Today was a "rest" day. After pushing myself for more distance it's important to recover by giving the muscles some time off. When a muscle is worked out, the tissue literally is broken down and as it rebuilds it comes back stronger. (well now that'll preach!). But after 40, it takes longer to rebuild so being purposeful with rest days is vital. If training non stop, the muscle has no time to rebuild and it goes back into "punishment" already weak and vulnerable and at greater risk for injury. Basically I'd be shooting myself in the foot or shin or ankle if I didn't take a break.

Again, all the above strikes me as allegorical. We all need rest and recovery when we are under stresses that break and wear us down. If we don't, we go back in the "game" vulnerable to total breakdown. So make time to recover and rebuild. Wow- that's a good life principal.

Anyhow, I will be hitting the trail early tomorrow. I don't feel it now, I'm sore and stiff. I'll do some stretching to get myself ready. It's really a miracle that I am keeping a morning run, not being very morning friendly by nature. But there is something in running in the mornings that make it easier.

Here's an article that gives all the pluses to morning running. Enjoy!

http://mobile.active.com/mt/www.active.com/triathlon/Articles/Mornings-Workouts-Made-Easier.htm?cmp=306&memberid=107401682&lyrisid=21733506

The Reason to RUN.

In my last post I talked about the motivating force behind taking up a running adventure and goal,  to do something that even you yourself question if it is possible.  Basically getting in touch with a basic motivator and your reason for running.  I shared my own experience that literally drove me to run a race and how most motivators are deeply personal.  They are so deeply personal and usually come from a very deep place.


Interestingly enough tonight, as I was browsing through several random running blogs, I kept coming across a book called, "Running On Empty."  With further investigation I learned it is written by an 57 year old extreme runner who focuses on adventure running.  When I say extreme, I mean logging in thousands of miles, tops of summits and having his toenails removed as not to have to deal with toe problems. (I guess real runners who run real long distances have this problem....talk about a medical pedicure!)   Regardless of the fact he is on the extreme spectrum of where I EVER want to be in running, I found this great quote he wrote in his book regarding his deeply personal reason for running.  After having a really hard life as a teen farm hand, losing a wife to cancer, Marshall Ulrich said this about his motivation....


"As for me, sure, there's an underlying compulsion: survivor's guilt and a need to punish myself, to prove myself, to face down my own mortality, to defy death. But my running is also a reflection of my upbringing, a work ethic, a personal challenge. My love of history gets interwoven, too - the feats of other people in other times - coupled with the alluring possibility that I might be able to go farther, faster, today."


Inspiring.  I get it.  


Now back to the medical pedicure...


I didn't get to do any run training today due to a pedicure mishap.  I nicked the side of my foot by my little toe with a foot shaver; a small wound but it was just too raw for a running shoe to keep rubbing against.  I was however, a good little cross trainer and worked on my core and arms.   


Cross training should be done whenever you don't/can't run.  The benefits of strengthen your other muscles comes in handy as a strong core is essential to good form and literally "holding it together" during a run.   So today was not a total loss.  

I am prepared however to wake up and hit the trail.  One way to make sure I am ready for an early run is to have everything prepared and easy to do in the morning.  I have my water bottles with my vitamin pack ready to grab, my running back stocked and I even wear my running clothes to bed!   Hey, after 45 years, I know myself and how my brain works.  I'm ready for any excuse I may come up with!

It's not impossible!

At the bottom of the mountain looking up at the top, there is always the prevailing thought, "is this possible for me?"   And when someone has made the decision to take on a physical fitness goal such as running, running with a goal, this is the thought that looms.

When the decision is first arrived at, there is such exhilaration and high expectation, but when one stops dreaming about it and stands with their running shoes on looking at the endless road before them, the question of reality becomes apparent.   "Is this possible for me" ran through my mind more than once when I registered for my first triathlon. (I love that most athletes say "my first", like we are so confident there will be another!)

I took the leap of faith entering the sprint triathlon the day after I heard my sister's story about her experience with her "first".  As she animatedly took the family standing in her kitchen through a detailed play by play, something was burning in my stomach, and it wasn't fear. It was the certainty that if she could do it I could do it!  My sister had entered her race with the prodding of a friend with the same confidence that I had, but admittedly she confessed she had skimped on her training and hoped for the best on race day.  This of course made for a delightfully hilarious story of using a "noodle" and a "swim angel" to get through the swim, staying in first gear on a bike she hadn't ridden until that day and running with calves like the rock of Gibraltar.  This is probably why I was brimming with self-confidence as I said I would be doing the next Tri-Sprint race.

My confidence and zeal were two-fold.  First, I knew that I had gotten a regular workout down at my gym, and was able to run a solid mile on the treadmill, and as foolish as that logic was to use for a race that required a 1/2 mile swim, 12 mile bike and a 3 mile run, I was justifying the fact that at least that was a little more training than my sister had done.  I wasn't even putting a care into the six year age difference as her senior; it was caution to the wind, zeal trumps common sense every time!

Secondly, I had an epiphany that this race would be my way of proving something that was deeply personal.  I think that most runners in races carry this motivation to the finish line, something deeply personal about their reason for running.  It carries them through every day of their training;  the mornings they could be in bed, the "wasted" time icing and recovering, the denial of junk food, the registration fee and arrangements, aches & pains and the gusto they have to dig from deep down in their spirits to push themselves past their limitations just to prove something deeply personal.  For me, I HAD to run this Tri.  It was bigger than me, it was harder than anything I'd ever done and it required a strength and resolve that said one thing, "you can't keep me down, I'm alive and I will keep going!"

That day in my sister's kitchen I thought the year before had been the most emotionally difficult  of my life.   I had a lot of stresses that had put so much pressure on me mentally and emotionally that it had taken it's toll on me physically.  I had spent 9 months battling panic attacks in the middle of the night that mimicked heart attacks begging my husband to call 911 convinced I was going to be dead by morning.  Heart palpitations during the day led me to my physician who referred me to a cardiologist and at the same time sent me to Moffitt Cancer Center with a diagnosis of Thyroid Cancer.  This diagnosis from my physician almost through me over the edge until my Endocrinologist nonchalantly informed me it was "just a hot nodule" and a treatment of radiation should kill it.

Finally, quarantined to a room of isolation in my own home for five days with no physical contact with anyone, I got mad! I was mad at every circumstance that I had allowed affect me, and all the stress that I had allowed to find a place to attach itself not only in my mind and heart but my physical body.  I was convinced that the growth on my Thyroid had been constructed over the last year by every stressor in my life and I was determined to not only eradicate it, but to reprogram myself to refuse stress.

I began to systematically clean my mind and my body through times of meditation and prayer, releasing resentments and anger.  I began running on the treadmill and kick-up my workouts and implement better nutrition and supplements.   I was determined to become strong mentally, emotionally and physically and to "comeback" with resilience!  The TRI fit in like the crowning glory of that goal!

This personal determination and motivation were what got me into a swimming pool, not to get a tan which had up to that point been my ONLY reason to be AROUND a pool much less in it.  I donned a swim cap and goggles and for the first time in my life attempted an official swim style.  When I lost steam in the middle of the pool and an elderly woman passed me by on her swim noodle, I thought to myself....yes, you guess it, "is this possible for me?"

This determination also got me running on a wooded path at a park OUTSIDE in the elements where the Florida heat and humidity rushed over me like a hot shower, and when I barely made it to the one mile marker - which on a treadmill seemed so much easier in the A/C - I thought to myself - "good Lord, the three mile run is AFTER the swim and the bike, is this possible for me?"

That same determination on the day of the TRI got me IN to the murky waters of the Disney World Lagoon, ( I had NEVER trained in open water much less the disgusting waters of a Florida lake), and as I was over run by the 8 waves of 100 women swimming like dolphins all around me.   I kept going not just because at that point there are NO other options, which there weren't, but because my resolve to prove "IT'S NOT IMPOSSIBLE" somehow just as magically as Tinker Bell's Pixie Dust, got me to the beach a little disoriented but to the beach nonetheless!

And that determination gave me the strength to at long last to finish the last leg of the three mile run and see my family and my sister at the finish line!

So, the question is:  what is getting you running?   What will keep you running when you are asking the question, "Is this possible for me?"   You are going to need that reason more than one time on your running journey.   The cool thing is it will be there in your smile in the picture!

Me and My Sister Karen.....