Keep running, it gets better!

I did four miles today and fought for every bit of it.  Last week I pushed myself really hard,  I had a couple days I thought I would just collapse from exhaustion.  Sometimes it is hard to find the balance of pushing yourself in training, putting a demand on your energy and endurance when you still have to function physically in your "real life".

What do you do when you've pushed yourself to run four miles and add on an extra mile to walk and cool down and then go home to remember your have people coming over and your house needs a total vacuum and tiled flooring needs mopped??   You do it and feel it for several days to come!   Life and training sometime overlap.

So with all that in my last week I decided to add a two day rest period with no cross training and pure nothingness to the point of laziness.   Sometimes I view resting just as hard as running.   I get so determined and so set on pushing myself I feel like the rest day is a waste and I'm losing opportunity to get to a new level.  I have to remind myself that when my body demands rest, I have to give it.  I have to tell myself that I am actually building and advancing while I'm resting.

"they that wait on the Lord will renew their strength...they shall mount up with wings as eagles...they shall run and not be weary....they shall walk and not faint..."

So here I was today back out there and wondering how my body was going to respond to it's vacation.  I had felt good when I woke up this morning and thought several times that was a great sign that perhaps my muscles were restored and better than ever.  I got my app all set to track my time, distance and pace and started with a short 5 minute walk.   At the end of 5 minutes I heard the app generated voice in my earbuds say "JOG" and I obeyed.  About 30 seconds in I was surprised at my body's response.  It yelled quite clearly, "you'll be lucky to make one mile, wah wah wah".   

For one mile I pushed myself.   My left knee was stiff, my right knee was clicking, the back of my calves were already tightening and even my left shoulder was aching.  I felt old and I felt pathetic when the 60+ year old man who started after me passed me at the one mile marker like I was standing still.  At that point my competitive nature gave my flesh a stern scolding.  I told my whining body we were going to two miles whether it was running, walking, crawling or summer-saucing to the mile marker.  (The latter two are probably the more painful if you think about it!) 

My mental focus was also very scattered.  I had been filling my mind with articles about Aspartame and Splenda toxins the last few days, identifying some of my thyroid symptoms that are linked to the overload of these products in my system.  With every weak whine from my body I was calculating the level of toxicity I probably have that was causing my low performance.  I had to shake that off and focus.   

Then something magical happened.  As I rounded the corner ending mile two marker starting mile three, the fact I had indeed survived two miles overshadowed all the cries of my whining body.  In fact, my body shut up - not down - but up.  The truth is the last two miles were easier than the first two.   My theory is that my body in the first mile is "cold" and not warmed up so it whines.  That's important to identify because if I listen to the whining and quit then I don't get to the good part of running and I stay discouraged.  A lot of people never really run or enjoy running because they never get to the "magical moment" where it's fun.

 By the time I get to mile three, I have corrected my posture and my footing so my calves, shins and knees aren't under pressure of the run.  My heart rate, breathing and cadence of my arms and gate are all in sych together.  My lungs have full capacity and have expanded to give me good oxygen to my whole body making all my limbs happy campers.  My mental state is soaring because of my oxygen supply. At that point I can choose to put my focus where I want, which for me in in my core and small arm movement and my gaze about 3 feet in front of me causing the time and distance to be less distracting.  Before I knew it I was finishing my four mile run and rehydrating in a cool down walk and stretch and really excited that I survived the process and learned from it.

Running requires endurance.  Running requires a joy that's before you that causes you to endure the aches, pains, sluggishness and discouragement of the moment just to get to that place that you know if going to be better and worth it.

The Word of God that Jesus endured the cross for the joy set before him.  I love Israel Houghton's song, "You've Won My Affection".   It says, "you went the distance and you finished strong, we were your passion, so you gave your all."  He knew it was gonna get better.  He knew after death was resurrection.

Running is a great application of those truths.  I find running a very very spiritually motivating process with many lessons that mimic our spiritual journey.  

1 Cor. 9:24 Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win.

Hebrews 12:1  Since we are surrounded by so many examples [of faith], we must get rid of everything that slows us down, especially sin that distracts us. We must run the race that lies ahead of us and never give up.

You can take a run anywhere!

You can take running anywhere.  If you look around - outside is everywhere!   If you can't find a treadmill, you can find some grass or asphalt to tread on!

Visiting my family for Easter weekend I decided to run my old neighborhood.  I was quite aware of the potential nostalgia of this run.  My parents have lived in the same home for almost 50 years, thus this is the home I was raised in all my life until I got married.

I decided to run the "back-way" out of the subdivision towards the "new" Seven Eleven. (This is what we called this particular Seven Eleven because on the front end of the subdivision is the "old" Seven Eleven.  Both are over 30 years old now!) It is a one mile trek to the "new" Seven Eleven and when I was a child I had to have favored permission to go there on my bike and usually it was an exhilarating trip if I was allowed to go.  I always felt like it was dangerous venturing "out of" the subdivision by myself.  I got to say I felt empowered to be just running there as an adult.  It's crazy, the paradoxes of childhood/adulthood re-do's.

Running that day was no problem as my mind was occupied with recognition memories.  First was the Prinkey's house where I had Brownie Troop.  I hated Brownies.  I knew no one in my troop and there were thirteen girls and everyone had their best friend so I was always odd-man out.   That troop was the nesting ground of all my insecurities I would fight for many decades to come!  Then Marla's house, my only church friend in the neighborhood and I spent the night many times in that house.  I once was riding a miniature motorcycle and ran it into the side of her dad's car because I didn't know how to shift or break and that was the only way I could stop!  He had to pry it out from under his tire wheel.- good times!

The next to the last house before the Seven Eleven was a girl's house that I knew in Middle School.  The only personal contact I had with her was in band class when she showed me her rolled up pot and offered to give me one free to try.  Just looking at them made me feel guilty and I thought in my head there was no way I would even just try it with my magnetism to getting caught in the least of infractions.  Immediately I referenced getting nailed for shooting a lima bean with my spork in fourth grade lunch and sentenced to silent lunches for a week.   Fourth grade taught me there was NO WAY I would risk trying it!

I ran to the Seven Eleven making my loop back toward home feeling energized and toyed with the thought of continuing toward my Elementary School but reconsidered to save it for another time thinking that run alone would make an awesome separate blog!   I had another goal - go by my best friend's Nancy's house which would be at the end of mile two.  I hadn't been by her house in over 20 years and I was trying to recall the cut through street all the way there.  I found the street and spent the mile thinking about my time with Nancy.

Nancy had the same birthday as I did and we had a couple combined parties at her house.  Her house at the time had the largest residential pool in Orlando and it was featured in the Orlando Sentinel.  Her family was orginally from New York and were the wealthiest people I knew personally.  They had a huge Lincoln Continental that always had Frank Sinatra playing.  I rarely saw her dad but her mom was fascinating to me.  She was the only woman who proudly flaunted her nose job and I recalled her wearing her bandage for weeks after her surgery.  I spent the night A LOT at Nancy's house and we shared a love for singing, music and Barry Manilow.

When I reached Nancy's house I saw it was vacant and for sale.  The large front window was open for viewing in and I took a long look through the living room (where her brother eventually killed himself and the family moved shortly after), peering into the kitchen with a glimpse of the pool porch where we spent so many summer days.  I thought I could hear Barry Manilow singing "Even Now".  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX4xIgb_oMw&feature=fvst

I set off for my home street into my third mile and as I passed my house decided to push a powerful sprint all the way to "Gail-Gail's" house for old time's sake.  I thought briefly about taking off my shoes and socks and smacking my feet on the asphalt all the way there but didn't want to break my focus!

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.....

The Starting Point.

This is my first blog about running.  It still seems odd to me to be the one who is writing about literal running yet in other ways it is not.  Though I spent most of my adolescent and adulthood almost entirely complacent and inactive physically yielding myself to a more indoor artsy way of life, my childhood actually consisted of a lot of running.  In fact, I preferred running to walking even if it was to the mailbox, down the hallway in the house to my room or up the street to my best friend "Gail-Gail's" house to play for the entire day.  It was a joke in "Gail-Gail's" family that you could hear me coming down the street as my bare feet slapped the pavement all the way.   (Back in the day, we never wore shoes in the neighborhood especially during the carefree days of summer in Florida.)  Needless to say, the bottoms of my feet were constantly a grey-blackened color.

So as I look back I remember myself as a very energetic, active and running child.  In fact, I racked up a good share of blue and red ribbons from my elementary school field days.  I was a flash at the 50 and 100 yard dashes.  Ran and jumped like a gazelle over the hurdles and passed a mean baton in the relay race.  All that changed as I hit adolescence and I developed a repulsion for sweating in the Florida humidity.  Playing the piano, drawing, reading and of course sitting in front of the TV for hours like a lot of kids in my generation, began to consume my time.  Then it was boys, youth group and without delay I was a young adult who never worried too much about my health, weight or longevity.  Soon I was married with kids, a busy life of ministry and my frustration with wanting a perfect physique wasn't enough to motivate me to do more than one aerobics video for a few days and merely resigning myself to dusting off the collection of treadmills, health-riders and ab-machines I had once intended to use in the convenience of my home.  Fortunately, a few skipped meals, a rash of sit-ups and good thoughts was enough to slim me back into my jeans in emergencies.

But then I turned 40.

I remember the day of reckoning with my need to become physically fit and how it happened.  My husband and I were on a cruise and the ship photographers were ruthless.   They took pictures at every juncture of our journey.  To add insult to this traumatic injury they displayed all pictures in the main hall.  I can't tell you how many times I took our pile of pictures and hid them under a cute family from Maine, nevertheless the next day all our pictures would be out in the open again for ship viewing.  It became an insufferable experience, because with the very first picture on display I almost didn't recognize myself.  Granted this was a last minute cruise and I hadn't had very much time to prepare myself.  There had been no crash diets or even a fake tan and those pictures told the story of who I had been becoming all through my thirties while I wasn't looking or paying attention.  I didn't know that while I was busy being a wife, mother and pastor that I was losing half my muscle mass and my metabolism had slowed to a snails pace all resulting in a spreading and sagging that freaked me out.  On that five day cruise my terror turned into a steal resolve to....drum roll please....work out!

I came home, joined an all women's gym and bought my first pair of tennis shoes since elementary school, granted they were black and silver and as close to glamorous as I could get.  I went three times a week to an hour long spin class and did a few machines.  I saw pretty good results physically, not dramatic, but I was MOVING!  The incredible thing about just getting MOVING is the empowerment it releases not just physically but mentally.  When you have been immobile for a long time it not only stagnates your body, it stagnates your mind and spirit and what is worse is the fact that you don't realize it until you break free of it through MOVING!  Maybe that is why children are so carefree, because they move with freedom!

And so this is where this blog begins, with the simple point of MOVING!  What is important in the beginning is not where you are going to end up, but where you start and that you start!  I may not have paid attention in the beginning to the consuming and burning off calorie ratio, my fuel intake of nutrition nor did I understand the technique of sculpting my shape or training for an endurance goal.  I had no idea   sitting on the spin bike that I would eventually ride a real one for 12 miles in my first triathlon.  I also had no idea as I was huffing on the elliptical machine,  barely able to do 5 minutes straight, that I would be huffing and puffing at the end of a 4 mile run in training for a half marathon.   I was just MOVING and loving the feeling that it left me when I was done each workout.

For some people "running" is a lofty goal and just "moving" by a short walk is an exhilaration and that is AWESOME!  Every run starts with a walk and every walk starts with MOVING from a sitting position.

So get up, and get MOVING!