This parenting gig is a marathon, and I’ve discovered I literally need running shoes to go the distance.

In a world where email and text messaging make one perpetually available at all hours and on all days, it’s not just mothers who are struggling to find moments of rest, never mind the whole day of rest every week as our Creator intended. The old cliche about the mom who can’t even go the bathroom without her children following her? Notice how many people take their smartphones into the place where once phones rarely went.

It’s not just mothers who are on 24/7 anymore. There is a universal expectation that text messages and emails will be received as soon as they are sent. Responses are expected shortly thereafter. Recently, my husband set his email to auto-respond and let people know that he was “stepping away” from his desk for the day. Undaunted, they tried to engage anyway; his text alerts began to chime at an alarming rate. There was no stepping away.

We are hard-wired for constant interaction, and somehow our bodies have overridden the default “rest mode.” After several years of existing this way, despite my attempts to intentionally limit digital input (and output) and avoid the overscheduling of my children, I found myself feeling exhausted and, oddly, alone. I was completely out of touch with myself.

Without a sabbath, a woman feels herself slowly going a bit mad. The clamoring around her reaches a deafening crescendo, and the highways (both physical and virtual) demand increasingly impossible velocity and distance. Panic presses in, and she becomes aware, as Ghandi observed, that “there is more to life than increasing speed. “

I don’t run (or walk or hike) for speed. I run to slow down. I run to rest.

I have found that the only way to a really rest is to get up an hour earlier, lace my shoes, set my phone to airplane mode and allow only the sounds of carefully chosen music or a well-produced audiobook to invade my brain space. Then the rhythm of my feet and the feel of the outdoors — whether sticky and humid or crisp and cool — awaken me to the sense of being created, both body and soul. To move, particularly outdoors, is to appreciate that we are souls living in bodies. So often, we underappreciate the corporeal. The combination of activity and free-flowing conversation with oneself rejuvenates and restores equilibrium. An awareness of one’s body, even if the awareness includes the burning of one’s legs and the pounding of one’s heart, brings thoughts into sharper focus. Sometimes, I am sure that oxygen deprivation has wiped out my short-term memory, and I have very little recollection of what I thought along the way, despite the clarity in the moment.

But I know I had a meaningful conversation with myself. And I know that God was the only other being who heard it. So, that explains to me why I return at peace, feeling stronger, more disciplined, and more capable of meeting the challenges of the day. I have rested in the run.