Selfishness and Awesomeness

I flinched as the cold wind bit my cheeks. Water filled my eyes, and I blinked back tears that meant nothing.  With a temperature hovering in the mid twenties, and a wind chill in the high teens, it seemed the sun was completely ineffectual despite the brightness.  Never the less, we set out and laid down 5 miles on the icy pavement. They weren’t effortless, but they got done.

We were having a double date, My Run and I. It was nice to go out with another like-minded pair.

I’ve been exclusively dating My Run for a few weeks now.

It’s going well.  There’s no drama with My Run.  Ok, ok, I admit that there’s some drama: I’m borderline obsessed with My Run. Since we are old friends with a long history, it’s been relatively smooth to just step into a full blown relationship again.

Not that it’s without any tension. Mmm. There’s all kinds of chemistry here.

I’d mention our run together the other day as an example, except I don’t want to run and tell. Suffice it to say, afterwards I was sweaty and laughing, and My Run was very satisfied with the effort.

yeah, I work on the 6th Floor

I am reminded of something Professor Holton, a badass cyclist, often says about cycling, “It never gets easier, you just go faster.” That quote applies to My Run too. Not that speed is the ultimate measure of awesomeness. A hott figure is another measure. Or is that spelled hot?

So yesterday, as I climbed the stairs at work, I realized I was only doing it for my run. My run likes a strong a**. It’s kinda My Run’s obsession. That, and strong hips. And don't get me started on what I'm doing in an effort to get a more Run worthy core. Planks, handstands, etc.

I guess what I’m saying is that I’m intentionally changing my habits for the benefit of my partner.

Further fueling my concerns, My Run and I are chasing our dreams together again, but we are doing it at the exclusion of others. I turned down a date the other day with a man, because I wanted to spend more time with My Run. Maybe it was also because he wasn’t someone who I wanted to spend time with, but still... I suspect my mother would have an opinion on that.

Handstand
Difficulty Level:
Puppy

This intimacy, this commitment, this everything... well, it rocks on so many levels I can’t even begin to explain it. It is deeply satisfying to be monogamous with My Run when there is no real race on the horizon.

It’s selfish feeling, but in a healthy way.  

Except, here’s the question that haunts me:  Can selfishness be healthy? Is there a time where selfishness is the right choice, especially when it leads to awesomeness?

Do we, as a culture, place too much negativity on selfishness?

Or, am I just justifying my selfish behavior of late?

And My Run and I don’t have the answer to any of those questions.

We will just keep getting up in the morning and going out together. We will take the stairs so my assets will be stronger. We will sacrifice our sleep. Sometimes we will join a group, and sometimes we will go it alone. Sometimes we will even rely on mechanical assistance to get us through our miles when we pound it out on a treadmill.

I’ll worry about the selfishness later.

~ savor the run ~ respect the distance ~

PlanZ with a Z

"So, what are your plans for 2013?"

Plans?

Oh, I had plans.

They were amazing.

Big plans. PlanZ with a Z. Cos a Z gives everything street cred...

Pretty sure the epic planz were the shiz... something about using my bada** mtb to make my legs uber strong so I could get out and destroy a Half Distance Triathlon... after I destroyed my Half Marathon PR in March and accomplished a solid sub 4 marathon in May... At least, I think that's what they were...

I'm not 100% sure I remember anymore, and even though I have them written down, I'm not going back to look at them.

I can tell you what my plans weren't.

I wasn't planning on missing the entire month of March because I had some kind of weird illness on the last Wednesday of February. And what's crazy is that even though I lost my fitness, there is no point in feeling badly about not working out. I don't have guilt. I was sick enough to be hospitalized and have nursing students move into my apartment to take care of me...

Part of viewing health from a holistic stand point is the idea that health encompasses physical, mental and social well being. So, health has to involve resilience.

In my case, part of being resilient is making a new plan that makes the "illness" & "injury" of the past year just another part of a learning experience.

And I did learn some things from being sick.. mostly I learned is that unexpected things happen and that I'm lucky... and I learned I need to work with what I have.

So, what are my plans for 2013?  "To accomplish personal success, as defined in the moment, by me".

My "List" of 2013 FUN includes a bunch of events throughout the year, including a 100 mile bike ride in August.

However, I should really point out that the priorities are more like..

Keep it all in perspective
ride my new bike
savor the run
be happy

35 minutes later... I am still a runner.

Sunday I managed to ride my bike a whopping 35 minutes with the British Gentleman. That's not miles.... MINUTES...

This coordinates with the 35 minute Run I pulled off on Saturday...  I even did a few strides...

Do you realize that in February I rode my MTB for 22 miles over several hours? And Yep, I was BEAT after that adventure, but DAMN, I rocked the sh*t out of it. The part of me that was tired was my legs. My lungs and heart coulda kept going for days. It's an endurance thing. I hear it a lot from endurance athletes. We train our lungs and hearts to just keep going. (That's what she said).

And all through February I spent Wednesday morning's running my weekly 16 mile long run...

yeah, it's rainy and there are wet roads, but I did
 have a yen to go for a ride on Easter.

I'm not her anymore. That girl who was consistently running 14, 15, 16 miles on any given day, and then tooling around the James River Park system on her mountain bike with a few crazy guys & our Fearless Fear-dra, well... she doesn't really exist anymore.

That's what I need to forget, remember, hang onto, and let go of...

The person who lives in her body now has no lung capacity, no endurance, and not only that, the lungs she has are finicky. They don't like cold, heat, wet, dry, etc etc etc. And if they get tired, they hurt. There's pain that sneaks in on the right side and slides through the bronchioles like an icy wet sponge... that will make sense to some people, I swear...

The new girl needs to
FORGET trying to compare herself to the athlete.
REMEMBER that the athlete didn't become an athlete over night, and patience is required.
HANG ONTO the feeling of getting high off a 2.95 mile run for the days that are hard.
LET GO of your fear... Yoda says fear is the path to the dark side.

The fear that I'll never get "there" again, that it was a one time thing, that I can't, or won't... it is LAUGHABLE. 

and at the same time, it's there. It NAGS. It FESTERS. It GROWS.

I'm a four time marathoner, and Half Ironman finisher. Why in the world would I believe I can't get there from here? It's like I just need to remember how the story goes. I need to remember that the path wasn't lined with Personal Bests, it was lined with hard work and sweat. And Hard work.

Once upon a time, on a Tuesday, I went out and ran...

...a 5K out and back. ..But I wasn't stopping.  No way.  I had my 20 (thousand) pound stroller making me look cool...and an amazing thing happened. I realized that I was one of the runners at the 5K....  My run is place to lay my worries, with the knowledge that if I want, I can choose to heat them and gently tap them into the shapes of acceptance. ... and I was rewarded for my patience. “How you doing?” “Galactically BadA**”....  I was cruising down a hill and spray painted on the road were the letters GBA. I honestly looked around for people I knew....and then I paused for a minute as a random thought hit me, "Except, honestly, I hate 5K's enough to not want to do one right now. They hurt so much more than marathons."... and on some level they become impossible to separate.  Sometimes that pain comes to me in the form of fear.  It burns as it's torching me from the inside.  Other times it’s physical pain that I can articulate on a moan as aching muscles beg for attention. ... I did a 72.3 mile race this weekend.  Not a typo... 

So there you go....

even though I am not doing a whole lot of running these days... I am still a runner.

And runners are weird.

~savor~

LUSH vs. LEAN

In June I was invited to run with the Advanced Marathon Training Team in Richmond.  These people (Those People) are quite something.  Knocking out 7:30's on their training runs while singing Scottish Drinking Songs at the top of their lungs, not to mention doing random things like running sub 3 hour marathons...  it's sick.  And I mean that like ~ they're freaktastic ~.

One thing that really sticks with me as I reflect on Those People is that they are a really fit crew.

If you come visit RVA and see a bunch of UBER fit people running around town in black shorts and no shirts (the women just wear sports bras), that's them.  And by UBER fit I mean they are lean, muscular, runner build 'type' people.  On the TYPE scale of runners, Those People are lean like Death Valley.

I guess, on the Type Scale with Death Valley (1) on one end, followed by the Grasslands of the midwest (2), in the middle we have the small tree clusters that dot the African Savanna (3), which is squeezed up next to Temperate Deciduous Forests of the Eastern Seaboard (4), ...I would fall at level (5).

The Tropical Rain Forests of South America.

I'm lush, thick, a little wild, quite dense, with a darkness tossed in there that even I haven't fully explored.

This "lushness" is really noticeable when you put me next to a runner type... like, say, my Bestie T.

There's just a lot of me.  It's good that my H doesn't seem to mind all the extra me there is these days.

After my run with Those People in June, I realized I'd moved beyond curvy and onto squish.  I had the equivalent of one of those foam can-coozies people use to keep their drinks from overheating wrapped around my midsection to stop my abs from getting hot.  er, from being hot.

What's frustrating about this is that I think under all that *coozie* there's a really good runner.  A much better runner than I am right now.  And I'm not going to mince.  I'm "good".  Am I ~like wow~ show stopping, Black Team Worthy, 7:30's for 15 miles?  No.  But I'm a solid little runner.  I get that.

I just... well, I could be better.

"I could be better..." are words I live by, sad but true.

So.  After my Black Team Student Exchange with Those People... I decided I was really selling myself short.  I have connections, and managed to get in touch with a nutritionist, Brooke.  This lead to my break up with Nutella (~sigh~) and Ray's Italian Ice & Frozen Custard.

Brooke really struggled with the runner thing.  We had to build a calorie schedule around my (lame) metabolism that also worked with my ever changing mileage, had enough Iron to meet my needs, and a lack of red meat to meet my lack of interest in eating cows*.  Her theory of "set a calorie count & only eat that count - no more, no less" got derailed once my long run hit about 10, and add in rest days and toss in some 3 milers for fun.... and we had some challenges to get the plan rolling.

For the most part I hung in there with the "trial and error-slash-mad science experiment", did what she said, and ground my teeth as the feedback on the scale was unchanging.

Then she decided I wasn't eating enough, and set me up on a new plan.  I've lost about 4 pounds since we started the new plan.  It's a far cry from where I'd like to be, but 4 pounds is measurable progress, and at this rate I'll be close to the racing weight goal I set by the time I get to my A race.  I just need to keep my focus.  I said as much in our last phone call.

And, I love Brooke for saying this...

"GBA gf?  If you put as much effort into your eating as you put into everything else, you could be at racing weight whenever you wanted.  For some reason, you don't.  It's the one area in your life that you allow yourself to be lazy.  Why would you choose this one area, of all things?  You have will power to get up at 4:30am, but not will power to avoid animal crackers?  It's selective reasoning that makes.no.sense."  
(well, that and cleaning house, I'm lazy there too, but I feel we're going off topic).  

Thanks Brooke.  I (heart) you.

I shared all this because many of you who read my blog are runners, and I know ~ some of us ~ don't run to lose weight, but would still enjoy a little less coozie and a little more hotness.  I'm going to get up now, and get back to work cleaning my house.  And yes, Brooke, I'm on track today.

Because really, today is the only day that matters.  Stop worrying about what you ate yesterday.  Stop fretting about how you're going to handle avoiding animal crackers or bunny snacks tomorrow.  Just be in the moment.

*I'm not a vegetarian, and I do eat red meat including cows, but I don't eat much, because I just don't care for it all that much.  This is not a social statement, nor is this a suggestion that you need to eat or avoid red meat.