Running in Gratitude

September 11th is always a solemn day for me.  I tend to avoid the media coverage, the public memorials, the talking heads on television making political hay from a tragedy that has no meaning or ending that makes sense.  Instead I prefer to reflect on my own experiences that day, a few miles from Ground Zero across the river in New Jersey, safely separated from danger by the Hudson, but close enough to witness the tragic aftermath.  The sound of fighter jets scrambling toward Manhattan, thundering overhead as I stood outside my office.  The sight of ambulances lining for miles the route that leads to the Lincoln Tunnel, waiting in vain to rescue the victims.  The sense of utter confusion and despair that this could not possibly be happening.

So today’s run was dedicated to all those who were lost too soon on this day twelve years ago.  Perhaps fittingly, I ran in Forest Lawn cemetery, among the markers that speak to the stories of those who rest beneath them.  I wondered how many of their stories had also been cut short and had no tidy ending.  I thought of a college friend who was lost at Ground Zero, and all the life he would have experienced in the last twelve years.  And I thought of all the life I have experienced in the years since  that fateful day: the silly heartbreaks, the professional setbacks, the friendships that have come and gone.  All the things in life that seem so tragic and insurmountable when we are experiencing them, but that eventually fade into distant memory as we move on with life.  Life, that precious and sometimes awful gift that those lost on 9/11 would have given anything to keep.

So, on a day when we remember the too-short stories of the lost, I run with gratitude that I have had the opportunity to experience all the pains and blisters and scars along the way, both in running and in life.  Never forget.

Over the Hump!

Despite what that Geico camel says, Wednesday was not “Hump Day” for me.  Today was.

That’s right, today’s fifteen-miler pushed me over the hump into the second half of the marathon.  Up to this point, the Half is the longest I’ve run since my last marathon two years ago, so going beyond 13.1 has been a bit of a psychological barrier as I’ve anticipated my training runs.  It’s the first long run where I knew I really had to focus on managing my pace, which I’ve done poorly up to this point. It’s also the first time in this training cycle that I’ve had to plan for things like extra hydration and fuel and potty breaks.  Not to mention reserving nearly three hours out of the day for nothing but running.  For some reason, those extra couple of miles added a layer of complication to my long run that has had me nervous about it for a couple of weeks!

Knowing that pacing has been an issue for me, I set off at a snail’s pace (I assume snails travel slower than turtles?).  I thought I was doing a pretty good job of holding myself back, especially with the aid of a hot sun and humidity and Fall allergies kicking in.  But I’m not going to lie; those last two miles were tough.  Actually, the last six were no picnic, but the last two required noticeably more mental effort to keep the legs moving.  I even had to pull out my ultimate coping mechanism, a little ditty I composed in my head during my first marathon to calm myself and stop focusing on… everything.  And anything.  It goes something like this:

I’m just out for a ru-u-un.  I’m just out for a ru-u-un.  I’m just out for a ru-u-un.

Yup, that’s what got me through the tough parts of my first marathon.  And by tough parts, I mean somewhere around the last two hours of it.  And that silly little song has popped into my head many times since, at times when reasoning and problem-solving and adjustments all need to take a hike and let sheer stubbornness – mixed with a healthy portion of denial – just take over.

This is what happens when you run under-fueled (eat the whole bagel for breakfast next time – this is no time for conserving calories) and dehydrated (don’t run in the middle of a sunny, humid day without extra hydration breaks, dummy!).  And this, friends, is why we train.  Because no matter how many times we go through this process and try to learn our lessons, we need to constantly remind ourselves how to do better, right up until race day. 

This in spite of all the fears and questions: what if my legs don’t want to work after I stop for a potty break?  How will I manage with sweaty Spandex after said potty break?  What if yet another 5K or food festival breaks out in the middle of my planned route?  (FYI, spontaneous food festivals seem to be a major issue in Buffalo.  A church chicken barbecue nearly derailed last weekend’s ten-miler with its tempting aromatic deliciousness.  Luckily I wasn’t carrying cash on my run, or I surely would have been tearing into one of those delectable birds at mile eight! But I digress…)

Training, by its nature, brings out many “what-if” questions.  Whether they are warranted or not, somehow, the answer to these questions is always the same:

YOU WILL FIGURE IT OUT.  YOU ARE JUST OUT FOR A RU-U-UN.

Go turtles! And go snails!

 

What psychological barriers have you had to overcome?  How did you crawl over the hurdle?

My long run of ten miles today was relatively short.  Funny how it is all relative: double-digits still seemed a bit intimidating a few weeks ago, but now ten seems like a piece of cake!  This is how progressing toward any goal works, I suppose.  What seems difficult or impossible suddenly seems easy once we’ve already done it!

So after my “easy” run, I still had enough mental and physical energy left afterwards to clean out my pantry.  Based on the expiration dates of the items I found lurking in there, this task was long overdue and I feel much better about spending any portion of this beautiful summer day on it.

Among the many corroded, discolored, and generally questionable treasures I found was this fine example of why reading food labels is so important.  Now, I’m not sure how this item even arrived in my possession.  I believe it may have accompanied the gift of a Belgian waffle maker that I received for Christmas a few years ago (which should already be an indication that this was ready for disposal), but I was curious about the “all natural” label.  My goal is to eat as naturally as I possibly can.  “All natural” sounds great!  “All natural blueberry syrup” conjures an image of a big pot of simmering blueberry deliciousness, does it not?  And then I checked the ingredient list.

Now, I am no botanist, but I am fairly certain that there are no High Fructose Corn Syrup trees occurring in nature and being tapped for their delicious yield.  I can’t begin to guess what definition of “all natural” is being applied to a product that has HFCS as its first ingredient – sure, HFCS is derived from corn, but there is nothing naturally occurring (in my estimation) about the way this ingredient is manufactured. But I do believe there is a special place in hell for processed food marketers.  Examples like this one show how food companies seek to capitalize on our desire to fuel ourselves with better foods, hoping that we will be too busy or not educated enough to recognize bad ingredients if the front label tells us what we want to hear.

Given the amount of time this item has been languishing in the dark corners of my pantry, I can’t know if it is still on the market or if the requirements for using the “all natural” tagline are being more strictly enforced, but this serves as a reminder that we must perform our own due diligence with what we put into our bodies.  Buyer beware!

By the way, it takes almost no time and effort to make a blueberry syrup from real blueberries and real maple syrup, which DOES come from all-natural trees!

Bon appetit!

I Wasn’t Planning to Run a Marathon…

I wasn’t planning to run a marathon this year.

I’m pretty busy lately. I work. I’m going to grad school. I don’t see my family enough. My household chores are woefully neglected. And when you run more like a turtle than a hare, training for a marathon is a major time commitment. I know this because I have already completed two marathons, and for me, the most difficult part of training is committing the hours – and sometimes a big chunk of a day – to running. So my plan was to eventually run my Bucket List marathon, New York City, SOMEDAY. And then be done with marathons. After all, most people don’t even ever finish one.  I am hurtling toward my fortieth birthday.  Wouldn’t just one more – SOMEDAY – be enough?

But plans change.

I started running four years ago, at the ripe old age of 35. I trained for weeks to slowly run through my first 5k. I enjoyed the accomplishment of finishing the race, but loved the planning and progress and discipline of training even more. So next I tried a 10k, then a Half, and another Half. And then the Big One – the full marathon! And then another one a year later. I relished the planning and the goal and the feeling of being stronger and more fit than I’d ever been before in my life.

Fast-forward to this Spring. While coping with some injuries of the tripping-and-colliding-with-the-sidewalk variety, I got out of shape. My knees bothered me. I gained an extra ten pounds that just simply wouldn’t budge. My mother told me that this is just part of turning 40. If I wasn’t careful, I would end up with knee replacement surgery.

And then Boston happened. As we all did, I watched in horror the aftermath of the marathon bombings. I watched what started as a day of celebration and human endurance – an atmosphere of exhausted triumph I knew so well – turn to tragedy and horror. In an instant, innocent spectators had their lives altered forever, forced onto a path of unthinkable difficulty and uncertainty and physical rehabilitation. And here I sit: healthy, completely able, and restrained only by the blessings of a busy and full life. It was time to rethink my perceived barriers and future goals. It was time to change plans.

So now I am half-way through training for the Niagara Falls International Marathon. If all goes well, I will run from my current home neighborhood to Canada! Yes, it takes planning to fit in the training. Yes, it might become a bit dicey scheduling those four-hour training runs around work and school. Yes, the unpredictable Buffalo weather could make for a miserable 26.2 miles in late October. But I consider it a privilege to try, and completing marathon #3 six days before my Big 4-0 is the best way I can think to celebrate whatever comes next!

We get one wild and precious life.  So run well, eat well, and live well, Turtles!