running

Slow Down does not mean Stop

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A few months ago, before the shit hit the fan both literally and figuratively, and my life turned into a Dickens tale, I remember sitting in church listening to that day’s sermon, and the phrase “slow down does not mean stop” stuck with me. I honestly don’t remember what the sermon was actually supposed to be about, but that one phrase stuck. I’m pretty sure it was sometime in mid-September that I heard it.

Since hearing that phrase in mid-September, I have successfully survived a bout of the flu that completely flattened me for a week, and took a total of almost three weeks to fully recover; I survived being rear-ended on my way to work by an impaired driver while I was sitting completely stopped at a red light; and I survived being in the hospital for a possible stroke, and all the cardiologist and other doctor visits that ensued trying to figure out why I was suddenly blacking out all the time. If bad luck comes in threes, then I have had my share for this year.

Slow down does not mean stop stuck with me because in addition to my recent challenges, I passed my one-year retirement anniversary. For the first time since I started kindergarten at age five, I have been out of school for an entire year from Nov 2015-Nov 2016. After spending twenty years of my life as a college student working multiple jobs, I have spent the past year working one job trying to slow down my life.

Slow down does not mean stop.

Whether a warning or a premonition, that phrase has come to apply to my life more than you can possibly imagine.

In some ways, my life has stopped.

No one talks to me now that I’m not in school. When I was in school, life was a flurry of activity, and with that came emails, text messages, and a slew of things on facebook. I deleted my facebook account almost nine months ago now, and I can still say it was the best thing I have ever done. I have no regrets on that one. What I would like to know is, where did all the people go now that I am not in school? I’m lucky if I get four text messages a month now.

I have no goals and no purpose. I have been mindlessly wafting. When I was in school, I was in constant action working toward a goal of finishing a degree and building a better life. I do not know what the definition of “a better life” is, but since I have been retired, I am simply working, reading, and hanging around home.

Probably the scariest, worst, and most significant way in which my life has stopped was that I stopped running. This is a problem on multiple levels.

Last spring, I was training for a full marathon and had to stop training when my work schedule became so overwhelming that I literally could only work and sleep. My work schedule was messing with my autoimmune disease, which means I was not sleeping, and was too tired to run. When I finally got my work schedule and sleep schedule around so I could run, I got the flu. Life has been a downward spiral. It quite literally took being in the hospital going through stroke protocol that gave me a very alarming wake up call.

I had a cardiologist years ago who had told me to try running to strengthen my heart and to overcome problems with a faulty valve I have. It worked. Fourteen marathon medals later, my echocardiogram is showing improvement in that compromised heart valve. However, the fact that I stopped running for five months, the longest amount of time in almost ten years that I have not ran, is a problem.

Stop running is what caused this “I almost had a stroke” mess.

Slowing down my life does not mean to stop doing what I love. Slowing down my life is supposed to give me more time to do more of what I love.

Instead, I have spent the past year in a dazed haze because I feel as though I no longer have an identity now that I am not in school.

Slow down does not mean stop. I learned that if I stop, it could kill me.

Since my hospital scare a few weeks ago, I have started walking every day (this came highly recommended by the cardiologist). I am working on getting myself back up to a point where I am running again on a regular basis. I do have a race picked out for September 2017, and plan on training for the 2017 season. These are all things that the cardiologist is excited about as well. Hopefully as I get to more running than walking, my “I’m going to pass out” symptoms will be gone.

I still don’t have a goal or a direction for my life. Honestly, I am very much lost now that I am no longer in school. What I do know is that while I want to slow down my life, I need to enjoy my life also. I haven’t been doing that. I just kind of slowed down and stopped.

Somehow I have to figure out how to keep myself going without school. That has been the hardest lesson to learn this past year. I am not doing very well with that.

We always say we want more time; we want more hours in a day. I believe that to be true. We will always want more time. It is easy for people who are on the outside looking in to say to someone “you need to slow down.” That may or may not be true. Only you know what’s best for you. Even if you do decide to slow down your life, be sure to remember: Slow down does not mean stop.

Lost & Found

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I’ve thought about calling this year the Lost Year. In the now 10 months that I have been retired/out of school, I have felt completely lost. A huge chunk of my identity (student) is no longer there. I don’t know what to do with myself. On top of that, this is the first year that I am not running a major race or getting a medal. That has never happened before. I have run through pretty much everything. This year, I have been waylaid by my autoimmune disorder, my work schedule, and now the flu that has simply rendered the requisite 5-month training schedule an impossibility.

I’m seriously starting to wonder if NOT being a student is making me depressed. In what seems to be a bottomless pit of despair, there have been some pinpricks of hope this year. These are the three top aspects of “found.”

One of the major things on the list given to me by the doctors for how to manage my autoimmune disorder is to reduce my stress levels. It has now been over 6-months since I completely deleted my facebook account and canceled my home Internet service. Getting off of facebook is the #1 thing that I have done to decrease my stress levels. Words cannot express how much happier I am now that I am not online. To be honest, people talk to me a lot less, yet I do not feel lonely. When I was on facebook, a lot of people talked to me, but I always felt lonely. So now, I’m lucky if someone sends me a text message once a month, I am actually less lonely than I was before. Strange, but true.

Out of all the things I have done to decrease my stress levels, going offline has taken the most burden off my shoulders. I drink green tea and meditate, and I still want to slap someone. Going off facebook is better than yoga and jazz and all the new age relaxation techniques combined.

Second, when I had the flu last week, there was one day when I was trying to watch football, and just physically couldn’t. That’s when I said, you know what? I can’t do this, I don’t have to do this, and then I shut off the TV set and went to sleep. Having the flu last week was the first time in my life that I have been sick and was able to listen to my body 100%. If I had been in school, there was always something to read or something to write, and I would have fought through the flu because I had schoolwork to do. Last week, I did not have schoolwork, so I was able to say “no” to everything around me, and give my body what it needed to heal, which was pretty much sleep.

Third, I had less beach days in 2016 (in retirement) than I did in 2015 (in school). When I first realized this, I was dismayed. Why would I have less beach days when I have taken great pains to slow down my life and my schedule to have more time to do what I want? And that’s when I realized that life cannot be measured by beach days. When I was in school, I made a point of scheduling beach days so that I could relax. Scheduling a day to relax is about as much fun as making a schedule to have sex. It’s not. Fun. It’s more fun when it’s spontaneous. Looking back at summer 2016, I may have had less beach days, but here is what I had more of: baseball, live theatre, movies, time with family, time with friends, picnics, hiking, camping, sunsets, swimming, reading, and sleep. I did so many things this summer other than going to the beach.

Days before I was completely flattened by the flu, I had made plans to return to school. Yup. That’s right. I have talked about teaching, but I actually have that opportunity at work. I am enjoying the “teaching” I do at work so much, that I do not feel the need (at the moment) to teach in academia. I am truly blessed in that I have a job doing what I love.

But I’m a person who likes to finish what I start, and I was thinking I have some unfinished business. I would like a PhD, but my student loans are maxed. I know I cannot get financial aid, so the PhD is off the table. There is, however, the question of the physics degree I started and never finished. Three years into that, I switched to psychology, and stuck with that field. Plus, there is the fact that I actually looked through my high school yearbook this summer given that it was technically my 20-year class reunion. One of my future plans under the Senior Directory was to “get my PhD in Chemistry.” I’m thinking of going back and finishing a degree in either chemistry or physics. Of course, I would have to pay for classes out of pocket, but I could take one at a time.

I could, theoretically, complete my 5th degree by the time I turn 40.

That was the plan before the flu. Now post-flu, I am thinking “hell no.” Going back to school must have been part of my flu-induced delirium. There is no way I want to go back to school and be stuck in that schedule again. Especially now that my time is my own, I enjoy being homework free.

However, it is only October. The spring semester does not start until January. We will see what happens and what I think over the next three months. Apparently, I had a lot more wisdom at 17 than I do at 37. At 37, I feel like this past year has been lost and found. At 17, my quote in the yearbook came from Luke Skywalker: “I’m ready for anything.”

If I can hang onto that, maybe this year can turn around from lost to Found.

My Yoga Pants Went To Yoga

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Yoga pants are an essential part of a marathon runners’ wardrobe. Once you complete running 26.2 miles, yoga pants are pretty much the only things you can wear for the first 2-3 days while you recover from putting your body through the equivalent of natural childbirth. Your legs kind of flop around like a fish on land, and yoga pants are very forgiving with the first few days post-race.

I have two pairs of yoga pants. They have never been to yoga.

Until today.

I have been to yoga many times, but I do not usually wear yoga pants to yoga, I usually wear shorts. Since it is a little ridiculous to pay $45 per one-hour class to take yoga in the city in which I work, I decided to do a yoga class in the city in which I live. It was a much cheaper rate. Actually, I am on a free trial.

Thank goodness it was free. It was the first, last, and only time my yoga pants have ever been to yoga.

When I entered the facility, the instructor seemed exasperated that I came with only a mat – no blocks, no leash, none of the other yoga props – just a mat. Hey, at least I came with a yoga mat. I’m not new to the scene here, but I’m also not a hard-core yogi. I do what I can, and when I can’t, I just relax.

Her exasperation over my lack of accessories only served to strike fear into both my head and my heart. In my experience, yoga classes that require props translate into situations in which I am either going to get physically hurt or poses into which I either cannot get into, or once into, cannot get out of. Yoga classes with props give totally new meaning to the phrase, “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.” I typically do better with classes that do not require props, and when I can’t do the pose, I just lay there peacefully. This woman was like some sadistic combo of drill sergeant and dominatrix. I can’t tell you how frustrated she was at my lack of a leash.

For the record, the only leashes I want to deal with are those attached to my surfboard, or, if I had a dog, the one we use on walks. I digress.

I attend yoga mostly for relaxation, and also for some light stretching. I tore the patella tendon in my knee a few years ago, and every once in awhile, it gives me pain. I know better than to do anything overly pretzel-like. I have also had multiple head injuries, with at least 5 documented concussions, so I know I am a fall hazard if they are trying to get me to balance in some type of ballerina position. This class was obviously going to be much too rigorous for me.

I rolled up my mat and started to leave once I realized that this was not going to be the peaceful and relaxing yoga class I had envisioned. That seemed to only perplex the instructor further. She just could not understand why someone would need or want to leave her yoga class. To her credit, she did suggest that the senior citizen chair yoga class may be more my speed. I smiled and nodded politely. I have indeed taken the chair yoga class with the senior citizens years ago after my most recent head injury. I have actually successfully graduated from that class and done several gentle or slow flow yoga classes with no problem in the city in which I work. I didn’t tell her that, though. I’m just thankful for the free trial. At least I did not have to pay $45 to learn that lesson.

This year is the first year in well over 30 years that I am not in school. September has been a very hard month for me. I’m sad, I’m frustrated, and quite honestly, I have absolutely no idea what to do with myself.

My two biggest coping skills have always been running and school. I have always played the two off from one another. When school was not going well, I ran. When I had an injury that I had to rest from running, I focused more on school. Now that I am retired, I don’t have school anymore. All I have is running.

I love running, but I know that I will not be able to do it forever and I need to have a second coping skill for those times when I cannot run. I have been trying different activities. I am trying to get myself onto some sort of schedule. I like having more time to do things since I have slowed my life down, but now I don’t know what to do. I miss the structure that came with the semester and having to go to class and do schoolwork. I need to replace it somehow.

I am not sure how this is all going to shake out, but I do know that I am not going to be a yogi. I have some more activities I plan on trying to see if they fill the void I have in my life by not being in school. You never know what is going to work until you try.

For today, my yoga pants went to yoga. It was so overrated. I think they should be called marathon pants instead. I’ll have to write Victoria’s Secret to tell them I am renaming their pants. These yoga pants aren’t going to yoga again.

 

Out the Door

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I was walking out of the house to go for a run last week, when my neighbor stopped me and asked where I run? There is a well-maintained trail about 3 miles from my house. I drive to the trail head, and run there, safe from traffic and full of scenery.

My neighbor asked why I didn’t run our road? Well, I had never thought of it before. I live on a dead-end street directly off a major highway. I usually drive immediately from driveway to highway, because I know there is little on my road. I never thought to run my own street without driving someplace to run.

So, this past Friday, I did it. I laced up my running shoes and ran right out my front door. It was nice to not have to drive someplace to run.

The run itself left much to be desired. I was on a little 3 mile run, and I must have had to do at least 20 laps up and down my dead -end street to make the 3 miles. It was boring as hell. I would much rather drive the 3 miles to run the trail, where I can do a simple out and back that has diversity in scenery.

What I learned from this experience, is that in the 10+ years I have lived here, which is the longest I have lived anywhere, I never once thought to run my own street.

I was always too busy going out the door to pay any attention to what was quite literally in my own backyard.

I won’t be running my street again. I dare say that they treadmill is more exciting than running my street. The important learning part was to pay attention to what is around you. We don’t always have to go to the next town, out of state, or somewhere else to have fun. There are things to enjoy in our own backyards.

I have been hanging out closer to home lately, both due to lack of gas money, but also to spend more time with my sick family member. What I am learning this summer is that sometimes staying close to home is not so bad.

Yes, its fun to go to new places and have new experiences. Don’t forget about the beauty that immediately surrounds you as well.

I have spent the past 10 years going out the door to drive places without going out the door just to, well, go out the door and down the street. What are you missing by going out the door?

Strong Currents

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Today was the first day this season that we have not had an epic storm on my day off, so I was determined to take my wetsuit north to walk the board. It is only 45 degrees out today (in the middle of June!), so anyone who dares to surf in this has got to be pretty diehard.

However, emergency alerts came through saying that the Coast Guard has declared no boating, swimming, or other water recreation in this weather due to high winds, strong currents, and unpredictable undertow.

Now, pretty much any surfer will tell you that riding the waves coming in on a storm is pretty epic. However, I may be crazy, but I’m not stupid. If the Coast Guard says no water sports, then I’m not about to become another casualty of bizarre weather conditions.

So, I’m spending my day off at home, yet again, realizing that there are some pretty strong currents in life itself that manifest in other ways.

Strong currents are usually indicative of danger. Stay out of the water so you don’t drown or crash. Yet, there are some experiences that run strong currents in our lives, and instead of being threatening, actually serve to anchor us in times of need.

It could be a familiar routine from childhood that makes us feel safe. Notice patterns in ways we react in times of stress. What calms and soothes you? Have you gotten into the adult coloring craze? Do you reach for the remote for some mindless TV or head to the movies? Some of these activities may be strong undercurrents in our lives that help us to cope when life is hard and overwhelming.

For me, one of my strong currents is running. I am now in week 2 of my training for medal # 15. While it is challenging to get back in the groove of training, it brings some much needed consistency and structure to my life. Running is something on which I depend no matter how I am feeling in life – happy, sad, tired, excited. Running has been the backdrop to both some of my best and some of my worst moments in life.

I’ve said that every major decision I’ve made in life has been made while running. This is mostly true. I’ve had some creative and powerful ideas while running that have helped me to navigate many obstacles in my life.

While some currents in life are generally positive, like running, we are bound to have some strong currents that are not-so-positive as well. These are negative coping skills in which we engage and continue to cling to, even though we know they may be bad for us.

Be crazy, but not stupid. It’s better to go with the strong currents than to get dragged into the undertow. Be sure the coping skills you are using are going to actually get you through adversity from point A to point B without pulling you under and making you drown.

What strong currents are carrying you along? Is the current pushing you forward, or are you being dragged down by the undertow?

Radio requests, vegan ice cream, & rainy Sundays

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It’s as American as baseball and apple pie. When its wicked hot out, it’s such a treat to be able to go out to the local ice cream shop and order a cone from the window. The challenge is eating it before the gooey goodness melts its way down into your fingers leaving you sticky until you can find a sink or a wet-nap.

I have not been out for ice cream in a very long time. I have 4 food allergies, all of them adult onset. Having a dairy allergy officially makes the quintessential summer treat off-limits.

That is, until I heard about a small local stand that makes vegan diary-free ice cream from coconut milk by hand. I couldn’t believe my ears, so of course, I had to check it out.

I waited in line and made it to the counter, showing my warning label to the clerk stating my dairy & nut allergies, commenting (hopefully) that I heard they had vegan ice cream?

The creme brulee (above) was not only dairy free, but also amazing. I’m sure this small ice cream stand has never seen a happier customer. Being able to partake in this summer American treat completely made my month, and its only the first week of June.

Combine my ice cream treat with the fact that I called in a radio request to have my favorite band played on air for what seems like the first time since the 80s, and this is shaping up to be a spectacular summer weekend.

The only thing that could make it better would be baseball and surfing. The baseball game I was going to attend was rained out today, and I know better than to go surfing in a lightning storm.

This weekend is just a taste of the pleasures I now experience since making conscious efforts to slow my life down and prioritize what is truly important to me.

I’m hunkered down in thunderstorms with good tunes, good reading, and the people who matter most to me. Tomorrow, when the storms clear, I am looking forward to my first long run of the 2016 marathon training season.

If this is what life is like in retirement, then its looking pretty good.

Welcome, summer.

What are you looking forward to in the coming weeks?

Life Lesson #493: Do Not Wine & Adele

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Above: Recent art project in process. It will be much shinier and prettier after it is fired in the kiln. You can see some of my Deadpool skin courtesy of my autoimmune disorder.

They say that no man is worth crying over, and the one who is won’t make you cry. This is true for both men and women. While I have heard this adage many times, it has literally taken me years to develop a sense of self worth adequate enough to truly embrace it. When we are emotionally distraught, we tend to engage in negative coping skills in an attempt to deal with the pain. Part of growing up is developing and maintaining positive coping skills to be able to deal with life’s challenges so that we can become resilient and bounce back to full functioning in shorter periods of time.

When we are emotionally distraught, we are more susceptible to becoming overwhelmed by even the slightest thing. The smallest addition to the pile could be the tipping point at which distraught tumbles into full-blown despair or meltdown. About 5 years or so ago, I could very easily tell you what my most negative coping skill was for dealing with stress. It was then I learned to not wine and Adele.

We all have negative coping skills, from smoking to drinking, to binge-watching Bridget Jones’ Diary on repeat while inhaling tubs of Ben & Jerry’s to taking out our emotions on the people closest to us whether they deserve it or not. For me, it was wine & Adele. I could drink wine and listen to anything else from the Grateful Dead to The Doors to Florence & The Machine, but if I put on Adele, well, then, “rolling in the deep,” indeed.

Over the past few years, I have been successful in replacing some of my most negative coping skills with more positive ones. The fact that I have been able to minimize and simplify my life these past few years has greatly helped in this transition process of shedding negative habits for more positive ones.

Simplifying my life, slowing down my schedule, and reducing the amount of clutter around me has empowered me to more competently face and process my emotions better without being overwhelmed by anything around me. I have the time and space to process all my emotions, both positive and negative, without having anything in my environment be a tipping point to a negative place. I have been able to develop positive coping skills for processing negative emotions so that I can more quickly and successfully come through the other end.

March was a particularly challenging month for some reason I have not been able to identify. In March, I used my positive coping skills a lot. I did quite a bit of painting, I have been more active in community events, and have had more meaningful conversations with those whom I interact.

I did not wine, but I did Adele. With my autoimmune disorder, my wine consumption has gone from about 4-5 bottles per year to maybe 4-6 glasses per year, so wine is no longer a coping skill. I did, however, pop in the new Adele CD and have a nice, tear-free soak in the bathtub.

Sometimes when we are distraught, identifying our positive coping skills can by extremely difficult, even if it seems that they should be evident. For those moments when life is overwhelming, I have made a list of positive coping skills that I can look at to remind myself that there are ways other than smoking (I quit like 9 years ago), wine & Adele, or endless tears to be able to cope with stress and pain.

Some of my positive coping skills include:

  • Running
  • Painting
  • Baseball
  • Hockey
  • Reading
  • Writing
  • Church

It is especially important to try to identify coping skills that are not dependent on other people, in case those people are not available, or maybe we just don’t have people in our lives on whom we can rely. Unfortunately, that is the situation in which I live. There is not a single person in my life that I could pick up the phone and call when I am having a hard time. I have tried it before and the usual response is “I’m busy.” I don’t even bother reaching out for human contact anymore. People know where I am. If they want to talk to me, they can reach out to me.

One of the reasons why learning to not wine & Adele is so significant is that wine & Adele was trapping me in a cycle of negativity. I was not processing my emotions and moving on from them; I was dwelling in them. Pickling myself in negative feelings is not what I have in mind for my life. In the process of slowing down, I now have the luxury of being able to unpack and address each emotion and move on from the situation that much stronger for having addressed the initial cause of despair.

Diversifying our coping skills is important in case our “go-to” is unavailable. For example, when I was injured last fall after my marathon, I had to rely on my other coping skills to deal with my running injury, because it was definitely not something I could just “run through.” If I ran with that injury, I would have done permanent damage that would have inhibited my running for the foreseeable future.

Do you have your own version of wine & Adele? What positive coping skills can you use to replace the negative ones? How can we be kind to ourselves and best allow ourselves the time and space to process our emotions in healthy ways? When we slow down our lives, we then have the opportunity to deal with our emotions instead of just dwelling in them. We are here to live, not to dwell.

 

Pre-Gaming the 2016 Running Season

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Here in the northeast, running season 2016 officially opens in April. The Boston Marathon is the kickoff of the year, as crowds line the streets to cheer and to celebrate the sacrifice and diligence that went into training for such a rigorous course over the hard winter months. Registration for fall races typically opens in April, and runners eagerly plan their training schedules and hope to get that BQ or PR. As I look forward to the opening day of running season with glee, here are the areas that are receiving my attention in the off-season.

Music

One of the small pleasures that I allow myself each season is that I add 5 new songs to my runningpod at the start of the year. I am not big on digital music, as I prefer to have a tangible album that I can admire as a work of art, but I do have a small screenless iPod that has replaced my cassette walkman for running. Adding five new songs each season is one of my small guilty pleasures that helps with the motivation factor in the dull, grey days of winter.

My most significant addition to my thoughtfully curated running list this year is the fact that, after 14 medals, I have a new running theme song  that is now in regular rotation on my runningpod. This song actually came from a CD that I already own, so while I will be adding 5 new songs this season, not all of those songs need to be purchased. Having new music on my runningpod helps me to drag myself to the gym to be tortured by the freakmill (my term of endearment for treadmill) when there is too much ice and snow to run the trails. New music also helps me to push through hard workouts, as I incorporate cross-training and push my body in ways other than endurance during the off-season.

Nutrition

Pre-gaming the 2016 running season is also the time to evaluate nutrition to ascertain that I am receiving the proper fuel to be able to sustain a grueling training program and race season. Fueling both before and after workouts is important, as is what you eat on rest days. We cannot expect to be top producing athletic machines if we put crap into our bodies and do not fuel with good nutrition choices to be top performing athletes. In addition to Gatorade and gels, it is about the choices we make for each meal and snack that aid in muscle recovery and ensure that we are ready and pumped to perform when needed.

This year, I am making changes to my post-run snack list. Juggling multiple food allergies the past few years has been particularly challenging, and it has taken me quite a while to get to the point where I can handle them in stride. I have snacks planned for the 2016 running season that will not only give me the proper carb/protein balance needed for optimal muscle recovery, but hopefully also provide enough variety so that I do not get bored with what I am eating.

When I first started running, I did not have food allergies. All of my food allergies have been adult on-set, so making changes to this area of my life has taken a back burner to the crisis of trying to figure out what to eat on a daily basis. Now that I have had some time and experience with managing my food allergies, I feel I am able to make better choices in my food selections to be sure that not only am I eating food that will not kill me, but I can make choices to ensure that I am properly fueled to be a top performing athlete.

This season, I plan on adding more variety to my diet. I often feel that my food choices are limited given my multiple food allergies. However, now that I am retired, I have discovered that there are so many foods to which I am not allergic with which I can experiment and find creative ways to prepare. My goal is to try at least one new recipe per month to be able to give me a wider variety of foods to eat to be sure I am receiving proper nutrition. I have also recognized that I tend to stick with the same fruits and vegetables routinely. I am hoping to be able to expand the variety of fruits and vegetables that I eat this year and to truly incorporate the entire rainbow of produce.

Cross-Training

Perhaps my most favorite form of cross-training is boxing and martial arts. However, after multiple head injuries combined with a lack of funds for ring fees, I now have to seek alternate options for cross-training. Add to this the fact that I have some specific areas of my body that are in need of strengthening to prevent the type of injury that seriously sidelined me in the 2015 running season.

This year, I am focusing more on strength training and plyometrics. Plyometrics should address the specific body areas that contributed to last year’s injury. Strength training is crucial for all runners. As I get older, I am discovering more and more how beneficial strength training is for my life. Most weight equipment was designed to accommodate a 150-pound male. Given that I am an approximate 100-pound female, I intend on focusing on free weights instead of machines for my strength training. Not only can I do this at home, but also it saves me from trying to fit into weight machines that were not designed for someone of my size.

Balance and flexibility are usually lacking in runners and often contribute to injury. In addition to all the surfing I plan to do this summer, which helps with balance, I am also incorporating some yoga and pilates into my routine to help with balance and flexibility. The goal for the 2016 running season is to run well and to remain injury-free. Now that I have more free time than ever before, I am hoping to incorporate more play into my day and to be active in different, fun ways that use a variety of muscle groups.

Clothing/Run Wear

On one of my recent minimalist sprees, I was quite surprised to find that I had three storage bins full of running wear and running related paraphernalia. I literally had at least one, if not multiple, shirts from pretty much every race I have ran. Some of them were t-shirts and some of them were technical, wicking shirts. I decided that my medals are much more a reflection of my accomplishments and meaningful to me than any t-shirt could ever be.

I went through all three bins and got rid of all but my most favorite shirts. I also went through all of my running gear currently in use and realized how ratty some of my technicals have become after being constantly drenched in sweat, even after having been washed in sports wash and air dried. I took this purging as the opportunity to replace the well-worn technicals with some of my race technicals that have pretty much just been hanging out in a storage bin. What is the point of having a bunch of race technicals if I am not going to wear them?

Now, every time I go for a training run, I can celebrate my accomplishments by wearing one of my race technicals. Plus, it serves as a reminder of the reward that is waiting at the end of a long and hard training season. It makes me feel like I have an entirely new running wardrobe when all I did was to start using what I already had in storage. What is the point of storing something unless you are going to use it? Now my goal is to put all new race technicals immediately into rotation and to remove any items that are smelly or ratty. No matter if you always use sport wash and air dry your running clothes, there comes a point when they are just smelly and nothing will remove the stench of sweat from well-used workout clothes.

I no longer have three storage bins of run wear. All of my running clothes are currently out and in current rotation. While I have updated other aspects of my running gear, like rotating shoes every 300-500 miles, I had neglected to update running shorts and running shirts. I am pretty sure that some of that old smelly ratty run wear that went to the rag pile are from almost 10 years ago when I first started running. It was definitely time to start using what I already have available.

Conclusion

Now that I have been retired for a few months and have taken the opportunity to relish in my newfound free time, I realize that the beauty of rewinding real slow is that I now have the time to focus on the things that are most important to me. I have time in my life to be able to focus on running and cross-training so that I can get through a running season uninjured. I have both the time and the energy to put into making 2016 the best running season yet. I’m looking forward to it.

 

For Better or For Worse

/ rachelgoes262 / Leave a comment

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Many people today seem to stick around for the better and disappear at the worst. They say to truly find out who your friends are: screw up and see who is still there for you. Then, there are the people who are there for you when you are down but leave when you are up because they enjoy wallowing in misery and simply cannot stand to see other people happy.

While earlier generations seemed to embrace the for-better-or-for-worse notion more whole-heartedly than our own, it is an important concept to apply to all areas of life, from relationships to hobbies to passion.

After spending almost four months on the waiting list for the oh-so-popular Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, it has finally been my turn to have the novel out of the library. I have spent those past four months reading reviews and blogs of people not only mentioning the book but also downright gushing over it.

I finally read the book, and while it is certainly not my favorite, I stuck through the entire novel, for better or for worse, and read the entire thing. There were times in the beginning of the book where I almost put it down and stopped reading because it was not interesting to me, but I thought that there has to be some reason why this novel is now so wildly popular, and I was determined to find out why.

So I stuck through the worst part of the book, and it finally did get better. About the last 100 pages of the novel were okay. Perhaps the idea that stuck with me the most, simply because it so clearly articulated an idea that I have been struggling to find words to describe over the past 20 years has been the idea of the Shit Sandwich.

That’s right, Shit Sandwich.

According to Gilbert, the essence of shit sandwich in a nut shell can be boiled down to how much suffering you are able to endure in order to achieve what you love. Of course, this is an extreme simplification of the concept, and if you would like to have a more elegant explanation, then you simply have to read the book. The pages explaining shit sandwich were probably the most profound part of the novel for me, and I could personally leave much of the rest. Basically, the concept of for-better-or-for-worse applied to all areas of your life, not just a marriage ceremony or some other type of elaborate rite of passage.

I had a brief moment of weakness a few weeks ago when the reality of being retired from spending 20 years as a professional college student finally set in and I completely panicked. It was something like a baby who did not want to be born but wanted to return to the womb. I sat there pleading and plotting about how to return to school, and what type of degree I wanted next. I sat there and thought that before completing my psychology degree, I had started a physics degree. I spent three years as a physics major before deciding, after taking calculus 1,2,3,4 and differential equations, that I had had enough of math and did not want the physics degree anymore.

I was not prepared to eat the shit sandwich that accompanied pursuit of a physics degree. I was in physics for the better portion. I love astronomy and motion and dynamics, and particle physics. However, I was not able to deal with the for worse portion of having another four advanced math classes to take after the five I had just completely suffered through.

I then decided that I could not go back to school to finish the physics degree. Not only am I not committed to eating the shit sandwich, but I also already have four degrees, and while I would not trade any of the degrees or any moment I spent working on obtaining them for the world, I do not, in fact, wish to relive that portion of my life. That is simply not my flavor of sandwich.

But now that I personally grasped the notion of for-better-for-worse and read about shit sandwiches, I started to apply that idea to other areas of my life. For example, I am not a morning person. Pretty much everyone who knows me in real life knows better than to wake me up in the morning. I am a night owl and always have been. I have spent over a decade on either second or third shift; the few brief years I did have a day job was hell on earth for me. I am just not a day person.

However, I have absolutely no problem getting up at 4:30 am and spending hours preparing for and running a marathon. When it comes to running, the shit sandwich that is getting up at 4:30 am is something that I am not only willing to eat gleefully, but also has me coming back for more. There is no other aspect in my life in which I am willing to eat the shit sandwich of 4:30 am, but for running, I am.

You see, running and I have this special relationship. I will wake up at 4:30 am. I will run in the rain, the snow, the cold, and the heat. I will run when it’s hard. I will run when it’s easy. I am in love with running, and over the years, I have definitely been able to take the good with the bad.

Once I found degree programs that were the right fit for me, I did the same with school. I spent years only sleeping from 2am-6am to ensure that I was able to complete all my schoolwork in addition to piecing together multiple jobs to make ends meet. I sacrificed many relationships and much leisure time in my pursuit of education. I swallowed that shit sandwich hook, line, and sinker for 20 years.

The significance of reading Gilbert’s Big Magic for me was the realization that now I am in retirement, I have the option of choosing what flavor of shit sandwich I want to eat next. I have been trying to figure out what to do with the ridiculous amount of time I now have on my hands since I am no longer working 70 hours a week and trying to be a full-time grad student.

I have been trying to decide what type of activities I want in my life. Do I want to join a club? Do I want to volunteer my time? With each option I have considered, I have begun to think of what flavor shit sandwich I want to eat. Now that my time is my own, I am less likely to eat shit sandwiches than I have before. Call it growing up, call it privilege, but I have found myself deeply protective of my newfound time.

What new activity do I want to try for better or for worse? Where am I willing to put my time? I have no problem with failure. It is possible I will decide on a volunteer opportunity and then discover that I am not prepared for that shit sandwich. That is fine. I will find another activity. However, I am trying to make an informed decision on how to not only enrich my own life but also enrich those around me.

Now that my time is my own, how do I want to fill those hours? What fills me with so much passion that it will endure for-better-or-for-worse? As we slow down our lives, this is the type of first-world problem we create. How best to spend our leisure time to ensure that our time is exactly that – leisure. It’s a wonderful problem to have.

When we identify that which we are able to live with for-better-or-for worse, not only do we make ourselves happy, but also we increase the love that is in the world. Relationships, activities, places, employment are all areas of life in which we can apply the for-better-or-for-worse principal. When we identify the areas that we are able to make that commitment, not only does it make the shit sandwich palatable, it also makes it almost delicious.

The people, activities, and relationships that stay in our lives for-better-or-for-worse are those that will likely last a lifetime. I don’t know about you, but that is the type of Big Magic I want to have in my life.

 

 

 

 

Back in the Saddle

/ rachelgoes262 / Leave a comment

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Look who is off the injury list with a 2-mile trail run! It was a balmy 39 degrees as I laced up my second pair of Mizuno Wave Rider limited edition model 15s today. I was very fortunate that in my first run back after my last marathon in which I tore muscles in my right hip that I was able to run comfortably without pain today.

I was very fortunate in this injury in that I received stellar medical care and was able to have the luxury of listening to my body completely in regards to what it needed to heal. My massage therapist introduced me to Thai massage to help with this injury, and I highly recommend Thai massage not only for injuries but also for routine maintenance. While I have traditionally received Swedish massage, now that I have experienced Thai, I do not want anything else. Apparently, if you go to the hospital with an illness or injury in Thailand, hospitals provide this type of massage as medical care. After having 4 sessions to aid in the recovery of a torn muscle, I completely understand why this is medical care.

Now that I am off the injury list, I am officially in the off-season. Off-season is the time for cross training and for building strength for the upcoming 2016 running season. I have spent my time on the injury list fully evaluating my injury from all angles, and have determined the best ways to prepare for the next running season. I have figured out which muscle groups need to be worked and how in order to avoid a repeat of the injury I received this year.

Runners are not made on race day. Runners are made in the days and months of training preceding the race. While I am not currently actively training for the 2016 running season, I am working on cross training and strength that will provide the base I need in order to train in 2016. While I am running this winter, my mileage does not often go more than 5 or 6 miles in the off-season. My running is supplemented with swimming, strength training, plyometrics, and various stretching, lengthening and flexibility routines.

While I was ecstatic to be back running in my Mizunos today, I know I have a long road ahead to be sure that I can build a better base for 2016 that will be impervious to the injury that plagued me in 2015. The off-season is not the time to be soft. The off-season is the time to work all muscle groups that do not always get worked once the high mileage of full marathon training kicks into gear. I anticipate that I will not need to start training for my 2016 race until about June or so. I have about 6 months to work my muscles to make sure they are injury-proof for the next race.

The best part of the off-season is the flexibility and creativity that is involved in this portion of the training process. Think of Rocky in Philly chasing chickens or pounding cattle ribs. This is the time of year when training does not have to be orthodox, as long as muscle groups are being worked and prepped to be able to handle the intensity of marathon training that is yet to come.

So, I am back in the saddle again. It may only be 2 miles, but I have a lot of work ahead of me. While I am technically off the injury list, the injury is never far from my mind, as I now must work to be sure that it does not happen again. It’s good to be back.