The Continuing Adventures of the Marathon Moms

Thanks in large part to an outpouring of support from RW readers, Dimity and I are continuing to post here and here. We look forward to you visiting us there!

-SBS

One Chapter Ends, Another Begins

I'm not an early adopter--I've never taken a picture with my cell phone, which is a plain, flip-up version; we still have more VHS tapes than DVD's--so it's surprising massive changes are coming to my life before January 20th, when our country will swear in an Asics-wearing Commander-in-Chief.

Change #1: I'm stepping up.
My husband, who has also been a freelance writer for the past 1.5 years, is starting an official job (cubicle, benefits, 401k, the real deal) today in Denver. It's great for a number of reasons, but there's one big strike against it, one that we discussed at length before he accepted the position. His commute will be at least 75 minutes each way--he'll do about half of it on light-rail, so he'll save some sanity, CO2 emissions and gas--which means I'm going to be "on" from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., five days a week. Or, put in more concrete terms: I'll be flying solo during the crazy morning school preparation and delivery (don't forget: lunches, jackets, library books, leotard for gymnastics, show-and-tells, etc., etc.). And, I'll also have no wingman during the post-school exhaustion that manifests itself in tantrums at dinner because the plate is the wrong color (of course it is!) or because Ben wanted to sit in the front, not the back, of the bath.
    I realize many families have situations far more taxing than this, but to me, who is used to both a husband who leaves around 9 a.m. and returns around 5:30 p.m. and a very fluid routine--we can easily cover for each other when we come up against oddly scheduled interviews or long runs or sick kids--the thought of the rigid schedule leaves me with a pit in my stomach.
    I'm still doing mental gymnastics as I figure out how I'll get in workouts, dog walks and my assignments. I take care of Ben Tuesdays and Thursdays, so I can deposit him at the Y daycare and do my thing, and as painful as 5:15 a.m. spinning classes sound, I know I can swing it at least once a week. I'm already a morning person; I just have to become a really early morning person. I'm also going to have to be more disciplined when it's work time--two Facebook checks a day, max--and the dogs might put on some winter weight. I doubt they'll notice.
    My strategy is to approach the situation like marathon training: the first few runs, you think, was I drunk when I signed up to run 26.2? But then you settle into a rhythm, and your mind and body--and schedule and family--shift to make room for your new ambitions, which begin to feel very doable, and very right.

Change #2: I'm chilling.
So this isn't that much of a surprise, but, thanks in no small part from advice and chiding from you, I've really shifted my mentality from must-have-endorphin-fix to must-get-better. The bad news is, my laying off--and strengthening and rolling and stretching my IT Band--doesn't seem to be helping that much.  So I've finally made an appointment with an orthopedic doctor for another perspective.
    The looming appointment has carved another pit in my gut. I'm terrified of him telling me that my knee is raw and stripped of all cartilage and saying something like, "It's yoga or nothing for the rest of your life." But ignorance has been far from bliss for me at this point, and hey, maybe I can embrace the challenge of a mastering a handstand as I have triathlons. (Probably not, and, plus, I don't think there are any 5 a.m. yoga classes around here...)

Change #3: Marathon Moms is on the run.
As Sarah told you in her last entry, our blog here, in it second reincarnation, is now ending. We can't thank you all enough for reading, sharing and laughing with us; the bond of running is so powerful, we feel like we could run into any one of you at a race and act like we are old friends. (And we have met a bunch of you: thanks for letting us know you're out there!) We're going to keep on keeping on here, so tune in often.
    I'll be honest though: I need a bit of a break from framing my world through a running-centric lens right now, so I'm also going to start my own blog: Ironing It Out. The nebulous title, which doesn't put a lid on any content, is a nod to a place I'll detail not only the wrinkles of my life as a working, athletic mother (and probably my real wrinkles too), but also celebrate the times when things come out freshly pressed, post too many pictures of my kids and hopefully get to chronicle my journey to the start (and, ideally, the end) of an Ironman, a feat I hope to undertake in the next three to five years.
    Given my current bum leg and schedule that will leave me breathless even before I work out, that goal seems a little crazy even to me, who has dreamed of doing one since I was about ten years old. But I believe that virtually putting it out there might just help the stars align.
    And even if I never get there, I hope you'll come along for the ride.

Season's End

As I run through red and yellow leaves piled by the side of the road and dodge falling acorns and chestnuts, I’m reminded of The Byrds’ song, “Turn, Turn, Turn,” that 1960s classic about the cyclical nature of the world. (Sing it with me, “To everything-—turn, turn, turn/There is a season-—turn, turn, turn/And a time for every purpose under heaven.”)

I just ended my athletic season, the first real one I’ve had since college. It started with the Hood to Coast in late August, moved into a rowing race and the Merrell Oyster adventure race in September, then crescendoed last month with the Nike Women’s Half Marathon and a gold-medal rowing race.

Like the song says, my season allowed for “a time to build up, a time to break down.” Rather than just doing willy-nilly workouts, I had a game plan every week with specific goals in mind. It really paid off, especially with my 1:53 in the half (toot-toot!), and now I’m enjoying some downtime. Because I’m me, this doesn’t mean sleeping in or imbibing pumpkin ale. Instead, I’m running without a watch or Garmin, and swimming laps for the first time in ages. I’ll return to the track, hill repeats, and long runs toward the end of the month as I rev up for a half-marathon in mid-January and then, drumroll please, the Eugene Marathon on May 3. (Yes, Christmas came early to our house—-last night at dinner, Jack signed off on me running it.)

As excited as I am about those races, I’ll enter into my training with a bit of a heavy heart as I won’t be sharing it with you all: The Marathon Moms blog comes to an end next week. It’s been a grand run, and I’ve so loved sharing my athletic, professional, and family life with you. I feel so much more connected to running and the community of runners. Let’s all keep up the good work, and I hope our paths literally cross during the next season. For now, it’s a time to dance, embrace, and love. Turn, turn, turn.

-SBS

What I Talk About When I Talk about Running

So as I'm not running--I promise, not a step taken this week faster than a walk, except to scoop up Ben as he waddled into the street solo--I did the next best thing: read about running. And actually, that may even be better than the actual act, since I can vicariously live through endorphin highs and crazy bonks while munching on Halloween leftovers lying on our bed.

Haruki Murakami, a Japanese writer, has written, or translated, almost as many novels as miles he has logged; he started running about 25 years ago, after selling his jazz club, in an effort to quit smoking and live a healthier life. Since then, he's run Boston and New York numerous times, finished at least one 100k
and competed in triathlons too. I confess, he hadn't really registered with me before What I Talk about When I Talk about Running, but the title, a spin-off of Raymond Carver's much acclaimed collection of short stories, caught my eye, and I wanted in. Except that I try not to buy books these days, so I had to wait in a virtual line of about 28 other readers/library card carriers, which took about two months, before I got to dig in.

You can easily tell if I like a book by the number of flipped-down corners it has; I use a piece of paper to mark my progress in the book, but flip down the corners when there's a passage that resonates with me so I can write down in my own journal. This book is now wider than it used to be because his words hit me so many times. (I realize this is a minor library faux pas, but I promise, I upturn the corners again after copying the text.) Perhaps because Murakami's text is translated from Japanese to English, his essays are refreshingly simple, and, in my runner's mind, chillingly accurate. For example, a passage talking about new female Harvard students he encounters while running along the Charles River in Boston:

"Compared to them [[the girls]] I'm pretty used to losing. There are plenty of things in this world that are way beyond me, plenty of opponents I can never beat. Not to brag, but these girls probably don't know as much as I do about pain. And, quite naturally, there might not be a need for them to know it. These random thoughts come to me as I watch their proud ponytails swinging back and forth, their aggressive strides...
Have I ever had such luminous days in my own life? Perhaps a few. But even if I had a long ponytail back then, I doubt if it would have swung so proudly as these girls' ponytails do. And my legs wouldn't have kicked the ground as cleanly and as powerfully as theirs...
Still, it's pretty wonderful to watch these pretty girls run. As I do, I'm struck by an obvious thought: One generation takes over from the next. This is how things are handed over in this world, so I don't feel so bad if they pass me. These girls have their own pace, their own sense of time. And I have my own pace, my own sense of time. The two are completely different, but that's the way it should be."

My knee has probably felt more pain this past year than all those girls combined and I've never swished a ponytail--real or imaginary--in my whole life. And having kids? Talk about finally understanding the fleetingness of life. Not a day goes by when I don't think about what the future holds for my piglets: Will one of them play the guitar? Will high school be painful for them? What kind of drivers will they be? Will they like me when they're my age? I love that a 50-something Japanese man, through the language and thoughts of a sport we both love, can connect with me so easily. I love that running has that kind of power.

Like so many people huffing and puffing out there, running for Murakami doesn't come easily. But he dives into the effort and actually sees a reason for in the pain:
"There were times when [[during a triathlon]], I wanted to chuck it all. But pain seems to be a precondition for this kind of sport. If pain weren't involved, who would [[ever do a marathon or triathlon]]? It's precisely because of the pain, precisely because we want to overcome that pain, that we can get the feeling...of really being alive."

The vibrations that course through my weary body after a tough run or race--those of relief, lactic acid, pride--stem directly from conquering the challenge, conquering the pain, and realizing I have the ability to come out on top. I love that I get to hum like that regularly; in fact, I'm pretty convinced that running is one of the most powerful drugs going.

Even finding the time to bring on the pain is a universal conundrum, and again my virtual doppelganger a continent away, nails it:
"Running every day is a kind of lifeline for me, so I'm not going to lay off or quit just because I'm busy. If I used being busy as excuse not to run, I'd never run again. I have only a few reasons to keep on running, and a truckload of them to quit. All I can do is keep those few reasons nicely polished."

Those nicely polished reasons led, thankfully, to the creation What I Think About When I Think About Running. Pick it up if you need a reason or two for yourself.

--Dimity

Change You Can Count On

When you’re running, do you halt mid-stride to pick up a penny? Does a nickel stop you in your tracks? How about a dime? Surely, you must bend down when you spot a quarter?

If you can’t tell, I’m thrifty (it’s hardwired into my DNA, right, Dad?), so you better believe that I almost always screech to a halt when I spot moola on the street during my runs. I pick it up, stash it in my skirt pocket, then bring it home to Phoebe for her piggybank. It’s rare for me to find just a single penny or a nickel on my runs. Maybe it’s because I live in a relatively urban area, but once I spy a coin on my route, I almost always find more money during that run. It’s not unusual to come home with a nickel, dime, and several pennies jangling together.

Or maybe I’m just a money-magnet: One time on a trail run, after taking a wrong turn, I spied $8 on the ground. Talk about “pay dirt!” I thought I’d hit the jackpot again a few weeks ago on a pre-dawn tempo run. There I was, motoring along in the dark, when I spied coppery glints on the road under a streetlight. I was cruising and didn’t want to take a break (well, I did but I wasn’t supposed to…) but as I quickly scanned the ground, I realized it was a handful of coins, not just one or two. So I pulled up and started picking them up. By the time I’d fished them all off the ground, my heart rate had returned to normal and my breathing had slowed.

As I was about to stuff the pennies into my pocket, I caught a glimpse of their faces in the light—-maple leaves. The coins were Canadian! Chump change.

-SBS

Race Jewelry

Forget clunky medals that get ditched in a drawer and forgotten: Finishers of Nike Women’s Marathon get a custom-designed Tiffany necklace when they cross the finish line. For some runners, it’s the little blue box, handed out by a hunky firefighter, that keeps them going during their training and race. Dimity, for one, was really jazzed about getting the bling after our 26.2-mile slog last year. Me, not so much.

 

It’s nutty, then, that a year+ later, I’m the one who sports that necklace almost every day. For a month or two after that disappointing-for-me marathon, the little square necklace lived in its blue nest. I didn’t want to wear a daily reminder of my slowest marathon ever. But I kept spotting the charm on women around town (let’s remember: I live in Portland, a runner’s paradise that’s just over the hill from Nike HQ), and I liked how it looked. Around the New Year, I broke out the sterling silver pendant and started wearing it. By then my sense of defeat had dissipated, and I felt like being part of a tribe of hip chicks wearing the necklace. Around here, most women wore it backwards—-Swoosh side out--so I imitated the cool-kids by doing the same.

 

Come October, I was psyched to get the necklace at the end of the half. As soon as I laid eyes on it, I thought for sure the 2008 version would become my new everyday standard. Not only was it way cuter and more substantial than last year’s version, but it represented a kickass race for me—I crushed the hills thanks to all my hill training and ran 1:53, averaging 8:41-minute miles. (WOOOOO-HOOOOOO!) Yup, I thought, this new flower-shaped pendant would be my daily reminder of the stronger, swifter Sarah.

 

Nope: I wore it for the first few days post-marathon last week, but it just didn’t suit me. I kept eyeing the smaller, tarnished pendant that had hung around my neck for so many runs, so many rowing practices this year. I tried wearing the two pendants together, but the shapes aren’t compatible, and this year’s version is so shiny in comparison. By mid-week, I was back to the 2007 necklace, the new one tucked away.

 

But I am sporting a reminder from this year’s race. A special bracelet. Tiffany & Co. designers didn’t craft it, and it’s not shiny sterling. No one compliments me on it, and it doesn’t usually go with any of my outfits. Yet it’s become my favorite race keepsake. It’s my quickly fading, increasing tattered black wristband that got me into the fastest starting corral at the half. I’ve been wearing it almost two weeks now, yet I still get a thrill every time I look down at the “6:30-8:59” on it. It’s a constant reminder of my new pace, and I’m mighty proud of it. I’m wearing it until it falls off.

 

-SBS

Trying to Slow Down

Did I just run a half-marathon last week? Seriously? Because if you would've seen me during yoga this morning, you'd have thought that I was coming from a brutal routine of regularly walking from the couch to the fridge a couple times a day. The instructor came up to me, as I was simultaneously lunging and twisting and desperately trying to focus on my breath so that I didn't zero in on the fact that my muscles were going to snap in half. As she tweaked my twist just a little deeper—one of those adjustments that is perhaps a centimeter in space but echoes through my body for miles—my left leg accelerated its shaking from a chatter to a full-blown Elvis impression. "Are you OK?" she whispered. "Yeah, my leg is just tired, I guess," I said, and concentrated even more on my exhale, filled with relief, as she walked away.

Even though it's been a week since the race, today was officially the start of Chapter One: Really Going to Heal my Left Leg This Time. For Real. The preface didn't go very well. Took Monday off: all good. Tuesday, spun my legs out for 35 minutes on the bike, then did some light strength work, nearly all devoted to the IT band and surrounding muscles. I could get used to this, I thought. Wednesday, got into the pool for the first time in months; initial laps were refreshing and I couldn't believe how fit I felt. Then something—a flip-turn, during which I mangle into a mess of limbs with no grace or fluidity, more botched than usual; a bad push-off the wall as a result of that turn; too much kicking—sent the searing skewer right back into my knee. The rest of the day, I was teary because, in my mind, I was going to make swimming my new running for the weeks or months I need off to heal. Maybe not. Thursday, not really thinking at all, except craving a sweat, I ran. Just 25 minutes, and just slowly, but, as you might guess, I should've thought before I did. Friday, some strength and DIY yoga and massage. Saturday, off. Sunday, set out for a run (I can't even explain why, except it was nice outside, the kids were fighting over markers and I needed to get away), then—finally, smartly—turned around within five minutes. 

Which brings me to yoga this morning.

After my muscles finally gave into the tropical temps in the room and loosened up, I realized that right now, my legs are trained to run, not Warrior I, and thinking I can seamlessly jump from one activity to the other is presumptuous. So I stopped some asanas mid-stream and sank into child's pose, I didn't attempt a headstand, and otherwise did my best to release my half-marathon ego. I felt both calm and excited as I lay in corpse pose.

Then I walked outside, into the freezing morning air, and the skewer, apparently, wanted to get a jump start on its week and announce itself early. Dang it, dang it. So did the trembling yoga session help or hurt? Not entirely sure, but my hunch is help, although I'll need some reinforcements to confirm that. On tap for this week: treating myself to a massage, taking at least one more yoga class and one home session, rejoining the Y so I have a place to strength train (and take spinning classes when my gotta-get-outta-here gauge maxes out on the weekends).

I'm going to finish this chapter and, like any good writer, I have already planned for the reader's (and my) take-away: Pain is bad, running, for now, is probably worse, but downward dog is always a good place to rest.

--Dimity