Race Report

I realize it has been nearly two weeks since I ran my half marathon. You are all probably wondering about it. Waiting with bated breath, right? Well, okay, maybe it is neither here nor there to you. But I did it, so now it’s time to process it. And then publish it, because it’s a sick kind of validation that I’m looking for.

I like the Boulder Spring Half Marathon. Those of you in the Denver Metro Area ought to check it out. Dirt roads through fields of golden grass, the early morning sun casting long shadows, old farm houses or newish mini-manors sparsely occupying an acreage here and there. No one around but runners with their chins up or their heads down. It is a very unassuming, neatly managed race.

This year it was hot. Ugh. Also, I was not well-trained. Double ugh. Still I had a good time, and I finished with a good time (2h 22m). Also, and this is now my favorite part of running this race, I spent the morning all by myself.

Now that I run marathons, my family is less inclined to climb in the car for a mere half, several hours of boredom spent in order to have 30 seconds of “Go, Mom!” and “Finish Strong!” and “Woohoo!” They’d come if I asked them, but really. I’m now a fan of the solo spring half-er. I wake up early, drink tea and drive. I park it in the parking lot and read and listen to music and safety pin my race bib. I make pleasant banter with a few fellow runners. Then I run: my race, my brain, my fatigue, my finish. I like it. This particular race falls on the Sunday after my birthday every year, perfect for a little me time--self-reflection and, yes, even a little self-absorption. Also, it makes for a super-fun drive home.

Maybe I haven’t yet mastered the art of fueling. Or maybe 13 miles will drain your tank no matter how full it is. In either case, I found myself with the low-blood-sugar-shakes just after crossing the finish line. There’s something about this depletion that is good for my soul. It shakes loose some dust--the dry, dirty flakes of world-weariness, the somebody’s-watching-and-judging fearfulness. Nothing’s left but the salty residue of evaporated sweat. My body wreaks of defiant, I’m-tougher-than-the-shit-you-dish moxy. I do this to myself, and I finish standing. Not just standing...still smiling, fists in the air, ripping through finish lines. God, I love that feeling.

I downed some gatorade and sucked on an orange slice, then piled my sore limbs into the car. The drive home became an uninhibited comedy. With no one around to observe or mock, I sang along to music with all the verve my lungs could muster. This year it was Arcade Fire’s Funeral:

Come on, Alex. You can do it!
Come on, Alex. There’s nothing to it.
If you want something, don’t ask for nothing.
If you want nothing, don’t ask for something!

Then

If the children don’t grow up,
Our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up
We’re just a million little gods causing rainstorms
Turning every good thing to rust!
I guess we’ll just have to adjust.
Aaah Ah Aaaaah Ah Aah Aah Aaaah Ah

Can you picture it? Me, rocking my body side to side, throwing my head up so I can Belt. It. Out. I call this the endorphin effect. It’s like alcohol, because it relaxes your inhibitions. Because singing out like that was in me all the time, just waiting for an unguarded, exhausted, exhilirated moment to be let out.

Also, in the middle of the drive home, I had to pee. And I held it. And this seemed to me an amazing--Herculean--accomplishment of will and bladder. Seriously, folks. I was so proud of myself for holding it. I was loopier than the Mad Hatter.

If you don’t have something in your life that builds you up and tears you down like this, go find it. If you can’t remember the last time you didn’t have enough energy to restrain yourself so you just had to let ‘er rip (no, we’re not talking about peeing anymore)...If you wish you had a corner of the universe to be yourself unadulterated, to know yourself uninhibited...If you wonder what might be in you if you could uncover it underneath your life or your baggage: run. It is physiologically guaranteed to get you there. Go long, go hard, go on your birthday, as a gift to yourself (stop laughing; we seriously aren’t talking about peeing anymore).

Bonus for you: you don’t have to write about it. That may be the craziest, hardest part of what I’m doing. But if you want to tell me about it, I’d sooo love to hear your story. I don’t care if you find/lose yourself in running or dancing or singing or synchronized swimming. Please, tell your corner of the world about it. Tell me!

Warning: words are difficult. You have to conjure them and string them together. There are rules to words: they must make a kind of sense and, simultaneously, tiptoe toward nonsense. Because we are all our own special kind of crazy, and if any stories are worth telling (and they are) it’s the ones that let my crazy and your crazy look each other up and down and say, “You look familiar to me. We might be long lost cousins.”

P.S. My crazy totally loves Violet's crazy over at Creative Devolution. If you aren't yet acquainted with her beauty and truth, get on it.

Pain Threshold

I love me a slow jog. Give me 20 miles of stars, sunrise, and scenery. Let me soak up the oxygen with a deep and easy inhale. I’ll build the ache over distance, the soothing effect of moderate effort. Moderately moderate. No-reason-to-go-overboard kind of moderate. Breaking-a-sweat-is-so-overrated kind of moderate. Okay, easy. Easy effort. I love me an easy pace.

So imagine my chagrin when I decide to add speed intervals to my weekly workouts. I don’t think I have a fast-twitch muscle in my body. I have never actually sprinted in my life. Ever. No playground races, no soccer team drills, no chased-by-bullies-or-bears traumas. But when one has run more half and full marathons than one can count on one’s fingers, things get a little dull. So I added 400s to my Tuesday mornings. I warm-up by jogging a half-mile, then I run at a fast but not deadly pace for a quarter mile 5-8 times in a row, with a short cool down between each one. I polish it off with another slow half-mile.

It’s tough. The first couple intervals are manageable. During the next couple intervals, I start to breathe a bit harder. Then I do a couple intervals counting to 100 to distract myself from the effort. Finally, I finish with one or two intervals during which I look and sound like a bull after a long session in the ring with a champion matador: frothy sweat at the corners of my mouth, an audibly heaving exhale, and a mad fear flashing in my eyes. I’m doing it, people. And let me tell you, I’m feeling pretty good about myself.

So I tell my best friend all about it (she’s a wicked fast runner, you know). “So have you thrown up yet?” she asks with straight-faced candor. I look at her, my mouth slightly ajar with surprise and annoyance that she hasn’t yet clapped her hand heartily on my back and shouted, “Awesome job! You rock, queen of speed!”

“Am I supposed to?” I ask doubtfully.

“Yeah!” she responds with chipper enthusiasm. She goes on to quiz me about dizziness and numb legs, finishing with, “You really haven’t thrown up? Even a little bit, in your mouth?”

Me. Staring. Mouth ajar. “It’s supposed to feel like that?”

She faithfully goes on to explain this whole speed training thing to me. The speed intervals build your vO2 max, which makes your cardiovascular system stronger and more efficient--able to endure more punishment so you can eek out a few more strides and a few less seconds in a race. She diligently pulls out her pace wheel, a rainbow-colored torture device that predicts reasonable finishing times for various distances based on past performance. Pardon me, “reasonable” finishing times. So using my best half marathon time, the wheel o’ misery suggests marathon, 10k, 5k, or 1-mile times I can expect to achieve with training. The pace wheel thinks I’ve been slacking.

And then she utters the two words that now haunt me. “You’ve gotta hit your pain threshold.” I’ve heard her use this phrase before, in reference to training and intervals and hills and Olympian marathoners. And I feel like a fraud again. I’ve been play-acting this whole runner thing. I realize that I’m a complacent marathoner. Shouldn’t that be an oxymoron?

But I know it’s true. I’ve found a comfort zone, and I’m reveling in it. By the way, there is nothing wrong with this! Finding a good comfort zone and spending lots of time there is necessary to a sustainable human life. I should do almost all of my runs in this comfort zone; I should do my long runs at an even lazier pace than that. As a runner and a wife and a mother and a Christian and an educator and a friend, I should spend most of my life in my comfort zone, where I am competent and useful and able to breathe. But as a runner and a wife and a mother and a Christian and an educator and a friend, I need to spend a little corner of my time outside of it, bumping up against my pain threshold. Not my mild-discomfort threshold, not my slight-exertion threshold. My pain threshold. Friends, this is not a place I know.

So I’m starting with running. I’m keeping the intervals, but increasing my speed. In April, I’ll alternate them with hill repeats. I’m scheduling quality time with my pain threshold so that my comfort zone will expand--and then I’ll get to push harder to reach my pain threshold! (Crazy, much?) My speed-goddess best friend is helping me. I asked her (what was I thinking?) to pace me for a fast mile. She did it. I needed to stop half way through; she didn’t let me. I wanted to die at 3/4s of a mile; she told me to run like I was rescuing my children from imminent death. It hurt so bad, I couldn’t bring myself to care. She pushed. I finished. Then I laid right down, hot cheek to cold pavement, and sucked air so hard I gave the universe a hickey. Hello, pain threshold. Nice to meet you.

I’m officially more afraid of leaving my comfort zone, because now I know just how uncomfortable it can be. But here I go. I’ll keep you posted on how that works out for me--as a wife, mom, teacher, believer, and friend. Time to give my heart a workout of another kind. (Was that a prayer?) Yikes.

Happy Birthday to me?

I am getting moderately old.  Sitting at the computer for more than two minutes leaves me with the posture of Quasimodo.  I stand and walk around at a 45 degree angle for 20-60 seconds before I can manage to straighten my back to a fully upright position.

Also, those lines on my forehead that used to be a part of my quizzical expression never leave.  Also, I have matching lines on my neck.  My. Neck.  I want to walk around with my head extended in some accordian-like imitation of E.T. to erase them.

Also, I don’t have jowls.  But I do have the earliest pockets of face fat that may someday evolve to be jowl-like.  Richard Nixon, here I come.

 

Finally, whereas last year I ran 35 miles in 3.5 days to celebrate my 35th birthday, this year I’m going to see a movie with my mother, and then eat a big dinner at 3 in the afternoon.  Early bird special, you’re mine!  Old age suits me.

Oh, and that half marathon that I decided just three weeks ago NOT to run.  I’m totally running it.  I’ve got to recapture my youthful zest somehow.  If I brake my hip doing it, my next stop will by Morning Side Retirement Home.  Sigh.

(Yes, my birthday is still over a week away.  I'm obsessing.)

Sweet!

One of the best post-workout choices a person can make is to down a glass of chocolate milk.  

It has something to do with the balance of whey protein and casein protein and carbohydrates that is perfect for quickly re-energizing and repairing muscles.  Whatever--it’s delicous!  Bottoms up.

Aren’t I so health-conscious?

I Believe in Hobbits

I recently indulged in a Lord of the Rings movie marathon.  Way easier than running a marathon, let me tell you.  And bonus: during a movie marathon I fuel up with pizza and ice cream--way tastier than goo.

I love those stories.  Love!  I’ve read the books 4 times now, and I’m hankering for a 5th soon.  I even named my daughter with a nod to an elven flower that grows in Lothlorien (the heart of the elven kingdom in Middle Earth, duh).  And when Gene and I were young and in love, I fancied myself Samwise Gamgee to his Frodo.  So, obviously, I’m an LOTR dork.

Gene was enjoying the movie marathon too, and using it as an opportunity to introduce our son to epic heroism.  I noticed Gene would call him over to watch mighty battles and fierce clashes of good versus evil.  Of course, the little guy’s just six, and he frequently wandered from the room to act out his own battles off screen.  So I was able to observe the moments Gene most wanted him to pay attention to, not to miss...moments of bravery and purity of heart in the midst of the bedlam of war.  When deadly foes vastly outnumbered the fellowship of heroes, Gene would make sure our little guy watched them stand strong.  I love the man my husband is and the man he wants our son to become.  

But for me, quieter moments thrilled me most.  I wanted Soren to notice that Sam didn’t let Frodo go forward alone, and Merry and Pippin pledged their small bodies and large hearts in allegiance to people not their own, and that Gollum could choose, if only for a time, to be Smeagol again.  And my favorite line comes after the climax, when two little hobbits have given all they have to give: “I am glad you are here with me.  Here at the end of all things.”

I love hobbits!  I love that they celebrate ease and welcome simple pleasures.  I love that their statures and their dreams are never outsized.  I love that you never see them coming, never expect them to be the hub that the whole world turns upon.  I love hobbits because I believe they tell us the truth about ourselves.  A king can be kingly, a warrior can win, but those short, fat, unaspiring halflings are the crux of happy endings.  

That’s us, you see.  I’m a hobbit.  I’m a little person, and there is just one of me.  What in the world can I do?  How in the world can I matter?  But I believe that each of us, small and insignificant, changes the course of the story.  In quiet, unseen moments, when I manage a spark of bravery and purity of heart, I may just save the world.  

Tolkien writes about “eucatastrophe,” the catastrophic event that holds the only kernel of hope for a happy ending.  He says it is, “a sudden and miraculous grace never counted on to recur.  It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure; the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.”

I live eucatastrophes regularly, tiny struggles for a happy ending.  Running a marathon, or a half marathon, or a friggin’ mile if that’s all I can manage, is a miniature eucatastrophe.  And not yelling at my kiddos when they spill their juice, but kissing their frightened faces and saying, “It’s no problem.”  And sitting on the couch with my husband, or making him a sandwich, or saying “I love you” even when we disagree about something.  And tutoring women for a measly evening each week.  And sending a check.  And saying a prayer.  This is my epic heroism.  

And I love that I have something in common with the hobbits.  No one expects those little guys to count, let alone matter most, but they do.  And no one expects a middle-aged, chubby housewife to run 26+ miles.  But I do.  I wonder what that means, in the scope of things.  Like Tolkien, I marvel at the unexpected impact of little achievements, the essential nature of unseen gifts.  No surprise there...I believe in a dying savior, a servant king.  I guess it’s the same thread throughout: hope.  In a happy ending we can’t manage ourselves.  Maybe, thanks to a catastrophe we couldn’t see coming, we arrive at “the end of all things” not entirely alone.

“Dear Sir,” I said--Although now long estranged,

Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.

Disgraced he may be, yet is not dethroned,

and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned.

Man, Sub-creator, the refracted Light,

through whom is splintered from a single White

to many hues, and endlessly combined

in living shapes that move from mind to mind.

Though all the crannies of the world we filled

with Elves and Goblins, though we dared to build

Gods and their houses out of dark and light,

and sowed the seed of dragons-- ‘twas our right

(used or misused).  That right has not decayed;

we make still by the law in which we’re made.”

-J.R.R. Tolkien “On Faerie Stories”

Hiatus

I’ve been playing hooky.  Obviously.  In October, I ran the Portland Marathon and  blogged about it.  In November, I uploaded a post about my best friend because it was about damn time--I’d been working on that sucker for months.  Then, I took a break.  I usually cool my heels a bit after a marathon.  I like taking 2-4 weeks to chill out, occasionally work out half-heartedly, and bask in my accomplishment by backsliding like a walrus on a slippery shoreline.  This time around 2-4 weeks became 2-4 months--and counting.  

I’m calling it a hiatus.  The word means a break, gap, or space.  In anatomy, it refers to a natural empty space in bone where new cells grow.  So I’m not so much ditching long distance running as I am reclaiming the space and time it took up to see what grows there.  I’ve needed the mental energy for other endeavors and challenges.  My husband’s work life is good in a lot of ways, but oh so demanding in others.  I’ve reintroduced careful budgeting into my life, like I haven’t done since our first years as poor college kids in love.  And I’ve been taming the beast called worry.  Thankfully, since I’m not out the door for a run an hour or two before dawn, I’ve been able to stay up later at night, for conversations and chillin’ with my spouse--also for full-blown binges on dumb TV and junk food.  Hey, it’s all therapy to me.

I manage a bit of exercise here and there.  I’ve jogged a few times.  I’ve enjoyed dropping my youngest off in the play area at the gym and reacquainting myself with the elliptical machine,  the stationary bike, and various sundry equipment with shelves for books.  I even let Jillian Michaels (of The Biggest Loser fame--yes, I watch) shred me for 15 of her 30-day plan.  You should see my traveling push-up; it’s a beaut!  With the coming of the New Year, I optimistically signed up for a half marathon, because the thing I needed to warm my heels up again after luxurious weeks of cooling was a plan, a schedule, a commitment!

And still, I’m not running.  Not really running: multiple days a week with an increasingly long run on weekends and checks in my training log.  I don’t think the half marathon in 4 weeks is gonna happen. Ce la vie!

So what is the matter with me?  

Thankfully, nothing.  No nagging injury or implosion of the will.  (Maybe a small collapse of one corner of my will, but the structure is mostly standing.)  I’m simply permitting myself a season.  I’m gathering stones instead of throwing them (or maybe I’m the stone and I’m gathering moss).  I’m not searching for a race; I’m giving one up as lost.  For everything there is a season, and this particular season is cold, and the mornings are dark, and the sidewalks are treacherous with frozen slush and black ice.  And 5 a.m. comes earlier than it did last season, I swear.

And there is one reason more.  When I make running habitual in my life, it ripens into a  ritual--a sacred season of reflection.  The quiet, steady thrumming of heart and footfall opens my mind to myself.  I imagine, analyze, wonder, and decide.  My spirit heaves with my lungs.  It is good, and it is my own.  But right now, I need to save reflection, analysis, and decision for my family.  We are taking on a challenge that requires mental energy and a lot of partnership.  During this particular season, instead of waking up early to work my body and soul, I’m staying up late to chat with my husband.  We imagine, analyze, wonder, and decide together.  “Me-time” is sliding a little lower on the list, for now.

Some runners would say, “But this is exactly when you most need to keep running!”  Yep.  So true.  I need to get my sweat on for my sake and for the sake of those around me.  God knows (He really does) how dark my innards are and how much they bleed onto those around me, in dirty looks and exasperated sighs and impatient resentments.  Adding endorphins to the mix makes a positive difference.  But the scope of my physical triumph is remaining narrow for a season.  Instead of 10 miles, a 30-minute video suits me fine.  Instead of pre-dawn epic expeditions, a speed date with a treadmill at 9 a.m. will do.

I don't know how long this season lasts, so you'll have to keep reading to find out with me; and I’ll have to start writing.  Therefore, I’m making it official.  My hiatus from thefatmarathoner.blogspot.com has come to an end.   Cheers!

It all fit on one page!

Kizmet.  Serendipity.  Destiny.  Meant to be.  Sometimes a gift comes along that you know you were meant to have.  

I don’t know if my running gave me her friendship, or if her friendship gave me running.  They are mixed together like coffee and cream, like sugar in tea--dissolving into each other, each making the other better.  She’s my best friend.  

For all of us, friendship matters in our quality of life, but I’ve never found this more true for me than in my days as a stay-at-home mom.  It can be a lonely time, because between the moments of blissed-out motherhood are unparalleled doldrums and disconnection.  So maybe it was desperation that made me do it.  When this preschool mom came to me with the idea of running a marathon, I said yes.  

My first impression of her was that she was petite (a body-type that has always greened me with envy), and that she possessed the self-assured friendliness (again, making me green) that puts a person at ease.  In contrast, I’m a strange breed of extroverted introvert, or introverted extrovert.  I love people; they cheer me up, motivate me, and give me something to look forward to...until I need to run away and hide in a hole for a few hours or days to recuperate from social exertion.  I am an extro-intro.  (I’m officially copyrighting the shortening of introverted and extroverted to intro and extro.)

She was a young mom too, staying home with her kiddos.  She had been a runner in high school.  She was smart, which was apparent from our first conversation, and she was nice.  (She’ll swear she’s not, but don’t believe her.)  Apparently I fooled her into thinking I had some mix of running nice-smartness in me too, so when she overheard me mention that I had run a few half-marathons (or maybe she saw me wear one of my race shirts), she suggested I step it up and run the whole shebang.  26.2 miles.  The distance between Marathon and Athens that killed Pheidippides when he ran it.  She ignored my “by-the-time-I’m-forty” delay tactic, and hammered the last nail in my coffin the next day by bringing in a handwritten 5-month plan, charting every run and rest day, that would make me marathon-ready.  And it all fit on one page!

How did she know I would be convinced by the optical illusion of fitting it all on one sheet of paper?  Do I look that gullible?  How could she guess that I was thirsty for the implicit offer of friendship and support during the process?  Did I look that desperate?  Maybe so.  I’m so glad.  Because by scratching out, with thick, deep pen-scratches, everyone of those 88 training runs on that itsy-bitsy piece of paper--okay, I skipped a couple--I made it to race day.  I became a marathoner.  And that offer of friendship?  She more than made good on it.

Better than good.  For every marathon I’ve run, she’s run the race too.  She’s speedier than the Road Runner, so she always finishes with enough time to spare to refuel, rest up just a bit, and yes even fit in a quick shower, before she retraces her hard-earned miles to meet me and run me in as I finish my race in a state of tearful, expletive-laden decay.  

And during training, she celebrates my strong long runs and talks me off the ledge when  a slow short run with lead-heavy legs makes me feel like a loser and a fraud.  

And when a little stress in my life makes me feel like I’m metaphorically running up a mountain, she reminds me to be grateful.  Because our uphill is the rest of the world’s downhill, and on a bad day I’ve got it better than 99.9% of the world, and people wish they had my problems.

And as my kids grow, she sees and knows them and their beauty and accomplishments, and she offers her own children to them as true, dear friends.

And when my dad was so sick we didn’t know if he would make it through the night, I knew I could call her so my kids could stay over at her house and Gene could sit with me through those hard and scary hours.  I didn’t even have to ask; I knew she was there for me to give me what I needed, damn the disruption to her schedule or routines.

And she understands that though I am often conflicted and confused, I can be trusted to act from conviction.  And she believes that writing my blog isn’t a waste of my time and reading it isn’t a waste of hers.  And she listens when I ramble, and laughs with me when I laugh at myself.  She’s patient with me as I learn how to be a better listener.  She’s present for me as I learn to live in the moment.

We’re different.  She’s fast; I’m slow.  She’s skinny; I’m not.  I cling; she relaxes.  I believe in God; she doesn’t.  None of it changes the gift I’ve gotten.  She’s my best friend, and I aspire to be worthy of being hers.  To listen as well as she does and support like she can and live with the hard-won, easy strength she emulates.

There is one thing I’m better at than she is.  I brag; she doesn’t.  You see, becoming a marathoner has taught me a lot about my own strength and capacity.  Therefore, I believe it is a virtue to celebrate my accomplishments loudly in the presence of others.  By doing so, I strip myself of the excuses that might keep me from trying harder or doing the right thing.  So today, I’m gonna finish this blog by bragging for her.  She deserves it:

3:05 marathon finishing time

10th female finisher overall

1st in her age division

That’s my best friend!