There will always be bad runs...

One thing runners tell me, just as they extol every good thing about running, is that there will always be bad runs. They will creep up on a girl just when she's feeling like this running thing is nothing but great. They come out of nowhere and legs  feel like lead and lungs burn--the same legs and lungs that felt so great just 48 hours prior to this run. 

I need a strategy for bad runs. It needs to be a different strategy than the one I have for bad weigh-ins. Yesterday, before I went on my bad run, I got on the scale. Up nine pounds. I blinked. Looked. Blinked again. Hopped off. Got back on. Up four pounds. Back off. Back on. Up two pounds. Enough of that. Clearly the scale has issues and it's determined to mess with my mind first thing in the morning. The scale has been pushed under my bed--all the way to the middle. There it will stay. No more bad scale days.

Bad scale days are days when three digits on a measuring device can determine my mood for eight hours or more. Those numbers often do not accurately reflect my efforts towards good nutrition or my intensity of exercise. They are capricious and seemingly out of my control.

That's what bad scale days have in common with bad run days. They just are. I don't cause them. I can't control them. Sometimes, despite all my best efforts, they just are. 

But I'm not relegating my running shoes to a dusty spot beneath the bed. Instead of avoiding bad run days, I'm going to apply some mothering wisdom to them. If nothing else, I've learned one thing in twenty-six years of mothering nine different personalities: I am in control of very little beyond my attitude and my openness to grace. 

I remember when my big boys were little ones. I wanted that magazine kind of house--the one where all the real, simple techniques worked in harmony to have a home where nothing was out of place and everything matched and no one ever lost a shoe. I began with the color coordination of everything possible.Every child was assigned his or her own color.  Michael was purple. Christian was blue. Patrick was red. Mary Beth, of course, was pink. Towels, cups, backpacks, jackets, boots--all color-coordinated. Worked wonderfully. Until someone threw up on his towel and refused to use his brother's because he'd been warned that he was only to use the blue things. It worked until the red sippy cup melted in the bottom of the dishwasher. It worked until they outgrew their coats and boots and protested when I handed them down to the next child in line. Now what? Total color switch? All I knew was that my lone little girl was going to wear red and blue coats for several winters--and she still talks about it mournfully, even as I buy bright florals for her sisters. The color coordination of everything was a total fail. 

Color coordinated cups have given way to a motley collection of water bottles. Some are carefully chosen in someone's favorite color. More are soccer tournament swag. Most are the generosity of Christian when he bought lovely, matching bottles for his whole basketball team, complete with a coordinating carriers. (Wonder where he gets that inclination?)

My reality is that lots of other attempts to control all the things failed as well. Large family mothering is an exercise in letting go. Every single day. The older they get, the less control I have. A bad teacher. A girl who breaks his heart even as he falls head over heels. An illness or injury that wipes out an entire season. A teammate who makes a critical mistake and ends the tournament. Even worse? The bad decisions my kids make all on their own. We won't list them here, but know that I have no control over them. They keep me awake at night. They are thoroughly discussed in heated conversations, but I don't have control. Sometimes, life in a big family feels like 26.2 miles of a bad run. 

There's no option to quit. The only option is a good night's sleep and a run again the next day. And the day after that. And on the good days, I inhale deeply and notice how bright and beautiful the landscape is around me. I take the time to thank God for the air filling my lungs and the knees that bend again and again without that pesky twinge. I share with Him my hopes and dreams and I do it thinking that maybe all will come to fruition. On the good days, I almost believe there will never be a bad run again. 

Almost.

On the bad days? I'm learning to keep running, or maybe to slow to a walk and refocus. I'm learning that life is a marathon and if I get all tangled up in every bad run and I let them get into my head,  they will quickly convince me that I am a bad runner. 

A bad mothering day, a hard mothering season? They don't make you a bad mother.

Just keep putting one foot in front of the other and know that God is in control.

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.