and then what happened?

Meredith called me from mile 15.5 to tell me she was in love with her run.

How sweet is THAT?

I love this girl.  I really do.  She's amazing, and inspirational, and ... yeah, I have a little crush.

WTFC

I had a lovely little post ready to run this morning.


It was all about ME and my NARCISSISM...

oh, wait, sorry, it was actually about how running impacts my day to day life, how it makes me a better mother, and how it has touched me in so many ways that I can't begin to name them.

It was encouraging toward those who are suffering or need a little support to get moving.
It was also about Coach Black, who sends silly little notes via email that make me giggle.  or who sends me serious messages that make me think.
And it was about Q who taught me how to say, WTFC, sometimes I actually mean it.
Then again, maybe it was about SpeeDee who made me hang onto a $20 bill so I'd always have a reason to drop by her office at any time.
It could've been about Jsquared who accepted me into their harem... or did I accept them into my posse?
It was also about Mrs J1 who has taught me moore about how to get through life unscarred than she could know.
And let's not forget Maverick, who is pretty to look at, but the real value there is that he always seems to know when I need to hear that I'm OK.
Mostly it was about Earth Mama Mere who showed me what HEART looks like in it's purest form, and Meredith who's shown me what love looks like incarnate and Pixie who showed me that sisters aren't always born to the same family and my running wife, T... who's there for the laughter AND the tears AND the 84 emotions spanning the space between.

In that post I didn't name any of these people though.  I simply talked about how running has shown me more about myself than a 10K PR and which flavor of gatorade makes me vomit.  I talked about how it's my therapy, and how it helps heal me when I have a hole in my soul.  How it keeps me level when I'm feeling out of control, and how it affords me a safe healthy way to vent so I don't vent my frustration at my beautiful children.

But I didn't publish it because of a comment.

A comment that was well aimed.

well, STFU.  Yeah, I f*cking said it.  I dare you to post a comment on this blog using your real identity instead of hiding behind "anonymous".  I DARE you, coward.  But you won't.  You won't because you're a coward.

So yeah.  I blog, and gosh darn it, people ~f*cking~ like me.

a.k.a. the one where I fell asleep with hurt feelings and woke up p.o.'d

If you don't have anything nice to say about someone...

say nothing at all.

running away

Sometimes I wake up and look at the me I am, and the me I was, and I wonder how I got from here to there, or there to here.

In some respects, I'm the best I've ever been.

I'm, at times, brilliantly expressive, ever able to say what's on my mind, what is important to me, what I'm feeling and how all that relates to the person I'm communicating with.  I am verbal to the level of "very".  

That is, I'm very expressive, very talkative, very loud... very clear....

At the same time, I'm very afraid, very unsure.  I lived for a long time with fear that what I say will be the wrong thing, the wrong sentence and at the wrong time.  The punishments were swift, and are never forgotten.  Just as my mistakes were never forgotten, to be relived and rehashed. 

I live on eggshells, with caution dictating my every move.  Years upon years of this behavior has changed my ability to function.  I am not telling you this for sympathy, but more for clarity.

So how did I get here?  Afraid to speak, stumbling over words, and yet openly speaking, very openly speaking, on a public forum, casting caution to the wind?  

I'm not sure.  I have never felt more like two women.  The housewife and the prostitute with one foot in a fairy tale and the other in the abyss. (paulo, who else?)

One will win, one will hide. Or will they merge?  And if that happens, does that leave me in the fairy tale, or in the abyss...? 

And the days when I feel I can't figure it out, when I'm ever seeking a life line, I always come back to one thing. one IMPORTANT thing.  It's probably the most important thing about the core of me, the heart of me, the part that isn't dictated by either of these women...  I can run.

"Sometimes I run, so I don't run away."

One of my Fav's

http://www.runrichmond.com/post/3993059181/fish

it's just SO where I am right now.

Choose your reactions.  You can't choose what happens to you, but you can choose how you react.

And playing and staying IN the moment doesn't hurt either....

Run Time Fun Time

I ran today.

Sorry, that's not news is it?

Let's try again.

I ran today with 2 BQ's and a 1:40something Half Marathoner.

And I hung with them until about mile 6. Not terribly unhappy with THAT.  yeah, well, I had to slow down a bit.  It was a nice run though.

Got caught up with my friends, and didn't die.

What can I say, my standards are low.

I miss you people.  I am almost at the end of the semester, and I'm back to running for the love of the sport, rather than because i'm training for something... I'm all "schmoopy" about my run love.

let me clarify

Never confuse disappointment with defeat.  These are two totally different things.

Yea 10K!

A few months ago I decided I was going to train for and crush a 10K.

expo!
KC, GBA GF, 3L and DeNiece

And then I got hurt and missed weeks of training.
And then I had a massive personal crisis come crashing down on me.
And then I was diagnosed with a severe vitamin deficiency. (yeah, weird)
And then my stress management went so far into the tank I quit eating and lost 10 pounds in 24 days.

And then .... it was almost race day.




I missed quite a few training runs.  In fact, I missed 2 whole weeks of training, and came back to running one run at a time.  At one point, 5 weeks before the race I was down to running 2X/week.

Oh, and there's the little detail where I had an anaphylactic reaction to something on Friday night.  So seriously that I consumed 2 adult doses of Benadryl and had to hit up my rescue inhaler so I could continue to breathe.

Interestingly, I'm not allergic to many things at that level... only 1 I'm aware of....

So here it's race morning, and not only do I not know how fast to try to run, I'm not sure if I should even start the race.

I met up with my posse.  And decided

"Awe screw it.

I want to run.  This a big day for ALL my A10K training team friends and I want to share it with them.  So, I WANT TO RUN.

Even if I suck, I'm going to run.

One day I'm going to look back and say, 'I stared stress in the eye and told him to eff off'."

So there you go.

It wasn't going to be the perfect day.  But I knew that it was going to be a good day.

in the corral with Illusive, WnW, and Karasmatic.
I think that combination should have been
indicative of how great the day could go....

I believed that I was going to have a great run, no doubt about that. I knew it might not be a PR, or a banner day, but those things do not define a runner. Heart, passion, conviction and dedication are a better measure than pace, speed and time achieved.

We had a giant group hug, like we always do pre-race, and then we all split up.  I got a last squeeze and "Good Luck" from Coach J1 as we all headed to our corrals.  42,000 people at the 10K... and I was seeded in corral C with Karasmatic, Illusive Dave, and WnW.

I ran with a plan to hang on for the first half and push as hard as possible for the 2nd half.

I stripped my shirt off about .2 miles into the race and ran clear.

I sounded horrible and probably looked worse.  

Kristi, 3L, Karasmatic, GBA gf

And none of that mattered in the moment.

As I finished 56 seconds ahead of my "planned" finish time I realized that I ran pretty near even splits.  And as I crossed the line I thought, "I can beat this time."

BiolaBud, KC, J1, GBA GF

After the race we met the whole A10K gang at a RVA hang out and had breakfast and cocktails.  Because life is better with friends.

And Saturday's race was really about being with my people.

felt I had to add in a little edit here... I ran a 49:04, which is exactly a 5:50 PR...  so, just to be clear, I did kick my own a**, at least a little bit.