Marathon Training : Week Five / Restoration

Running Recap:

• Tuesday / 3 Mile / Interval (personal record for this year!) 
• Wednesday / 6 Mile / Pace
• Thursday / 3 Mile / Trails 
• Saturday / 12 Miles / Easy 
• Sunday / Cross Train / TBD (likely hugging and tickling my niece, but maybe a bike ride) 

As I set my intention for Week Five, I was looking to give myself time to relax, rest, and restore before my family comes to visit for an entire week.  I love having them here, but know I will spend the week joyfully playing cruise director, collapsing into bed each night from pure exhaustion.  So I wished to peacefully tuck away some time for myself, focusing on restoration of my body and soul before their arrival.  I think of myself as a socially-ept introvert.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not shy.  I like being around people, I have fun in social situations, and value time with friends.  However, I LOVE time by myself.  There is nothing more satisfying than time alone to read, cook, cuddle my pugs, do yoga and watch the most boring documentaries which I could not possibly subject another person to view with me.  (Sidebar: I'm presently watching New York: A Documentary Film...14.5 hours of the history of the city.  I am enthralled!)

My lovely soon-to-arrive visitors! (Photo from 2008!!! Kiara is now 10 & there's NO WAY I can give her a piggy back) 

I started out the week great, cooking up a storm of healthy body fueling/nourishing/restoring Thug Kitchen offerings: smokey veggie burgers, broccoli chickpea burritos, pasta salad, potato salad and my Mommabear's dill cucumbers.  The weather finally flipped from being like the Devil's armpit to cool and crisp.  My runs were amazing for the first time in, well, forever!  Then I had some soul sucking days at work.  And my Grandpa Willie, who has been fighting lung cancer like a prize fighter for twenty-one months took a turn for the worse.  My heart has been smashed to pieces.  I found myself in a carb-induced fog following a comfort food binge: frozen pizza, java vanilla stout, praline pecan ice cream, and a coffee cake.  I somehow managed to eat half the cake through sobs so wracking that I could hardly breathe.  Definitely not pretty crying.  With chunks of cinnamon crumbles and cake all over my face.  Definitely not pretty crying (oh yeah, I said that already, right?!) 

The last time I saw my Grandpa was in May, and he asked me about my running.  I told him that I had gotten into the Marine Corps Marathon and he asked me the most common question most non-runners ask: "How long is that, kiddo?"  26.2 miles, Grandpa.  He laughed.  He told me, "Well, you look great, it's working for you!"  If you have ever met my Grandpa, you'll never forget his laugh.  And that's the sound that's in my head and my heart as I know the time to say goodbye is near.  That's the sound that is restoring my broken heart.      

Often our days and weeks don't go the way we plan.  We get news that rocks us to the core, even when we know it's on the horizon.  We set out with best of intentions, and life takes us in the exact opposite direction of where we want to be.  We end up ugly crying and face-stuffing a coffee cake.  These are the times when we need to lean on what we know we can do, what we are capable of, and find a way to move forward.  One step at a time.  

Week Six Intention: Joy 

           

Marathon Training : Week Four / Rhythm

Running Recap: 

• Tuesday /  3 Miles / Easy (man my legs were sore from 5 days off running) 
• Wednesday / 6 Miles / Pace 
• Thursday / 3 Miles / Interval 
• Saturday / 13.1 Miles / Running Mad Half Marathon  2:13:50 (no PR but it was HOT!) 
• Sunday / Cross train / 1 hour bike ride  

The intention for this week was literally rhythm, and when I set this intention, there really was no deep meaning behind the word.  The first three tenets of Good Form Running are posture, lean, midfoot strike (which I haven't purposely worked on, I have very small feet and truly can't feel the difference between a heel, midfoot, and ball strike.  We learned in GFR that this principal will fall into place on it's own when the other three are mastered).  The final is cadence.  180 footfalls per minute.  That's SMOKIN.  1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4.  Pretty much as fast as you can clap your hands.  Now count that while lifting your feet simultaneously off the ground and propelling yourself forward.  And don't forget your potato chip hands and your gangsta lean.  

Being a band geek, I have a decent internal metronome, and 180 beats per minute is a Prestissimo tempo (meaning very fast, no joke!).  While most people run to techno, dance and rock music, I have the interesting preference to run to jam bands.  So generally, my steps are in double time to Dave Matthews Band, O.A.R., Mumford & Sons.  Happily, Everlasting Light by the Black Keys is EXACTLY 180 bpm, and I've always noticed how good it feels to run to this song! 

Finding this insanely quick groove requires a watch (count one foot's falls for twenty seconds, you need to be at 30 strikes), a metronome (seriously, they sell these in running stores for this purpose but I have used a metronome app on my phone), or even just the right playlist (google 180 bpm play lists).  This REALLY narrows your stride and is the cadence you should use whether you're running fast or slow.  How in the world does this work?!  Shouldn't you move your feet quicker to run faster?!  Nope.  To run faster, you push back further and lengthen your stride, and hustle that foot back up under your hip.  I've discovered heiny muscles I didn't know existed. 

And I'm not going to lie, it's painful to try to change your stride.  Booty muscles are sore, the tops of my feet ache.  My legs themselves are sore (and this is a feeling I rarely experience anymore with a regular running schedule).  My body is hurting after 25 miles last week (my highest mileage week ever! Hoo Rah!) but the sick person deep inside me loves these new pains!  Sometimes, it's about finding our rhythm in life, where we're in the groove, loving that perfect pace, perfectly in step with where we need to be.  And sometimes in running, it's about finding our literal rhythm.  180 footfalls per minute at a time.   

MRTT Angels Pre-Running Mad Half Marathon 

(PS, that is 24,120 steps) 

Week Five's Intention: Restoration 

#28 / Start a Blog

Yes.  This is a blog about writing a blog.  I know it seems incredibly inane, but in the spirit of the process of the 40x40, it deserves some love.

Last year when I trained for my first half marathon, I went through some incredibly profound changes.  I decided to use running to reinvent myself.  I was at a point in my life when my old identity no longer fit.  Kind of a spiritual "Fat Guy in a Little Coat."  As I look back now, I so wish I had chronicled the changes I went through.  There were some really deep things I figured out on the road.  Thing is, while I was finding my strength in my legs, heart, and lungs, it was all too raw to actually put it all out there for anyone.  I couldn't actually face a lot of it until I was across the finish line.  

A friend encouraged me to write the 40x40, and as I started marathon training he said, Kid, you really need to write this down.  If not for anyone else, for yourself, so you can remember all the things you went through. I took this to heart, and honestly decided I didn't want to have just another running blog.  I love you running bloggers, I troll you like it's my second job.  But I wanted to create something that I can always have to remember my adventures and truly chronicle the 40x40.  Warning: last night I started planning the 50x50, so this is not the end of this craziness.

Procrastinators UNITE: Tomorrow 

Problem was, I just didn't want to start blogging because I wanted it to be so perfect.  This is a character flaw which has plagued me most of my life.  I couldn't decide on the perfect name, or a theme, or a URL.  So I did nothing.  

Then add the pressure of having an elementary-school BFF who is a brilliant blogger, who's had a post picked up by Huffington Press and another which landed her an interview on our local 5 o'clock news.  Sorry, Sarah, I just realized by all serendipity that both of our first posts were themed "Follow the Yellow Brick Road."  I SWEAR on this picture that I did not plagiarize you.  Yours is way more profound anyway.  

Tell us, Kid, what is the Mystery of Ass?  

Compile that pressure with the incredibly dry, witty blog of my running-partner-dreamer-schemer who is not just training for a marathon, she's finding her awesome AND raising money for epilepsy therapy (consider donating...it's such a worthy charity).  Oh and then the handfuls of other friends who have inspiring blogs, write blogs for work, etc.  Self doubt wracked me into paralysis.  But then I just up and started writing.  About an hour after I created my template, I published the first post.  It was not perfect.  None of them have been and none of them will be.  I'm not sure I even like the name.  But I'm not getting caught up in the details.  

And that, my friends, is how you start a blog.     

Marathon Training : Week Three / Flexibility

Running Recap:

• Sunday / 3 Miles / Interval Training (fun fact: my interval average pace has decreased 22 seconds per mile since I started this training four weeks ago, and my max heart rate has decreased from 102% to 95% so...there might be something to this) 
• Monday / 5 Miles / Trails & Hills 
• Tuesday / 3 Miles / Easy 
• Wednesday / 6 Miles / Pace 

Life is a lot like yoga.  Relax, be flexible...and try not to fart.  

A dear friend sent me a greeting card with these profound words of wisdom.  To be fair, she's never practiced yoga with me, so she doesn't know about my bean and broccoli burrito issues.  Flexibility is the name of the game for my training this week.  When planning a vacation with my bestie Beth a few months ago, I knew it would have to happen early in my training and specifically picked this weekend because it's the lightest week of my entire plan.  She was happy to accommodate, even though I realize just now this is her 11th wedding anniversary weekend (my sincerest apologies to her husband, you're a good man, Scooter, and congrats to you both, I love you!).  Hal Higdon says in my training plan "You can skip an occasional workout, or juggle the schedule depending on other commitments, but do not cheat on the long runs."  Fair enough, Hal, I can handle that buddy when my long run is a six-miler.

That said, runners are extreme creatures of habit.  We don't like change.  We always wear the same socks, we don't like changing chub rub brands, we eat the same meal the night before every long run and the same breakfast every single morning before a run (chunky peanut butter toast, one banana and one cup of coffee precisely two hours before start time, fyi if you're looking for the magic).  There are way too many other factors, namely weather and your legs, that can screw with your brain which you have no control over to let the things you CAN control go all willy-nilly.  I don't like running in the early morning, I don't like taking lunch breaks at work, let alone going for a run on my lunch, and my long runs are on Saturday mornings.  Period.  But flexibility was the intention and man, I lived it this week.  And I am not going to lie, this week's training was pure joy!  Keep in mind, I've run eight of the last nine days.  And it's been an average of 80% humidity for every single run this week.  I should have been miserable.  I had total control of the out of control and I loved it!

We are tied to what we hate or fear. 

~Swami Prabhavananda     

I believe by being flexible with my schedule and expectations, I truly made the most out of this week's training.  Rather than feeling like I had to get these runs out of the way, I was blessed with the opportunity to shake things up.  Just don't mess with my peanut butter toast/banana/coffee pregame.    

The next time the week (or month, or year) ahead isn't exactly looking to play out the way you'd ideally want it, take a step back.  Be flexible with the "have-to's" and look at them more as "get-to's."  The flexibility will free you and allow the joy to flow!  

This is what goes through my head on EVERY run.  

Week Four's Intention: Rhythm 

Trust Part Two : Are We All Crazy?

The idea of trust was my intention for Week Two of marathon training and maybe it's the Law of Attraction, maybe it's just happenstance, but a running friend who leads my area's Moms Run This Town chapter tagged me in a running quote this week which resonated with me:

Runners have an unspoken bond that's unmatched in any other sport.  We're trusting of complete strangers.  In every other group I've joined in my life, trust is earned gradually--it has to be proven.  With most runners I've met, trust is assumed.  We support each other immediately and without hesitation.  More than any other group, my running friends are fiercely loyal.  I don't know why "good people run," but I have a guess.  We build relationships outside in nature, forcing us to leave the stress, anxiety, and societal pressures behind for just an hour or so.  We leave the drama at work, family stress, and we just focus on the run.  All we need to have a good time is a pair of shoes. 
~Joanna Reuland 

My Kids 

The fact that I'm even in a Mom's running group just shows the openness of the running community, seeing that my "kids" have fur and terribly awful breath and I have an irrational phobia about pregnancy (which is sometimes exacerbated by the motherhood stories told by my MRTT friends).  At first, the trust was almost a little unnerving.  While on runs with brand new people, life stories would quickly be unfurled, deep dark secrets revealed, and highly personal stories about bodily functions were common place.  Who are these crazy people who tell complete strangers these kinds of things?!  I'm a country girl, raised in the heartland.  We don't share our business with anyone.  At least that's what I thought until I started running.  With my running friends, I've found an outlet to work through problems and often just to admit some of the deep dark crazy stuff going on in my head.

We listen to each other, we cheer each other on through the miles and through mental blocks.  We cry for each other through injuries and across finish lines.  We get up for one another at ungodly hours of the morning (usually on the weekends) to meet for long runs, because we would never dare to let our partners down by bailing on that awful twelve miler scheduled for the day.  We give advice about products, training programs, and all the perplexing problems that come along with running, always ending advice with the caveat, "you need to do what works for you."  We never feel judged or preached to.

We ask if anyone needs one last poop before we hit the road, and we swap stories of lost toe nails. We share our chub rub and our last packet of GU with a random person in a race clearly in need of a pick-me-up.  When I found myself in a half marathon listening in on a conversation of two strangers pondering "Do you think anyone's ever peed themselves while running?" I spoke up and said, "Yup, it happens, I've done it."  Seriously?!  Running is a no holds barred sport, in that anything is open game for discussion (and face, it, we all need the distraction of a completely inappropriate conversation).  But truly understanding the mental, emotional and physical struggle of running five minutes, five miles, five hours, that is a bond that is universal.  And that's where the trust is formed.

Runners might all be crazy, but running is always cheaper than therapy.  
     

Just a Few of My Therapists

Marathon Training : Week Two / Trust

Running Recap:

• Tuesday / 3 Miles / Interval Training 
• Wednesday / 5 Miles / Trail
• Thursday / Cross Train / Ecotrek  (note to self: WAY too intense for cross training without a rest day)
• Friday / 3 Miles / Easy
• Saturday / 9 Miles / Long Run  

Trust 

When I set the intention for this week's run, it was with the idea that I would pursue perfecting my posture as we were taught in the Good Form Running clinic.  The instructors showed us the proper forward lean needed to achieve the most efficient running technique, which involved leaning forward until we thought we were just about to topple over.  This takes trusting that your gut is going to be able to be strong enough to hold your body up without actually falling over while you're propelling yourself forward.  The forward posture helps land your foot under your hip, and therefore eliminate the heal-striking that plagues many runners.    

I never fancied myself a heal striker until I had the harrowing experience of watching myself run on film.  U-G-L-Y, my run ain't got no alibi, it's UGLY.  So I set out on my first run of the week, working on my potato chip hands  and adding in the lean.  About a mile in, I started getting a side stitch.  This is something that never happens to me.  The pain in between my ribs was almost unbearable, and I found myself sucking air while running what should have been comfortable, average pace.  Pushing through my intervals and all I can think is how much this GFR is really killing my run, and if this is really good form, then why is it hurting so much?!  Then a little voice inside my head recalled a sign in the hall way of my yoga studio that read "Trust in the process."  This mantra has carried me through some of the hardest times of my life, and gosh darn it, I am just going to keep trusting in this process of improving my running posture.

The interesting part about setting an intention for a week's training is all the other lessons that you find along the way.  A friend tagged me in a running quote about the trust that is found among runners that is unlike any other community.  You don't have to prove anything to other runners to be considered a runner.  It's inherent in the act of putting on a pair of running shoes and hitting the road less traveled.  The badge is earned instantly.  Manduka's Facebook page reminded me "Today we #practice trust - trust comes from love and commitment to yourself.  When nothing can shake you without your permission, trust flows freely.  Trust teaches us to appreciate the gift of being ourselves, and the gift of others being themselves too."  Okay, Manduka, I get it.  Don't judge the awful run, trust that it's going to take some time, and with commitment to the practice, it's going to work itself out.  But beyond that...as runners, we appreciate the gift of being ourselves, and wholeheartedly appreciate the gift of other runners being themselves.        

Week Three's Intention : Flexibility