Yesterday, I ran farther than I've run in months. I'm really, really slow. But that's okay. I'll get there. My ankle is relatively pain free this week, easing up from the past two weeks of pain ranging from intense to minor. But none of it as bad as it was six months ago. I can also handle these mild episodes under the assumption that I'm not doing any serious damage and that eventually, as they are fading and becoming less in occurrence and intensity, these incidences will become negligible.
I head to the doctor tomorrow to find out what the final prognosis is. I'm reasonably confident that he'll release me, given that I run in my brace. I don't think my ankle is ready to go without. So... two for the money, three for the show... or whatever that good luck thing is.
In other news, I'm thinking about doing something crazy, something I've been wanting to do for a while. And why not now, as I ramp up my training? I've been wanting to try a shorter time trial for a while... given, I'm currently out of shape on the bike. I have a lot of work to do to put in anything resembling a decent showing. I'll still get my little butt kicked. It should be fun, though :) I'm ecstatic!
I'll be undertaking the seven mile Berry Peddler Time Trial in May, unless something crazy happens to prevent my presence. So I think that means that as soon as I get through this week of higher running commitment in one piece, I'll be spending a lot of time on good ol Bikey!
27 March, 2013
20 March, 2013
Why I Love to Run.
Paul and I were talking about this a couple days ago, and I think it begs to be said: I love to run. Don't get me wrong. I have good days, and I have bad days. I'm not particularly fast. But there's nothing like it.
I often hear others say they only work out because of how they feel afterwards. Or that they do it to look good. Sometimes that's me, but most times, I'm just doing it because I enjoy it.
My love affair with running started in high school. I was a pudgy girl. A friend of mine returned from summer break, newly slim and lovely, and I asked what she had been doing. She told me she picked up running that summer. I was baffled... "Running?" I asked. I couldn't grasp how she could run very far. As our conversation continued, she told me she would run out, and run as far as she could without feeling too tired to turn around and make it back to her house.
Intrigued, I decided to try it. The most running I had ever done was around the basketball courts in elementary PE and chasing after balls in softball games. I put on my running shoes my parents had bought me for softball practice indoors, and set out to run to a bridge maybe a quarter mile away. I kept going... and going... I'm sure it wasn't that far, but back then, running captured my soul for the same reason it does now.
There's something... earthy... spiritual... about transporting your body across the earth. I can imagine my very distant ancestors traversing the world by foot, exploring, looking for new things to see, places to live and find food, walking and running. It's primordial. It's real. It's something buried deep within the fabric of who I am. I love it.
Running has gotten me through many a rough spot. Break ups. Personal struggles. Post-pregnancy, I'm a mom and I don't know what to do with myself blues. It's shown me that I have a bang-up work ethic and that I am pretty damn tenacious when I want something.
I'm a long way from the girl running to lose weight. Lots of times now, I run with the intent of being able to increase my aerobic capacity. My personal favorites are short, hard interval workouts to build anaerobic capacity. But lately, as I come back from my injury, I'm rediscovering running, remembering why I love it, and I think it's worth doing. If I only perform the activities I do with the intent of getting faster, what have I gained?
As I proceed through the busy race season, I need to stay centered, balancing my love for the sport with my love of speed. There's a girl in me who really has fallen back in love with running... I'm sure as the summer wears on, I'll begin to see it as a chore, but right now, I'm ready to get the party started :)
I often hear others say they only work out because of how they feel afterwards. Or that they do it to look good. Sometimes that's me, but most times, I'm just doing it because I enjoy it.
My love affair with running started in high school. I was a pudgy girl. A friend of mine returned from summer break, newly slim and lovely, and I asked what she had been doing. She told me she picked up running that summer. I was baffled... "Running?" I asked. I couldn't grasp how she could run very far. As our conversation continued, she told me she would run out, and run as far as she could without feeling too tired to turn around and make it back to her house.
Intrigued, I decided to try it. The most running I had ever done was around the basketball courts in elementary PE and chasing after balls in softball games. I put on my running shoes my parents had bought me for softball practice indoors, and set out to run to a bridge maybe a quarter mile away. I kept going... and going... I'm sure it wasn't that far, but back then, running captured my soul for the same reason it does now.
There's something... earthy... spiritual... about transporting your body across the earth. I can imagine my very distant ancestors traversing the world by foot, exploring, looking for new things to see, places to live and find food, walking and running. It's primordial. It's real. It's something buried deep within the fabric of who I am. I love it.
Running has gotten me through many a rough spot. Break ups. Personal struggles. Post-pregnancy, I'm a mom and I don't know what to do with myself blues. It's shown me that I have a bang-up work ethic and that I am pretty damn tenacious when I want something.
I'm a long way from the girl running to lose weight. Lots of times now, I run with the intent of being able to increase my aerobic capacity. My personal favorites are short, hard interval workouts to build anaerobic capacity. But lately, as I come back from my injury, I'm rediscovering running, remembering why I love it, and I think it's worth doing. If I only perform the activities I do with the intent of getting faster, what have I gained?
As I proceed through the busy race season, I need to stay centered, balancing my love for the sport with my love of speed. There's a girl in me who really has fallen back in love with running... I'm sure as the summer wears on, I'll begin to see it as a chore, but right now, I'm ready to get the party started :)
15 March, 2013
A Few Rambling, Happy Odds and Ends
It's Friday. And my toddler is sleeping. Down the rabbit hole we go, for the express purpose of a catch-all post to talk about a few different things...
Thanks to a few different sources, I have become Everest obsessed. Realistically and figuratively. In the very real sense, I know I will never climb Everest... or any of the Himalaya for that matter. This all probably started years ago, when I had my teeth removed before my braces were installed. In both instances, my mother and I would leave the dentist's office and drop by the local video store. One of those trips, I picked up two movies that forever changed how I look at the world. One was Seven Years in Tibet. My brother and I still intentionally misquote a line from the movie where Pitt's character is sitting in the train as, "It's Princess Leia!" (Actually, "It's the Himalaya!") For a kid filled with wanderlust, this movie captured so much of my imagination. (I always think of wanderlust as this huge, wonderful, beautiful, melancholic emptiness inside my chest. It looks like the plains in Texas. And it can only be sated and filled with new places and things, far and near, large and small.)
More recently, friends have contributed to my book list with recommendations for books like Into Thin Air by Krakauer. Which has fed into watching every blessed documentary about Everest, K2, and the like I can find. I've always loved mountains. I grew up obsessed with them, looking out to the outskirts of El Paso and seeing them loom in the distance. Obsessed. So now, here I am, thirty, and longing for the capstones of the earth, wishing only to see them...
Perhaps that has fed into my latest sports affinity in some way. For Valentine's Day, Paul and I went to the indoor climbing gym. It was my first time, and I knew I'd either loathe or love it. And of course, I loved it. It's high. Which makes my heart beat hard. I had the expectation it would be in a bad way. But it's good. I like the mental challenge, combined with the physicality. Paul still kicks my butt. It's teaching me to be sure of myself and to trust myself.
And finally, in a right hand turn at a four way stop from where we were, I find myself compelled to address what I've been doing with my hair. A little history: for almost ten years, I've washed my hair four times a week at most. Sometimes I might go a month. This worked for me for a long time. Until the past six months, probably. I started feeling like whether I washed my hair or didn't wash it, it looked terrible. Lackluster, flat, frizzy... and no good solution presented itself.
About a month ago, I was on the verge of getting my hair cut. I was mostly holding out for my best friend's wedding in May, then it was all going to have to go. I happened upon something about the no-poo method on pinterest, and went from there. A month later, my hair looks *good*. It looks healthy, it's growing well. My hair has never looked like this when it's long...
No-poo is easy and ridiculously cheap. Baking soda to wash your hair, and recommended for conditioning is vinegar. I've had a tough time reconciling myself to the vinegar. I struggled for the first couple weeks with a vinegar smell emanating from my locks when I was working out, and I didn't feel like I was getting the conditioning I needed. In the end, I've returned to conditioner. Now, though, I use it just on the very tips of my hair, and eventually I'll drop it entirely. My sole complaint is that in the period of normalization that is necessary for your hair to balance its oil production, your hair looks pretty rough. But it's worth it. I promise. Just as all things that are hard are worth doing, so is this :)
Thanks to a few different sources, I have become Everest obsessed. Realistically and figuratively. In the very real sense, I know I will never climb Everest... or any of the Himalaya for that matter. This all probably started years ago, when I had my teeth removed before my braces were installed. In both instances, my mother and I would leave the dentist's office and drop by the local video store. One of those trips, I picked up two movies that forever changed how I look at the world. One was Seven Years in Tibet. My brother and I still intentionally misquote a line from the movie where Pitt's character is sitting in the train as, "It's Princess Leia!" (Actually, "It's the Himalaya!") For a kid filled with wanderlust, this movie captured so much of my imagination. (I always think of wanderlust as this huge, wonderful, beautiful, melancholic emptiness inside my chest. It looks like the plains in Texas. And it can only be sated and filled with new places and things, far and near, large and small.)
More recently, friends have contributed to my book list with recommendations for books like Into Thin Air by Krakauer. Which has fed into watching every blessed documentary about Everest, K2, and the like I can find. I've always loved mountains. I grew up obsessed with them, looking out to the outskirts of El Paso and seeing them loom in the distance. Obsessed. So now, here I am, thirty, and longing for the capstones of the earth, wishing only to see them...
Perhaps that has fed into my latest sports affinity in some way. For Valentine's Day, Paul and I went to the indoor climbing gym. It was my first time, and I knew I'd either loathe or love it. And of course, I loved it. It's high. Which makes my heart beat hard. I had the expectation it would be in a bad way. But it's good. I like the mental challenge, combined with the physicality. Paul still kicks my butt. It's teaching me to be sure of myself and to trust myself.
And finally, in a right hand turn at a four way stop from where we were, I find myself compelled to address what I've been doing with my hair. A little history: for almost ten years, I've washed my hair four times a week at most. Sometimes I might go a month. This worked for me for a long time. Until the past six months, probably. I started feeling like whether I washed my hair or didn't wash it, it looked terrible. Lackluster, flat, frizzy... and no good solution presented itself.
About a month ago, I was on the verge of getting my hair cut. I was mostly holding out for my best friend's wedding in May, then it was all going to have to go. I happened upon something about the no-poo method on pinterest, and went from there. A month later, my hair looks *good*. It looks healthy, it's growing well. My hair has never looked like this when it's long...
No-poo is easy and ridiculously cheap. Baking soda to wash your hair, and recommended for conditioning is vinegar. I've had a tough time reconciling myself to the vinegar. I struggled for the first couple weeks with a vinegar smell emanating from my locks when I was working out, and I didn't feel like I was getting the conditioning I needed. In the end, I've returned to conditioner. Now, though, I use it just on the very tips of my hair, and eventually I'll drop it entirely. My sole complaint is that in the period of normalization that is necessary for your hair to balance its oil production, your hair looks pretty rough. But it's worth it. I promise. Just as all things that are hard are worth doing, so is this :)
07 March, 2013
The Race.
I've been watching my life, and the lives of my loved ones lately. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that life is full of challenges. These challenges will shake you to your core. I always like to think the things I learn out on the road and in the water are applicable to life itself. And I suppose they are.
Life is about endurance. At the beginning of most races I've decided to do, most often during the swim, I regret making the choice to don my kit and goggles that morning. But as I keep going along, I muddle through the misery to find things aren't that bad after all. I often think the beauty of endurance sports is finding our outer limits and pushing through them. That's true on a grander, macro-level scale. But a race is composed of tiny moments where we continue to push through pain, doubt, frustration. Those are what make the race.
Why do we delve deep into our nature, our spirit like this? Because that's how you make it through. Through to the moments where whatever you are doing feels good again. Regardless of the choice you make, you are seeking your limits and exploding through them, as long as you keep moving forward. You can't change a crappy swim, just like you have no control over the millions of bad things that happen in your life. Innumerable times, the things we have control over, we screw up anyway. We're humans, not God. We're designed to mess up everything.
So you messed up. You ran out too hard out of transition. You have to carry that with you for the rest of the race. That doesn't mean you can't keep going and finish strong. It's your race to worry about, to tinker with, to mess up, and to push through. No one else's. Sometimes we get flats, have wrecks, or get chafing... sometimes life deals us a hand that's challenging. I see people who kill it daily. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. In spite of their challenges.
Where am I going with this? We all have bad things happen. In real life, just like in races. Life is what you make of it. Take the bad, and turn it into good.
Life is about endurance. At the beginning of most races I've decided to do, most often during the swim, I regret making the choice to don my kit and goggles that morning. But as I keep going along, I muddle through the misery to find things aren't that bad after all. I often think the beauty of endurance sports is finding our outer limits and pushing through them. That's true on a grander, macro-level scale. But a race is composed of tiny moments where we continue to push through pain, doubt, frustration. Those are what make the race.
Why do we delve deep into our nature, our spirit like this? Because that's how you make it through. Through to the moments where whatever you are doing feels good again. Regardless of the choice you make, you are seeking your limits and exploding through them, as long as you keep moving forward. You can't change a crappy swim, just like you have no control over the millions of bad things that happen in your life. Innumerable times, the things we have control over, we screw up anyway. We're humans, not God. We're designed to mess up everything.
So you messed up. You ran out too hard out of transition. You have to carry that with you for the rest of the race. That doesn't mean you can't keep going and finish strong. It's your race to worry about, to tinker with, to mess up, and to push through. No one else's. Sometimes we get flats, have wrecks, or get chafing... sometimes life deals us a hand that's challenging. I see people who kill it daily. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. In spite of their challenges.
Where am I going with this? We all have bad things happen. In real life, just like in races. Life is what you make of it. Take the bad, and turn it into good.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
