Life

Five Weeks Until the TC Marathon

It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it.

For me, the hardest part of marathon training is often the final weeks of ramp up, before the taper. The mileage is higher, the speed work quicker, and the long runs longer. Here we are, five weeks before I toe the start line, and I am in the toughest part.

Last week’s long run shook my confidence a bit, and I started doubting my ability to not only run this marathon but do so with an effort that I could be proud of. Every time I go out, it feels like my legs are heavier and achier. I am not sure if thats because my stretching and foam rolling aren’t up to par or this mileage is higher than I’ve done in some time. All I know is that running has become a chore.

Not only am I in the hardest part of training, I also started school this week, which means classes, graduate assistantship hours, and homework. In addition to keeping my same hours at my part-time job, my life is fairly full. I actually have to schedule every hour at, including when I wake up and go to sleep, eat, and commute to and from school and work, so that I can make sure to get it all in. With all of this, running and training for the marathon has lost some of its joy, and relatedly, my runs are slower and slugger.

My long run was supposed to be 20 miles this week, but I couldn’t find the time to do it, so I ended up switching my schedule so that it is next week and did 15. My hope was to keep the pace relative to what I did long runs earlier in the training cycle and then pick it up to race pace. The first six miles felt fairly good, but then I hit a mental wall. My mind kept telling me to stop, to call it in, to give up. I stopped a few times for water, and I literally had to scream at myself to get back going. My paces fell, which only discouraged me more. Not only couldn’t I keep up the pace, I was having a hard time just completing the run.

That’s how many of my runs have felt lately, slow and excruciating. At this point, I am getting in my head about whether or not I can do this, and whether or not I want to do this. I just want it over.

Today, I ran with some people in my neighborhood. It was a cool, fall-ish morning, and we had some great conversations. I still kept tabs on my pace, wanting it to be what it isn’t, but this run contained something that wasn’t there at other times this week: joy. I actually had fun, and instead of returning home nearly in tears, there was a big smile on my face.

The truth is, marathon training is hard. It’s meant to be hard. No one trains or runs a marathon and enjoys it 100 percent of the time. You will have off days, even off weeks, but the point is to keep going. It’s about the process, and part of that process is shit. So, you keep running through it, and that makes you stronger for when you inevitably encounter shit on the race. You are prepared for it because of all those crappy, slow, hard workouts. You made it through them, and you can make it through this moment.

This wasn’t the best week of training, but I know that I must endure the tough weeks in order to truly appreciate the good ones. I keep going and going and know that it’s a new week and anything can happen.

Miles: 47

Goals: Keeping steady mileage and working on paces.

Monday: Easy Run – 6.06 – I wasn’t planning to run this day, but really felt good about it.

Tuesday: Track Workout – 5.06 – Fartlecks of one lap on, one lap easy, two/two, three/three, two/two, one/one. Repeat. Really good. Paces got down there and I felt very strong.

Wednesday: Easy Run – 8.15 – Easy and nice through the Sculpture Park.

Thursday: Long Run – 14 + 1 mile cool down – Great for the first six or seven and then mentally fell apart. Couldn’t get the pace down like I had hoped. However, my nutrition was much better.

Friday: Rest

Saturday: Hill Repeats – 5.6 – Not sure these are going to be enough but they feel hard.

Sunday: Easy Run – 7.1 – Beautiful morning with neighborhood running group.

Next week’s goal: Stay mentally present and strong. I want to have fun on my 20-miler this week and soak up all the training as to offer.

Seven Weeks Until TC Marathon

Every summer, I long to be west. To be back on the prairie, with the fiery orange sunrises and the sky-filled skies. To have bonfires and s’mores and wake up the next day smelling like campfire. To be somewhere quieter so I can recollect my thoughts and head into fall with renewed optimism.

Last year, between quitting my job and starting graduate school, I drove to South Dakota, where I am from and my family lives, and then to Minnesota to visit more family. It was such an uplifting trip that I wanted to recreate it again, but this time bring my husband and add an additional stop in Colorado to visit friends.

Gearing up for this trip, I thought about all the running I wanted to do. In Minnesota, I hoped to trace pieces of the marathon route, and then re-run some of my cross country workouts in South Dakota. Running familiar streets would be a true homecoming, and even though I’ve run many times at home since I left, this time would be more triumphant. I was a more experienced, stronger runner. I was never the fastest runner, but I kept going, and here I am today, still running.

We started our road trip in Minnesota to visit my youngest brother and his family. Even on the first day, I felt crunched for time. Running was a priority, but so was hanging out with my niece and I had to wake up earlier than I wanted to on vacation in order to get my run in. My brother lives about 20 minutes from the Cathedral of Saint Paul, where the Twin Cities Marathon finish, so I decided to run there so I could a good mental image of it for visualization practices during long training runs. I ran mostly on busy street roads, even though this part of the country has much more to offer, but I did cross the Mississippi River in order to get into downtown Saint Paul. From there, I went up several big hills, reminding myself that I have got to do more hill work before the marathon, before I made it to Summit Avenue. The last stretch of the marathon follows this historic street to the Cathedral. At this point in my run, I was feeling a bit lethargic and nervous about getting home not too long after my niece woke up, but then being on that avenue, I felt the buzz. The next time I would be there, I would be 25 miles into my third marathon, with the finish just ahead. It invigorated me. Reassured me in this lengthy training process. Motivated me to keep going through the lulls and tough workouts, because the next time I am running on that street, it will be worth it.

The next day was a travel day, so I didn’t run, but in South Dakota, I again got up before the sun so I could finish my run as my nephews were eating breakfast. This was less of a training run and more of a tour of my childhood. I ran by the park in which my middle school cross country meets where held. Then along the bike path next to the Missouri River, a common route for cross country practices. I ran by the pool where I lifeguarded and spent most of my summer days. And then to the lot, which used to host the house I grew up in before it was sold and moved elsewhere. These places often appear in my dreams, and it was almost like visiting them for the first time as I ran along streets seem fuzzy in my thoughts. Going home is not always pleasant, as we are reunited with parts of ourselves we would rather leave behind, but then there are times when we can look back and see how where we came from helped us get to where we are today. This summer, I’ve been struggling with doubt on my decision to go back to school, but back on the streets where I’ve ran so many times before, I felt reassured. I was where I was supposed to be.

I did one more run in South Dakota, which was harder with the lack of sleep and the poor diet. I had planned to do a long run of 13 miles, but never got around to it. Because I was still nursing pain in my hip, I decided having more rest was probably best for me. Plus, I wanted to have the most time with my family as I could, as I only see them once or twice a year, and I just couldn’t fit running and family time in without loosing lots of sleep. So, no long run for me. I also didn’t get to run all the places I had hoped to, but that was OK.

Let’s all move to Colorado and run here.

The last leg of my trip was to Colorado for a reunion with my Peace Corps friends. I knew there would be lots of late nights and drinking, so I wasn’t entirely sure what kind of running I would be able to do over the weekend. At this point in the week, my mileage was in the low 20s. I really had hoped to get to 35-40, but it didn’t seem possible without doing a long run. Again, I had to chose between running and socializing, so I decided to play it by ear and see how I felt each morning with the intentions of getting at least one run in. On Saturday, a friend joined me for seven easy miles. We spent most of it on busy roads and should have looked up some bike paths beforehand, but we also got to run towards the mountains. Later in the day, my friends and I did a gorgeous hike, and now I am trying to convince my husband to move to Colorado so that I can fulfill my life goal of being an ultra trail runner. We had a copious amount of beers that evening, but I was still able to get up the next morning and run enough to hit 35 for the week. It wasn’t pretty, but it happened and I found the bike trail so it was less busy roads.

A bright spot is that we visited a place called Shoes and Brews — a running shoe store and brewery. It was my haven, and I can’t believe I didn’t think of such a thing. After graduate school, I want to open a running store/brewery/therapy practice. Any good name ideas?

It was a lighter week than I had hoped for, but I think my body needed it. My hip is feeling mostly good, and I am ready to ramp back up this week. The mid-training blues is starting to hit me hard, but running in new and familiar places last week reminded me that this about the process. All these early mornings mean something, and I just need to keep taking it one week at a time.

Miles: 35.2

Goals: Listen to my body and work out the issues in my hip.

Monday: Easy Run – 8.17 miles – Got in some unplanned hill work, but kept the pace nice and easy. Seeing the finish line for the marathon gave me some inspiration and motivation to keep going.

Tuesday: Rest

Wednesday: Easy Run – 9ish miles – A run tour of my hometown, with a few sprints at the mostly to catch my nephews from riding their bikes into the street.

Thursday: Easy Run – 6 miles – This was kind of terrible, and I dragged each step, but it ended at a donut shop, so not a total loss.

Friday: Rest

Saturday: Easy Run – 7 miles – Felt fairly good, but could definitely feel the altitude.

Sunday: Easy – 4.71 – Too much beer and junk food with not a lot of sleep was taking its toll.

Next week’s goal: I am hoping to ramp my mileage back up, do some solid work outs, and really just get back into the training. I am also hoping to do more group runs since a lot of last week was solo.

Rest Day Motivation

Tomorrow, I am running 18 miles. This is huge for me because I haven’t run that far since the Chicago Marathon in 2015, and there are a few things stacked against me. Because it’s in the middle of the week (I had to reschedule my long run because of work and travel this weekend), I will be on my own for most of it, it will be hot, and I’ve been experiencing some flared pain in my surgery hip.

Even though I am nervous, and I know it will be hard, I am excited to see what my body can do and how this will feel. I am planning to keep this at a slower pace, specifically because of the hip, and have given myself permission to end the run if there is a lot of pain. Also, I am eager to practice my mental game, which tends to falter when I am on my own. I want to practice going through the dark mental tunnels so that I know what to do in those hard miles on race day.

One of the things that has always motivated is Nike commercials. Nike has been under fire lately for how they treat their female athletes when they get pregnant, which I think is wrong and their policies not only need to change but must become more supportive than tolerant, but they sure know how to do marketing. Often, when I need inspiration or reassurance that I can do a hard physical task, I watch Nike commercials. Sure, they are meant to sell products, but they also give you hope that you can do that crazy thing.

Today is a rest day for me as I get ready for tomorrow’s long run and give my hip a break, but I am going to be watching some of my favorite videos in order to mentally prepare myself for the run and be excited to get out the door at dawn. Enjoy some of my all-time favorite Nike commercials.

What We Deserve

A year ago, my weekdays followed the fairly same routine.

Get up, sometimes work out, but most often I wouldn’t have the energy. Shower, breakfast, and then on the train for 45 minutes. At the office, I would cautiously check my email to see what fires needed to be put out, and then I would either hop on conference calls or start creating content. Lunch was always left overs or a salad from home, and the rest of the day would be set to survival mode. 4:30 p.m. came and then I was free and trying to make the next few hours last as long as I could before I would have to get up and do it all again.

I was not happy in previous career, and so I decided to make a big change in going back to school. At first, it was exhilarating and exciting, but a year later, the consequences of such a big change have been plaguing me.

As a graduate student, there is much more on my plate. In my career, I juggled projects but I was quite intentional about keeping work in the designated hours. Now, I am using every bit of the day to minimize my to-do list. With school work, two jobs, marathon training, and maintaining a life, it’s hard to fit everything in. This week, I made an hour-by-hour schedule in hopes of feeling somewhat in control of my schedule.

Also, going to school in my mid-30s has put me in a different set of circumstances than many of my friends, who are buying houses, having kids, and climbing the ranks of their respected careers. I am working a part-time retail job (which I enjoy) and living paycheck-to-paycheck.

Being a full-time student is hard, and there are times when I think I must suffer through it. I should be doing homework at 9 p.m. on a Saturday night. Or, waking up at 4:30 a.m. to get in a run is just part of the deal. By stepping outside of the normal routine for a woman my age, I was agreeing to be miserable with an unstable finances and uncontrollable schedule. That’s what I get for doing something out of conventional expectations.

Today was my day off, and so I wanted to take sometime to recuperate before another busy weekend. I took a two-hour deep nap, watched some trashy TV, and splurged on a bottle of $6.99 wine. When I say my day off, that’s relative. I still worked my school job (which I can do from home), took a final exam that lasted for two hours, and completed a fairly hard workout. Even so, I felt guilty about the nap and didn’t think I really deserved the wine. I argued that I was so lucky to have Tuesdays like this, that most people are slaving away at jobs, so who am I to enjoy a long nap in the middle of the day?

It’s often easy to think we don’t deserve things, or to be any kind of pleasure at the end of accomplishments. I don’t really need to take that trip to visit my college friend. Or, if only I can lose 10 pounds, I will let myself get that dress that I really want. We often restrict ourselves so much that when we do indulge we overdo it, whether it be food, alcohol, or shopping. We think that if we aren’t working hard, we don’t deserve to relax. We must sweat. We must shed tears. We must endure hardships, and then only then, can we have a reward.

This often happens in running. In May, I ran my first half marathon in eight years, and I had a big goal to break 2 hours (more on this later). However, I went out fast and was eight minutes slower than I had hoped. What I don’t tell people when I share this story is that I also PR’ed by 17 whole minutes. That is incredibly impressive, and yet I wouldn’t let myself bask in that glory because my primary goal wasn’t met.

Often, runners only focus on times, and we forget to look at other accomplishments we may have that don’t involve the clock. Maybe we didn’t get a PR that day, but we were better with nutrition and avoided bonking. Or, we encouraged a fellow runner out on the course and helped her overcome a specifically dark time. We don’t allow ourselves to enjoy successful or indulgent moments outside of our expected goals, because we don’t think we deserve them.

This morning, I dominated a hard workout, and then I spent two hours giving my best on a final exam. Not only did I earn that nap and glass of wine, I deserved it. Graduate school, and the life that comes with it, is hard enough, but I have to make time to enjoy it and take care of it. It doesn’t all need to be a slog fest. Changing my life allows me to spend my Tuesdays in a different way, and that won’t always be the case when I graduate and am building up my career, so I better enjoy it.

Just because we made a choice to live differently, to take a more unique path, doesn’t mean we have to suffer. We deserve to enjoy pleasures and to relax, because if we don’t, we’ll lose sight of what we are trying to accomplish, and we’ll lose ourselves.

I Joined the #SportsBraSquad

Almost every woman I know, runner or not, has had a difficult relationship with their body. They have starved it, overexercised it, shamed it, cried tears over it, and wanted it to be different.

Of course, I am no different. I was first called fat at the age 8, and from there on out, I believed that statement to be true. I started running in middle school because the sport seemed harder than others, but I quickly learned that I didn’t have the typical “runner’s body.” In high school, I was one of the slower runners on the team, but I was also the biggest. At a cross country camp, the head coach said that sometimes big girls win races too, and he looked right at me.

For many years, running was a tool to get to a thinner version of myself. Whether it was running multiple times a day to increase the number of calories out or jogging to deserted alleys to throw up that night’s dinner, I thought that if I just kept moving I would eventually lose the weight and find comfort in my body.

While I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Lesotho, I trained for and ran the Two Oceans Ultramarathon in Cape Town, South Africa. The race is 56 kilometers (roughly 35 miles), and when I registered for the race, I had not run more than a half marathon. For six months, I got up with the roosters (literally, those damn things woke me up every morning) and ran. Lesotho is extremely hilly and so my legs learned to endure the ups and downs of the foothills of the Maluti Mountains. Initially, I wanted to do the race because I had gained a considerable amount of weight in my service, and I couldn’t go home after two years in Africa fatter than when I arrived. (I know that is very shallow, but disordered eating and body image can warp your priorities). I tried to cutback on calories while running 50 miles a week, and soon I realized that it couldn’t be done. If I was going to run this monster of a race—something many people did not think I could do—I was going to have to work with my body, not against it.

While my body and I came together for that race, our years of feuding didn’t exactly end. I came back to the U.S., returned to my normal weight, and ran another marathon, but still resented my body for not being fitter, faster, and smaller. I gave up drinking for an entire year, went on juice cleanses and elimination diets, and joined fancy gyms in hopes of finally shaping my body into something I could be proud of, but it could never get there. I even lost eight pounds the month before my wedding (by eating only black beans and broccoli), and still I wasn’t satisfied. Eventually, I resigned to the fact that I may never like my body.

I am almost didn’t put this picture in because my stomach is rounder, but you know what, that’s just the shape of my stomach.

A few weeks ago, I found the #SportsBraSquad. This movement was started by Kelly Roberts, who is an all-around bad ass. One day, Kelly was running through the sweltering heat of New York and wanted to take off her tank top. Like myself, Kelly thought that only those with typical runner bodies had the privilege of running in their sports bras and that she didn’t belong in that group. She was fearful that if she did take off her shirt, and run only in her bra, that people would judge her and remark that her body shouldn’t be seen in public. However, the heat was too much for her, and she said screw it. Off with the shirt.

Kelly’s defiance against the stereotypical running body started a global movement. Woman of all shapes and sizes are throwing off their shirts and running in their bras because why the heck not. If men can run without shirts and thinner women in their sports bras, all women should be able to embrace the shirtless run. It’s an empowering statement, and I love scrolling through the hashtag to see women loving their bodies and putting it all on display.

“That’s so great of them,” I thought. “But I don’t think that I could ever do that.”

I assumed I wasn’t brave enough, or that people would really judge me. Any time I thought about baring it, I came up with an excuse: my bra is really old, I want to wait for a hotter day, or my route today will take me along a busy road, which may be too much. I wanted to join the #SportsBraSquad in theory, but I had a million reasons why I specifically couldn’t do it.

Yesterday, fartleks were on the schedule, and I planned to do them at the track before joining a few runners for a cool down. It wasn’t specifically hot nor was I going far enough to feel extra toasty. But, when I was getting dressed for my workout, I decided not to put on a tank top. This was not a premeditated act, and I didn’t feel a surge of courage or pride, rather, I simply decided to run in my sports bra. Two weeks ago, the thought of running in my bra was scary and unattainable, but yesterday, I approached my running attire with the same attitude as picking out what flavor of Nuun to drink after my run — it simply didn’t matter.

Outside, insecurities did creep in. I imagined what others must be thinking as they saw me bounce by, “Oh, a woman that size needs to wear a shirt.” Or, when my friends joined me halfway through, I wondered if they were a bit taken back, or appalled, at my unclothed stomach. These worries didn’t last long, though, because they were just thoughts. I was more focused on doing my hard workout and using my body to go harder that what it looked like.

A friend caught a quick video of me pushing through a speed set and posted it to Instagram. “Of all the days,” I thought, and I was nervous to see the video, knowing that my instinct would be to pick apart my shape and find new reasons to hate it. That didn’t happen. When I saw the video, I just saw myself pushing my pace. I didn’t have the same abs or leg muscles as some athletes, but I sure looked like a runner in that video. Maybe that perception of a “real runner’s body” doesn’t exist, or it does and it doesn’t matter.

In less than two months, I will be running my third marathon, and there will be a few points during that 26.2 miles when my body and mind will not agree, and one will likely falter. In order to get me to the finish line, though, they will have to come together and work as one. It’s a major step forward in my training when I can simply decide to run in my sports bra, and it not feel like a monumental thing. It means that I have put more focus on what my body can do and how it feels than what it looks like. Am I now fully in love with my body and an example of body positivity? Probably not, but I do understand that I must appreciate my body and not work so hard against it. To do, for me, is enough.

Making Running Friends

When I moved to Chicago five years ago, I knew just two people, and while those turned into good friends, I was quite lonely my first summer in the city. It isn’t easy finding friends in a new place, especially when you are out of school. To find my people, I had to put myself out there a lot — joining recreation leagues, going to Meet Ups, asking friends in other places to connect me with their friends, and accepting invitations to every dinner, open mic, and quirky event.

I met many people that first year, but then I started dating the man that would eventually become my husband. Also, at the same time, one of my closest friends moved to Chicago. With the two of them in my daily life, I no longer needed to find any willing and free person to do things with; I always had a date. Those loose friendships dissipated, and as the years passed, so did some of the stronger ones. Friends moved on to different jobs and states, had babies, and schedules filled up. This ebb and flow of friendships left me insecure about my relationships, and I wanted to find a way to bring new people into my life while also investing in those that I care about most.

With school and my part-time job, I don’t have a lot of social time, making it hard to build new relationships. I knew that if I wanted to dip into new communities, I would have to use already what I was doing as way to connect with others.

Like running.

I’ve always been a self-proclaimed solo runner. Running is my me time, my escape from the world, and it’s when I can be more my most authentic, which is hard to do when others are around. Too often, I become competitive with whomever I am running with, and that builds a wall that doesn’t allow for camaraderie.

When I was training for the Chicago 2015 marathon, I did run with a group and met some people, but those relationships didn’t extend beyond that event. There was one woman who I really liked, but I always found reasons to bail on her when she invited me to things. I couldn’t explain why.

This winter, I started running more and more, exclusively alone. Most times, I ran at 10 a.m., after most people had gone to work, but because I had always run by myself, I didn’t see much need to venture out.

Then I got really lonely. My husband and I experienced a setback in life, and that combined with the stress of graduate school, I was breaking down. Running was helping, so I signed up for a bunch of races to keep me motivated. As I slogged through training miles, I realized that it would be nice to have some running friends. I thought about the friends I already had, and a few were runners, but we ran at different paces and distances. To find friends I could run with, I would need to cast a wider net.

There are tons of running groups in Chicago, and the most sensible place to make runner friends was to start there. However, most of them met at times when I was either at school or working my part-time job at a bakery. In fact, the bakery gig was preventing me from attending a lot of running events and forcing me to run at times when most other people are working, or often, sleeping.

Then, one day, I found a blog for a woman from my home state. She did several group runs with her local running store, which also seemed like a good way to meet people, but again not easy to do with my schedule. I was really started to dislike that bakery job, and now it seemed to be getting in the way of my goal of making running friends.

One of the classes I was in at the time was a career class, and we had to practice counseling each other about career problems. I explained to my practice therapist how I didn’t like my part-time job anymore, and she asked what could be a solution. Without thinking about it, I blurted out “Quit my job and get one at a local running store.” I hadn’t said that before, but after I couldn’t stop saying it, and that’s what I eventually did. I wanted to become part of a community and make more runner friends, and the running store was a great place to start.

Old friends, but first time running together at this year’s Shamrock Shuffle!

From there, I was able to join one of the large marathon training groups in the city and receive coaching and a schedule for my fall marathon. I do my long runs with them every Sunday. Plus, there was all my new coworkers, people who I may not run with but I could certainly talk to about running.

With a more flexible schedule, I was finally able to start running with my neighborhood group. They had meeting for sometime, but it never worked out for me when I worked at the bakery. Now, I join them for their track workouts and meet up with some members of the group to do other runs throughout the week.

Now, I run half of my week’s workouts with people. I find that I am faster and more relaxed in my runs when I am with people, but then I still have those solo runs to unwind. I like having more runners in my life, and it gives me a chance to connect with other people who get the ups and downs of the sport in a way that my husband and non-running friends don’t.

My making running friends journey isn’t over yet, but I feel good about the progress I’ve made. I’ve had to be more vulnerable and put myself out there, but I feel like a member of the running community and that’s what I wanted.

Rest Day

My alarm went off at 5:30 a.m. this morning as it does most mornings. Despite not working a full-time job, my days are incredibly full with marathon training, working at the running store, my graduate assistant job, and school, so I need an early start. However, such a packed schedule is leaving me exhausted lately and that 5ish wakeup is getting harder and harder to make.

When the alarm dinged, I went into the routine debate: if I take less time for breakfast, I can sleep an extra 10 minutes, OR, I could do my run between work and meeting a friend this evening. I could feel my tight legs begging for a reprise, but a speed workout was booked for the day. This scheming and planning was wasting time, and I knew I needed to make a decision. Then, I pulled out my phone and looked at training schedule from last week. My last rest day was a week ago. No wonder why everything hurt. I reset my alarm for two hours later and turned over.

During my last marathon training cycle, which was in 2015, I ran four days a week with three off. That was an extra day than I done in the previous training cycle, but I thought more rest suited me. Then, when training for a half marathon this winter, I knocked the off days down to two, most often because I needed a break from Chicago’s unrelenting weather. For this marathon, I am down to one day a week. It wasn’t a big decision, and really one I didn’t notice when I was creating my plan, but I knew I wanted to have a strong training cycle and just one day made sense.

“Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for. Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us.” – Maya Angelou

So far, one day is working well for me, but because I often have to rearrange workouts in my schedule, the rest days aren’t one consistent day, and sometimes I forget to put them on the calendar.

The expert advice is that we should listen to our bodies, but I don’t think I’ve ever really understood what that means. Like many women, especially female athletes, I’ve long had a complicated relationship with my body and have pushed and abused it for not being what I want it to be. My body and I, we don’t really talk to each other. I’ve gotten better tuning into it’s needs as I’ve aged, but I am still unsure if my body is telling me to take a break or my mind is trying to sabotage me, as it tends to do.

This morning, though, I am fairly certain my body was screaming, “BREAK!” Not just from running, but my crazy schedule. Unfortunately, I am not sure I will have a day completely free of school, work, and running until, I don’t know, graduation, but I can steal back hours for myself, including this morning.

Our society puts a lot of pressure on us to go, go, go, with messages that only those that work hard deserve sweet rewards. However, we aren’t built to push for forever.

Someone I follow on Instagram was saying how the grit and strive of sport is great, and while she has been chasing that for years, she wonders if it is not working for her anymore. I commented on her post that sometimes we need to take an “inhale moment”, in which we pause, breathe in the goodness and forget about producing and accomplishing. Having goals and working towards them is a definitive part of life, but it doesn’t need to be our constant goal. We need those rest days to remember why we are chasing those dreams and allow our bodies and minds to recover and be strong again.

Today, I am taking a full rest day. I still have to work, at both jobs, but I didn’t run this morning and I will probably take the train instead of biking to my job. I’ve got a big weekend of running ahead of me, and I want to work with my body to get there, not against it.

Are you resting today? How many rest days do you have in a training cycle? How do you like to spend your rest days, in running and life?

#SeenOnMyRun

Definitely enjoying the sunrise and not thinking about how much I want a burrito.

I don’t take many photos when I am out running. With the popularity of Instagram runners and Strava, there is a great incentive to snap a quick pic to prove the workout, but I usually don’t. This is mostly on purpose.

When I am running, I am usually trying to accomplish something. There is a tempo pace or distance I need to hit, or perhaps I am crunched for time and need to get home so I can shower and move on with my day. Running is work for me, and I take most of my runs too seriously. I don’t want to tamper with my workout by stopping to take a photo of a good sunset or pretty flower. I need to keep going, keep pushing, and remember the task at hand.

One of the things I love most about running, though, is that it is an excuse to be outside. Even in the rain, I enjoy running under treetops, next to the beach, on trails, wherever Mother Nature has welcomed me. Running is also a great way to experience a new place, while on vacation or traveling for work, and it’s certainly how I like to enjoy old places that I am returning to after being away.

What happens when I am pushing through workouts, looking at them as work, is that I don’t actually enjoy my surroundings. I am too focused on my watch and what I think I should be doing that I miss the deer quietly watching me from afar. Or, I have my music blaring so loud in order to give me enough motivation to get through the run that I don’t listen to the songs of the birds. I am not in the moment, rather trying to make time move faster to get through it and then brag about it on social media.

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I realized recently that taking pictures while on my runs is actually one way to stop and take in my environment. Sure, I have to pause my watch and it will take a few extra minutes, but when I stop thinking about times and paces I can appreciate it is that I get to watch the sunrise above the city while everyone else is still in bed. I made that specific choice, and it doesn’t need to be all suffering.

There is a way to overdo the seen on my run photos. Stopping every run, especially during the ones that call for speed, seems unnecessary. And, I know that I don’t need to take a photo to enjoy the moment, but the act of taking the photo is a good reminder that I can slow down and remember why I run at all.

This morning, I was up at 5:30 to beat the heat for my run (spoiler alert: it was already hot and humid at that hour). Because it was the day after the Fourth of July, it was fairly quiet. The sun sparkled as it rose over Lake Michigan, and I thought about how lucky I was to see this everyday miracle. Instead of just running past it, I wanted to take it in. To really see it and thank it for being there. I snapped a few photos, took a few breaths, and was on my way. I also turned off the podcast I was listening to take in the stillness of the morning.

This was very much worth getting up at 5:30 for.

I want to take more photos on runs, not to become an Instagram runner (although you should follow me), but in order to get out of my own head and to really appreciate how great our world is. Running should come with goals and work, but it should also bring us closer to all the good things in life. And, we can’t get there if we aren’t living in the moment.

The Holiday (red, white and) Blues

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Around the December festive season, there are tons of articles, tips, and resources for those experiencing the holiday depression. It’s a triggering time for people as they recap on the losses from the year, reminisce holidays that were merry-less, and try to maneuver fraught relationships with family. What we forget, though, is that there are other holidays that can cause an onslaught of emotions.

For me, it’s the Fourth of July.

I know that seems weird, like, who doesn’t like the Fourth of July? All you do is eat hotdogs, watch fireworks, and go to the beach. First, I don’t eat hotdogs (unless they are vegetarian), but it’s not that I am not a fan of Independence Day. Rather, I feel the pressure to have such a star spangledly great day that I end up disappointed and discouraged. You know, like the way many people feel about Christmas.

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Growing up, we weren’t allowed to have fireworks. When my dad was a kid, his neighbor’s roof caught fire because of some stray fireworks, and the event scarred him so much that he refused to let us get some, other than a few smoke bombs. We spent most July Fourths watching other kids delight with glee as they shot off bottle rockets and fountains.

As a teenager, most kids in my town celebrated my drinking cheap beer on a sandbar on the Missouri River. I was never invited to these parties, and although I pretended that I didn’t care, I would have certainly got on a boat if someone offered to take me there.

From there, the mid-summer holiday was a measurement to see how my life is measuring up to those portrayed in advertising or Instagram. A successful Fourth of July meant that I was at the beach, surrounded by tons of my best friends, drinking beer, eating charred food, and wearing red, white, and blue. In the last five years, I’ve had just one Independence Day like that, and although it was a really great day, I’ve felt lonely and ashamed every other holiday. Last year, my husband and I spent most of the day indoors packing for a move to another apartment, and I ended up in tears because no one had invited us to a barbeque, which surely meant that all of my friends decided to hang out without me and that they no longer like me.

Riiiiight.

Social media and other forms of media paint the perfect picture of how we are supposed to live, not just on holidays but basically any day, and it’s quite easy for us to believe that our lives look slightly different than we are doing them wrong. But, that’s just not the truth.

Holidays come and go. Some years will be terrific, and they may look close to what we hoped they would be, but others will not. You may spend them alone, or they’ll have less glitz and glamor, but they have nothing to do with yourself worth. Your life, and all that it contains, can’t be boiled down to one day, so we can’t expect to have the perfect holiday every year.

I know that the Fourth of July is a triggering day for me, and so I can prepare. Some years, I try to make plans with friends, but if it doesn’t come together, I don’t force it. Like this year, I was invited to a barbeque at a friend of a friend’s house, which sends my social anxiety into overdrive, and I have to ask myself: am I going because I want to or because I feel like I need to be at a barbeque? Probably the latter.

Also, I can let go of expectations. I can still have a good Independence Day at home with my husband and our dog (who is terrified of the fireworks, and I am not sure I even feel comfortable leaving her home alone) even if it doesn’t like the Fourth of July’s from TSwift’s Instagram account.

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Instead of being disappointed that I am not on a yacht with a bucket of beer, I am going to thoroughly enjoy the day given to me. I am going to run a race, Skype with an old friend, and take a long deserved nap. Maybe I will go to the beach or watch some fireworks, but maybe not. I am in control.

Holidays are a good time to remind ourselves that we don’t have to be perfect nor live up to the shoulds. We are in charge of our lives, not idealized expectations. For me, the Fourth of July, will be good practice for loving the life in front of me and letting go of all comparisons.

How are you celebrating the Fourth? What could you let go of this Fourth?

The Courage to Start

Most of us runners have had friends and family say, “Oh, I could never run.” They are too fat, too slow, too busy, too out of shape, too afraid, or so they say. However, we know those are just things we tell ourselves to justify our reasons for not doing something. We know, because we’ve been there.

All runners have to start somewhere. Some begin running later in life in attempt to lose weight or improve their health. Some started running as kids and ended up on track and cross country teams. Others took that first run with a friend not knowing how far they could or would go. Starts can happen intentionally or accidentally, and they can occur over and over.

I’ve been running since I was 12 years old, but not consistently. I’ve taken months-long breaks because of life, injury, and laziness, but eventually the urge to run returned. That first run (or really, runs) were not fun. I slogged through slow miles with my knees and sides aching. My fitness was certainly gone, and all the reasons I had avoided running for several weeks seemed justified in those beginning steps. But, I also knew that if I could come out the next day and the day after that then I would reconnect with the love of running. The euphoria and endorphins would again consume me, and I would be smitten.

And that did happen, every single time.

We all have goals that we want to accomplish — run a marathon, change careers, buy a house, write a book — and while the end results seem glorious, the path to get there is daunting. And, when you are looking up a mountain, it’s hard to find that bravery to take the first step.

But, we can’t get there if we refuse to start. The joy, the love, the glorious success will remain figments in our imagination unless we begin.

Yesterday, I went to see a new therapist. Just like running, I’ve been in and out of counseling since I was a teenager, and I was seeing a regular therapist up until last November when I lost my health insurance. In that time out of counseling, my mental health has taken a nose dive, and I’ve been in a pretty dark spot for a few months. As humans, we tend to linger in the negative. It’s an easier, comfortable spot for us, and as someone with depression and anxiety, it’s more familiar to me than joy and happiness. So, when I am there, it’s hard to get out.

Yet, that’s not how I want to live. I want to control my mental health, not the other way around, and to do that, I need help. Reclaiming my mental health isn’t a quick fix, but a long journey of processing thoughts and emotions and filtering the truth from the false. Starting back in therapy feels like training for a marathon without any specific end; it will be a long painful journey but I can’t find content unless I start.

The first appointment, like the first run after a long break, felt a bit awkward, almost as if I forgot how to do this. But then I warmed up, and by the end, I had re-found that high. Not all of my session will feel this good, I know that, but I am not in this for the quick high. I want the long-term benefits, and so I am willing to give it my all week after week.

We often think we can’t start until we are ready. We need more of this or that, or we should wait to begin after such and such. The truth is, now is as good of a time as any to start. You don’t need anything more than what you at this moment but rather just the courage. From there, you can figure out the rest.