Dead A** Last

I over-slept this morning.  I was toying with the idea of randomly showing up on the fly to run with my friend SpeeDee.  She’s usually at a particular intersection at 5:20 a.m.  I didn’t give her a heads up though, because I was so tired after my day of work yesterday that I thought, if I wake up and am too sore to run, I’ll stay in bed and run later.  

So yeah.  That was my half-formed half-assed mental plan as I set my alarm and dozed off.

I bolted awake at 4:56 a.m. with a catchy alarm tune singing in my ear, my heart in my throat, and a run on my mind.

I need to run, I said, as I flew out of bed.  I tossed, tugged, pulled and laced, and 7 minutes later I was outside... walking my dogs.

C’mon dogs... c’mon!  I’ve got to...  there’s no way I’m making it to SpeeDee’s run.  Aaaaannnddd I think I knew that when I got dressed in these running clothes, but at least I made the effort.

There’s another run that goes from the same intersection at 0530 and I knew I could still make it.  Oh freaking five thirty.  I’ve never tried to run with them before.  I know they’re fast.  Ed and Harry Potter are frequently among them and there’s a little voice that echo's my old sentiments, “no way am I trying to run with Those People...” 

Except lately I’ve been advised to tell my inner voice to STFU.  That the little inner voice is holding me back from great things.  So I declared to myself, as I buckled my seatbelt and yanked the car into drive, “The Inner Voice of Sense and Reason is to be ignored for the rest of today”. 

Starting at 0505 this morning, I put her on mute.

Maybe not my best idea, but let’s not get off topic.

I drove to the Rogue Run thinking, Why the F*ck not? Right?  May as well go kick my ass this morning, and why worry if I don’t know the route?  Why fret if I don’t know who will be there?  Or that the people I do know will be there are blistering fast runners?  I mean, Hey, what could happen?

I'm GBA gf.  I’ve got this.

I so did not “got this”.

Mile 1 was an 8:45 ish pace....  That was the warm up?  After that, things got interesting.  I worked every single step of the run.  Every. Single. Step.

The group has a system for mixing paces called “back to last”.  The fastest runners occasionally loop all the way back to the end of the pack to “pick up” the last runner.  Then they run off again, and loop back again.

Good stuff.

Great.

Awesome.

Except for the part of the morning that went like this, “Are you last?”

“Yep,” I replied.  “Last.... that’s me.... ”

That was not an awesome feeling.

Mentally, this was a challenging place to find myself.  I’m not that slow, am I?  I mean, as I looked down at the 8:18 on my watch and watched the group pull away from me like I was yogging (I think it's a soft j), I thought, “butbutbutbut... I’m running a freaking 8:18!”

And then I thought -

So, you're running a freaking 8:18?  It seems that to keep up with them this morning you need to be running a freaking 8:00.  Pick it up, G.

Each time the group circled back to last, and lest we forget, I was dead ass last, I would try to push my dead ass last self a little harder.

I barely held it together at points.  It freaking sucked to watch them blow past me and pull away again and again.  I wanted to cut the route short, but I knew that if I kept pushing to hang onto the group that my dear friend LongLegsLeslie (3L) would loop back to me, and WineNOTwhine (WnW) would be near by to encourage me.  I thought, I’ll borrow some energy from Harry Potter as he runs by me next time.  MTT Coach Michael escorted me up a long dark hill, feeding me words of strength as we climbed.

I remember thinking that this was a hard run, maybe the hardest run of my life, because it is mentally difficult to watch the group pull away.  I suppose some people would quit; some would choose to cut the route and go a different way.

That's not where I let my head go.  I wanted to be in the group.  I wanted to go faster, to push harder.  I was hungry for the pain that accompanies running faster than one's comfort zone.  I wanted to run side by side, in the conversation, rubbing elbows with the pack.

Mental toughness today wasn’t about the run. 

It was about hanging on to the hard effort even though my effort would only ensure that I was still dead ass last.  I didn’t really finish dead ass last, exactly.  The last group of “back to last” nestled me into the fold and we all ran in together... at an 8:25.

Brook, another runner I don't know at all, said, "What was the mileage?  My watch must've thought it was a hard run too, 'cos it died."

I looked down and my mouth formed a little "oh".  

While the "back to last" gang must've run further, I still managed to knock out 7.20 miles in 1:03:07.  not bad, not bad at all.

Today at the end of the run I was raw.  My legs felt like ground beef... beef that had been pounded with a mallet... and possibly fed to some carnivore...  I flopped on a chair near some other runners in the brightly lit coffee shop.  The buzz of endorphins was as impossible to miss as the caffeine in my cup.  It felt good to hurt that bad in the company of others.

Despite the pain and misery of the morning, as soon as I got home I looked at my calendar.  I wanted to know when I could have the privilege of being dead ass last again.

~ savor the run ~ respect the distance ~

100 Days of Gratitude

About 4 months ago I realized that my life wasn’t exactly going to go the way I expected.  

One day I was driving down the road I was mapped on with a smile on my face, and the next day, my car started to slide.  I jerked the wheel to try to stay on the road, but I used a heavy hand.  It threw me into a whirl, I spun very quickly out of control, and just like when a car slides on ice, the more I thought I could correct it, the worse the spinning became.

And the more I spun, the harder it was to understand that it would ever stop.

It felt like there would be no end.

In October a friend saw me struggling.  She is a good friend.  She said, “No matter how you feel tomorrow morning, I want you to do something when you wake up.  I want you to think about what you are grateful for and write it down.”

She said in 100 days that I would feel better.  She said, “If you do this every day, in 100 days you will remember what you have forgotten.”

I thought she was crazy.  I hadn't forgotten anything.  My life had just spun out of control.  I thought that it was my fault.  I was operating under the illusion that if I kept jerking the wheel, I could get it back on the road.

I listened to her though, because I was so desperate that I would have done almost anything to feel better, even if I had to wait until January.

Some days it was really hard.  I wrote things like, “I am grateful that the sun came up” because I couldn’t think of anything.  Or, “I am grateful for coffee”, because that seemed like the only thing that would get me through the day.

As the days went on, it became easier to write them down.  “I am grateful for my children...” and “I am grateful for my amazing job” and “Harry Potter” and "my run" and "my mom" and “my running wife” and "my wonder twin" and “the puppy who woke me up at 3 am, because when he did that I saw an eclipse”....  

And do you know what I realized the other day?

It did not take "100 days of gratitude" to make me remember why my life is so good.  I realized that I could be grateful for something every day for the rest of my life and still probably not honor all the amazing people and good and lucky and blessed events in my life.

I know I have it good.  I know we are lucky.  I am aware that my parents love us.  I know my friends love and support me and the kids.  Those same friends will be there at 5 am to run, at 10pm for a glass of wine, or for an afternoon hug on the hard days.

I am grateful that I live a blessed life.  I am grateful for the roof over our heads, no matter how humble its shape.  I am grateful that I have a generous heart, and that I freely give what I have to give without regrets.  I am grateful that I was born with a smile that comes easily, and that when I can, I use it to bring joy.  I am grateful my family raised me to be courageous, to try new things, to be brave, and to live a life without fear.  I am grateful.

Because of my gratitude, my cup is not “half full”:  It is overflowing.

I am grateful.

Aka, The blog post where I learned how to feed my Mojo

I have an update from the land of the "Athlete who went to see the dietitian". 

(that's me, if you're wondering)

It’s been over a week since I saw her. So far I’ve talked to 3 other women who’ve been. All 4 of us have been given different plans. This makes me feel good about my decision to go.

Holy guacamole <~ (an allowed food, in case you wondered).

Apparently my body was so protein starved that I was digesting my own muscle tissue for basic metabolic functioning.

(that's catabolism in case you're curious)

A few weeks ago I realized that I actually have a real milk allergy now, not an intolerance anymore. I replaced my cheese & yogurt protein sources with SOY. Oh, wait, remember that Soy can lead to a sudden increase in estrogen?  Estrogen makes muscle building more difficult. Which combined with the above note about catabolism... well... no wonder I was gaining weight like mad crazy.

And my Food Diary wasn't as embarrassing as I feared. In fact, she said, "You know, I don't know why you're upset. It's not that bad. I see some things that would make your hair curl."

OK.

Curly hair aside, she was pretty shocked and appalled that my ankles were swollen and that I wasn't worried about it.

Oh, yeah. Well, it was a hard workout on Sunday.

...uh, it's Wednesday.

Oh, right. Well. I rode my bike this morning.

...Right. You're dehydrated and your cells are leaky.

(that's caused by a lack of albumin... it's a fancy word for protein, incase...)

So she said that I'm a hot mess. Our conversation was epic... My personal favorite was when she asked... "But what do you EAT? There's no FOOD on this FOOD diary. There's only carbohydrates. Even though they're fruits and vegetables, you have no substantial amount of food".

That awkward moment when you show up at the Dietitian 15 lbs over weight only to discover that you're grossly malnourished. 

(I'm also lacking in Potassium. shocker.)

She forced this crazy new lifestyle on me. It includes.... wait for it... Food. I will tell you, a diet loaded in lean protein is an amazing diet for a female wanna-be athlete.

Holy Muscle Recovery Batman. 

On Tuesday morning I swam with T. She kicked my lush booty in the pool. Severely. I could not swim a fraction of the distance she was swimming. Then in the evening I rode a 33 mile loop with some friends. Because I had gone a long time (for me) in the pool, I wasn’t sure I was expecting much out of my ride. My ride ROCKED (mojo.. I could hear the whisper of it on the roads...) It was hard, but doable, and I finished spent but knowing that 33 miles is something I can do at a hard effort, so that must mean 50 miles is doable at an easier effort.

Amino acids & muscle recovery go hand in hand... like cheese and chocolate, or chocolate & wine, or beer & cupcakes, or mojo & triathletes...

In the mean time, on the normal “mom” front: I woke up this morning at 5 am and as I stretched out in a giant yawn I suddenly realized that, “Hey, I didn’t take a nap yesterday... I didn’t even want a nap yesterday.”

(I wonder if that's related to the food. It's the only thing I've changed this week).

And, I’ve lost 5 pounds in a week.

I’m not stupid. I know it’s not fat loss, it’s water loss. Water loss I would guess that is being caused by two things:

1 – the inflammation in my joints is SO much better. I almost feel human again.

2 – a reduction in carbohydrates leads to less molecules that LOVE to bond to H₂O. (C₅H₁₀O₄? Anyone? Bueller?)

Well, regardless of whether or not I remember the chemistry accurately, there’s less water hanging out in my tissues where it doesn’t belong.

I can’t eat like this forever. This is just a short term plan to correct an imbalance. She’ll give me my new ‘normal’ the next time I see her. Or the time after that. Depending on how far I've come in the 2 weeks since I last saw her.

Oh and the best news as far as I'm concerned?

Coffee & Beer got to stay on my "plan".