Aging Up

My birthday came and went. I celebrated 29 again, for those who wonder. This is getting a bit awkward given that my 15 year old is, in fact, 15. I’m not a person who gets morose about aging up a year, I am a beautiful woman in many respects, and so far I am aging as I expect. My mother is a beautiful woman, this gives me hope for my future. I do think about aging, as I think about health, as I think many badass mother runners must. But I don't fear "getting old".

Perhaps that's because I'm young still. Or perhaps it's because I trust my body?

Maybe it’s time to age up? 29 is a ridiculously fast BQ time, and not that I’m attempting a BQ any time soon, it’s still crazy to compare myself to those folks. Maybe I should just embrace my 39^th year as a 39 year old.

This is, as many of you know, The Year of The GBA 5K.

Which is why it’s only logical that I have signed up to run a marathon this fall.

Ummm... yeah. Well. #thathappened.

It’s my last year in my 30’s. I started running in my 30’s. And besides. The marathon and I always have unfinished business. Even when we don’t. There’s always room for discussion and improvement. Even when I meet my goals.

I want to run.

For some reason, I allow myself sometimes to get sucked into other people’s goals to the exclusion of mine. This year, I signed up to run this race alone. And by Alone I mean Alone with 1000 of my BFFs at Sports Backers Marathon Training Team. 

But truly, I am not training with my usual posse. The gang has all gone looking for their own goals. That isn’t to say there won’t be miles run together, but when the fall arrives, it’ll be me on the line.

I think this is good for me. The best races are the ones I remember that I have to run alone.

The marathon training team “group” starts running next week, and I’m looking forward to another year with my favorite coaches and runners. I’m going back to my origins, and rejoining the Green Team. I’ve missed my coaches, and wonder why I allowed myself to get so distracted last year. 

I try not to dwell on that.

I sat tonight with my friends ~  some who run and some who don’t  ~ and we discussed our fall plans, and I mused aloud that I had lost my fecking mind, and prolly I don’t even want to run a marathon in November.

Of course, they laughed at me, claiming I was talking nonsense, even as I shrugged off the moment with “don’t listen to “her”, that must be the wine talking. When I’m sober I feel certain that the marathon is something I love.”

Someone remind me of that in October.

But I seriously do love this sport. Even when I’m loving on my bike, I’m a runner at heart.

And so another birthday has come and gone, and it was a great birthday, celebrated with new friends and young friends and “old friends” who aren’t old. And even though another year has come and gone and my 30’s are 364 days from being a memory, I’m ready to enjoy and savor every single one of the 364 days.

Besides, nothing reminds me of my youth and vitality more than signing up to run 26.2. It’s like my “New Year” all over again.  I can’t picture a life without 20 mile training runs and the juicy hamburgers I celebrate the miles with after. OH! And the beer.

Can’t forget the beer.

Winning at Life and being a Galactic Badass

A Mother Runner’s Guide to Winning at Life and being a Galactic Badass

Aka

Sh*t I just came up with on the fly.

I was chatting with another working mom the other day and she asked my opinion on training for a fall marathon.  She has twin babies, a job, a husband, and all the responsibilities that go with the above.  Oh, and most importantly, before kids she was a badass mother runner of marathons.

So what did I tell her?

You grew a human being out of two cells; you can f*cking do anything you want in life. Including train for and run a marathon while being the proud owner of babies, a job, a husband, and all that rot. Avoid putting limits on what you can do. The example you will set for your children when you do this is extraordinary. I speak from experience. My kids are a trio of galactic badasses.

When you start drinking alone before the sun comes up, people worry; this will also apply to running. Get used to it. If you’re going to do a fall marathon and juggle life, it’s going to take some pre-dawn running.

Respect the distance. You didn't grow the baby in three weeks. Your fitness isn't going to return in three weeks. Savor the work you put in, and on the days that suck, on the days where if feels like you will never get there from here, look at that hard work and see how far you've come.

Your stroller is a rolling sag wagon. Use this fact to bribe or beg your friends to run with you. You can carry the water, gu, babies, snacks, TV, kitchen sink, and extra body glide. The best way to run with a BOB is to have buddies who have no strollers of their own who are wiling to share your load. Consider it a public service to your friends. Their training will be greatly improved by the resistance. It’s like running on hills... all the fecking time. Amiright?  With additional help pushing, the over all pace of the group will be faster, and everyone will be happier, including the babies.

Face it; you’re not the only one. Moms run. They train. There is a community of support out there.  Find your people. Maybe you need physical runners to join you – great – find a running club and join a group run. Perhaps you thrive in an online community of thousands of women who support each other. Perfect, find the Another Mother Runner Facebook group. Just whatever you do, find your people.

You will never be good enough. You will always work harder than you ever worked before babies, because you will always be striving for better and more. Maybe this is because you have these babies that you want to instill your values into, or maybe this is just because mothers are all pretty badass, but whatever it is, your standards for yourself will be different from now on. Goals that seemed impossible before will be broken, and rewritten to reflect new “unreachable” goals. You’ll realize that it never gets easier, you just get faster.  Or stronger. Or more.

~savor the run~

Fear and Adventure

We’re in Buxton. It’s a tiny village, and the lack of human presence on a cold spring night is palatable.  The tourists don’t venture this far south for spring break. Mostly there are just a handful of dedicated surfers and fishers and us.

On a cloudless night the sky is illuminated by the light of countless stars, but tonight the rain soaked ground is steamy. A thick haze coats the air, dimming the human experience, cuing an ethereal quality. No human presence disrupts the spell, save one; The false white beam of the Cape Hatteras light house beacon slices through the inky sky.

A naïve puppy strains at his leash as we walk in the black. He doesn’t know what the darkness holds. He just wants to run. Let me RUN! he shouts with his desperate puppy legs.

The dark is scary though. There are hidden dangers he cannot understand. Even the grass, innocent in its appearance, holds a dark secret. Prickly burrs are nested among the blades.

“They will hurt the tender pads of your paws if you step on them”, I caution.

He can’t hear me though, so determined he is for adventure. So I protect him with a thin lime green leash.

One day I hope he can run without getting hurt by some prick hidden in the grass. I hope that he can look for adventure with confidence, instead being over sheltered by my fear.

I mostly hope that there is no pain to take away the joy of his adventure.

Of course, I worry I’m holding him back. I wonder if I could just let him go.... Would he run as fast and far as he wanted?  Would his successes be extraordinary? Would he exceed all the expectations laid before him, simply because he was able to run without a thin leash?

And of course, would his stories always start with “Remember that time...”?

~ savor the run ~

Worth Repeating

I had a moment today where I thanked GOD that this year was over.  I whole heartedly thought, I am so glad it’s done, I couldn’t live through another 2014.  My heart could not do it.

And then I remembered some of the greatness of the year.  And I thought, if I had to give up the bad AND the good of 2014, would it be worth it?

No.  2014 had too much goodness.

So maybe some of the things that happened in 2014 sucked.  Maybe there were more than a few days of suckage.  But when I think about them as they relate to all the minutes I spent in 2014, the sucktastic moments that happened were blinks of an eye surrounded by greatness.

There were many things, and I mean many things, that did not suck.  Not a bit.  There were hundreds of blistering hot miles run.  Old and new friends embraced.  A wonder-twin moment that brought me to my knees with gratitude.  

Yes, that moment was worth repeating.  There was more beauty in this year than I ever imagined in any year ever.  There was grace.

There were eyes rimmed in impossibly long lashes that demand revisting. There was that trail I've not not yet run down.  A hill that begs repeating.  And repeating.  Lets not forget the mountain bike that says “look at what we did!”, even as it wonders what we are capable of doing together next time.

There was that exquisite sunset in Hatteras where the sky blazed red and the sun dipped into the sea on waves of flames.  It smoldered as it sank, until the red and yellow melted to purple and blue and the inky night settled over the ocean. A million stars stretched across the sky and the Milky Way laid itself bare for me to admire.  Ghost crabs scuttled around my feet.  My children whispered, but not because they were told to be quiet. 

There were little moments too...

The pedicure that was appreciated with a compliment.

A pair of wind burned cheeks from a good bike ride.

The smile that came after the tears on a salt crusted face.

A kiss of joy and homecoming.

A lingering hug filled with “what if”.

The patient who lived another day because I worked that day.

The patient who taught me that sometimes the #bestdayever could be someone’s #lastdayever, and that’s an acceptable answer as long as you get to die on your own terms.  I fought for her terms.  I made myself proud.  She squeezed my hand, and I knew that I made her proud too.

There was the moment when I realized I was going to be OK.  That I am OK.

There were a few hundred seconds that passed as I stood on the bank of the James River in running shoes.  I was nobody.  I was everybody.  I was just another body.  There was steam floating up off my hot body.  Mist coated the river as she calmly wandered past.  She didn’t even notice the figures on the bank.  Sweat and the sun stung my eyes, but I could not look away from all the power that sedately wandered by even as I thought I would explode.  How can she be so calm when there is so much energy here?  I would repeat all those seconds.  

Except one.  

The last one came too soon.

A few days ago my son proclaimed that I am The BEST MOM EVER when I told him I was taking him to an NFL game, and the Coke Museum, and The Georgia Aquarium, and that moment, the one where I truly felt like the best mom ever, needs to be repeated again and again.

I wore a hole in two pairs of Brooks on my quest to run a personal great.  It wasn’t a best, but it was great.

I sanely and rationally tackled a marathon to see what it feels like to sanely and rationally run 26.2 miles.  I loved it.  But I want to run one on the edge of death next time to see what that feels like.  I know there’s a sweet spot of glory and misery, and I want to exist in that moment again.

I ran a 1:05 (<~ that’s one minute and 5 seconds) up 6 flights of stairs on a random shift at the hospital.  As I stood in the vestibule on the 6^th floor landing, with my heart about to explode out of my chest, gasping hospital air, I had to think that if any medical professional had happened across me in that moment they would have called a Code Blue.

And Yes, I will repeat that moment.

There is the moment, just now, when I walked the dogs in the moonlit night.  We made our way down a dark path until I stood on the edge of the glass lake.  There were house lights reflected in it, they winked at me like laughing eyes.  I could hear a peal of child’s laughter drift along the water like the stars that floated in the black.  I imagined a party with people excitedly sharing their new years resolutions and reliving the glorious past year’s celebrations.  I savored the thought of couples snuggled in on couches.  Her lips pressed close to his neck.  I smiled at the thought of children strugglinng to hold their sandy eyes open.

I laughed my own laugh at the thought of a sweet white puppy with a long waggy tail, as he stands on a lakeshore.  His ears are straining as he stares into the dark.  His nose is assaulted with a million scents and he dreams of all the glorious squirrel chasing adventures of today.  He does not know that tomorrow is a new year.  He does not care.  There is only now.

The worn tread of my used up running shoes crunched in some loose sand, and suddenly my soul felt as worn as the soles I walked upon.  And yet as tired as today made me, as worn as I am, I know that tomorrow will come at midnight, and in it will be moments worth repeating.

~ respect the distance ~ savor the run ~