A Letter from September

Dear GBA GF & TMB,

It's July huh?

Freakishly hot? 
Humid? 
Hazy? 
Hell-oh! No wonder the running is so hard!  

This isn't hard because you suck at running. This is hard because it's stupid hot out and running in heat is difficult.

 You always seem to imagine you lose your mojo in July. And you know what? That's absurd. I think it's quite obvious...

Mojo is not lost. Mojo goes on vacay in July... 

Who knows where it goes... Maybe Mojo prefers Upstate NY or Canada, or MN or OR....?

No biggy. The worst is over. In the next month the weather will break, and you'll be right on track for the marathon you're running in October.

~savor the run~

GBA GF

(written Sept 20, 2013)

A.K.A The post where I learned that Adirondack is another way to say "exquisite"

Training with a view to envy

I used to write a motivational blog about how to get it done. Of course, that was when I was training to be a Half Ironman or a Marathoner. Now a days I am training to get healthy and live a full well rounded life.

What a strange thought... do we actually train for that? Or is that something that happy people just do?

I’m not sure.

Regardless, I’m happiest when I’m training, and so I figure I’m training for health. This means that when I’m on vacation, I still have to fit in my workouts.

This past weekend I went to the Adirondacks to visit some family and to spectate Lake Placid Ironman on Sunday.

I had a swim, ride and run on my schedule.

 

Adirondack State Park is exquisite ... there are no words. 

None. If you’ve never been, put it on your list of places to go. The views were so amazing that I couldn't wait to see them from the bike. I was up at 6:30 on day one of my vacation, and shortly after that The Good Dr and I were on the road. 

ok, shortly after I changed a flat we were on the road. I did. Changed it all by myself. With no help. I had 5 spectators & 2 broken nails though... Still, be impressed. I know I was...

mental recovery

On a 20 mile bike ride I saw scenery that looked straight out of a Sierra Club Calendar, a porcupine that was the size of a shetland pony *or dog, whichever*, and very few cars. Route 3 was completely set up as a bike route, with a 8 ft bike lane on both sides of the road. We saw 3 other cyclists, and about 8 cars... and maybe because I knew I was planning to eat well on vacation, we hammered the second ½ of the ride. #mojo

The rest of our morning in Cranberry Lake was spent boating, relaxing, and watching people swim in frigid water. I was completely lazy.

After lunch, however, my beautiful hostess invited me to go kayak with her.

I have nooooo skills in a Kayak anymore. I'm too much of a weakling, but she did, so we made it work.

It was amazing. Except for the collisions, but she seemed pretty patient, and I only ran into her boat a few times.

hydration

As I said, I had a swim, ride and run on my schedule. But I've always viewed a training plan like total health. This is a holistic entity. You have many levels. And being flexible is one element of that entity.

So while a good training plan encompasses Nutrition, Hydration, Recovery, Mental Training, Sleep, etc. it also must include Relaxing, Lazing, Kayaking, Unwinding and Smiling.

And this weekend, I definitely got all the elements of training into my days.

With the exception of "sleep", at any rate.

Lame Lane Swimming

Last night I broke down and went to Master’s Swim.

"Forgive me Coach... It has been 24 years since my last group swim practice..."

Though I've been toying with the idea for a long time, I never have had the guts to go. I just always assumed I didn't belong there. Masters Swim is for epic swimmers like my Qualifying Aunt, or Ranked Mother. or my friend Alex who breaks NC Records, right?

I'm not that. 

I always feel like a poser at the pool.

I'm a good swimmer, but I don't have it. 

There is no magic when I slide into the pool, pinned between lane lines, sloshing through my strokes as the other swimmers glide effortlessly through the water.

To say this adventure was outside of my comfort zone would be a severe understatement.

Besides, swimming is a solitary sport. Why bother going to a class where you are likely going to be exposed as a not awesome swimmer poser?

Um. Because...

Holy Freaking Fun, Batman!

Yes. It was Fun. And freakisly hard.

Y Coach - "Ok, swim 300m warm up, then 4 X 100 swim/FTD/swim/Kick, 400 descending, 4x 50 descending, then 10 X 100 descending with 4 @ 2:05, 3 @ 2:00, 2 @ 1:55, and 1 @ 1:50...  Go."

Me - empty stare.

Y Coach - "Go ahead."

Me - "Can you repeat that, in english please? This is only my first day."

Y Coach - "What!?" He shook his head in disbelief.

I nodded and said, "First day. For real. Please explain." 

Y Coach - "You don't swim like it's your first day.... " But he did explain what it all meant.

I wasn't terrible.

But I wasn’t awesome, even in my Awesome-girl swim wear. 

Halfway through Masters Swim I was sucking wind (or water, but air is better, FYI. I would know, I've checked both). At a lot of points I struggled, trying to keep up with the people in my lane. They have a lot of endurance. I have a little speed on them, with no endurance what so ever. It's not an ideal combination.

It’s an interesting feeling, swimming in a circle pattern with a group. I always feel hunted in the water until I start to see my lane mates ahead of me. Then, I become the hunter.

.

And Y Coach said to me at the end of the night, in a where in the heckfireandshoot did you come from kind of way, "So... You've been swimming alone? All this time?"

"Yes."

He smiled, and I recognized a kindred spirit. "If you come back, you will get faster... So.... see you next week."

It was not a question.

And he might just see me next week.

After all... if we know one thing about me, it's that I am addicted to speed.

The Affair

It's hard when you first realize it.
The lack of presence.
That feeling that the magic is gone from the relationship.
And the knowledge that there is happiness between others where there had once been happiness at home.

I can't really blame anyone though. I was laid up in bed for freaking weeks. WEEKS.

And when I wasn't in bed, I was at school.

or coughing.

or coughing at school.

It was hard for me this spring, watching the secret smiles exchanged when no one was looking. Hearing the gasps and giggles, among other breathless noises that made my mind race. The time spent apart grew longer and longer and I found myself wondering, "how in the world is this happening to me?" and "will it ever go back to the way it was?"

I'm not sure when it started, and and I don't really have proof, but I'm pretty sure my Mojo was having an affair with another runner for the entire pre-season.

"Damn that Mojo! For breaking my heart like this!" I ranted and raved!

I crawled out of bed and got in the pool where I dragged myself through the paces. I felt like a fish out of water, only I wasn't. I was a lame swimmer with a bum leg. And Mojo doesn't have time for that. "Aint nobody got time for that".
I hit up a spin class to regain the stamina, thinking, "if I am fit, Mojo will want to come sweat with me." But it didn't work. Mojo likes the outdoors and sunshine.

Eventually I got on my bike. I struggled and cried my way through the lonely miles while the wind snatched my breath from parted lips. I finished each ride gasping and sad, mourning for my Mojo.

Mojo was clearly out running a Marathon.
Mojo had obviously headed out to a rainy Triathlon.
Mojo showed no signs of returning to me in a timely fashion.

I missed my Mojo but I wasn't going to sit at home and lament the loss. I hit the streets and searched for ways to get my Mojo back.

I saw Doctors and Dietitians and Chiropractors and Therapists ... ok, technically she was a massage therapist.  I sought the advice of coaches and coaches and coaches. And more coaches.  They all assured me, if I kept up the work, my Mojo would come back to me.

And so about a week ago I had THE BEST RIDE EVER. It was the easiest 33 miles I have ever done. It was the hardest 33 miles I have ever done. I finished feeling accomplished and spent. But I knew I could do it. I hardly dared look, but it became clear to me by about mile 20 that my mojo had returned. At least for a day.

And then on Saturday, again. Mojo was with me on the ride. Right there, where I could almost taste our shared energy! The thirty miles melted under my tires.

Today... again. My Mojo showed up at 5 this morning. We nodded to each other as I checked my tires and snapped my helmet into place. From the beginning of the ride, we were together. We laid out 16 miles before the rest of the world was awake. It was freaking brilliant.

It seems Mojo has come back to me, though I'm hardly celebrating a permanent return.

We've entered an uneasy truce. And while I'm hopeful Mojo will stick around for a few more rides, I know Mojo could leave again without a moment's notice.

~enjoy the ride~

love conditioning, and running

Falling out of love equates to believing the one you're with can't support you emotionally, ever again. It means that you believe that nothing they do in the interest of changing will make them as good as they had been in the past. 

It's funny how easy it is to embrace that idea. That humans are inclined to say, "I'd rather take a chance on something new than go back to something known".

IF that is falling OUT of love does that mean falling in love equates to believing the one you're with is the only person who can ever support you emotionally for the rest of your life.  That seems a tall order for even the most galactic individual.

At what point do we start viewing our mate as a chore, rather than a gift? 

When they become too demanding, or when they fail to demand enough?

I've begun to realize that the key to this is making small changes before operant conditioning takes over. 

Operant conditioning works.

It does. Quite simply put, if you end something on a good note, you'll enjoy that activity. So, if you are training a horse and the horse does EXACTLY what you want when you are 3 minutes into your session, you quit. Right then. And the horse knows it did a good job.  If you're training a dog, its the same, though we tend to live with our dogs.

So this is a blog about running, training, food, food, eating, food... wait... and MOJO. and love. ~savor~

I ran. Like, for freaking REALZ. a REAL run. I went for a 40 minute spin first, and then laced on my shoes and ran like a Galactic Bad Ass....

It.Freaking.rocked.

For the whole 15 minutes.

WHAT?! 15 minutes? Why stop? I bet I could have eeked out another minute or two. It woulda been ugly. It might have been difficult. I... am so glad I stopped when I was high on life and smiling. Because here it is almost 48 hours later and I am still grinning.

And a friend of mine nailed it when he said, #MOJO.

I quit while I was ahead. And so falling out of love is less of a fear... and my run & I are getting back together. Despite what Taylor says...

aka the run where I was the quietest I’ve been in the last 4 years

So the big question from everyone right now is, “Are you Running THE 10K?”

There is only one 10K in the ENTIRE WORLD, as far as most Richmonders are concerned. Ya either LOVE IT. Or ya HATE IT. But if you live in RVA you probably have an opinion on THE 10K.

Monument Ave 10K is a Flat, Fast, Out and Back 10K that runs every spring in RVA. It inspires about 35,000 people to lace on shoes and move a total of 6.2 miles. It’s great for the speedy runners because it has seeded waves based on PAST 10K performance.

Are you running THE 10K?
Everyone's Doing It. It's the IN thing. You KNOW you want to...

No. I am not.

For two reasons.

The first is logistical. The race is the same weekend I am running away to the beach for a weekend with friends.

The next is logical. I earned a PR last year because I did race specific training. Right now I’m training for a longer distance.  I’m doing race specific training toward a Marathon, which would hardly prepare me for a 10K PR.

Besides, lately I've been a little defeated. I felt a little like I lost all my speed...~sniff~ and so it would be really hard to try to race a 10K knowing that my training hasn't allowed me to keep my speed...

er.. In Theory.

Cos on Sunday is went for a casual easy run with friends. ~yeah~ so. About *that*.

“Come run with me” wrote Coach Black.

If you’ve ever run in RVA, you might have seen Coach Black, Harry Potter, Ru, Yob, Ed, and Just Pink form a pack and charge down the street. They are beautiful to watch, running in unison with long fluid strides. Today, I was in the mix. AND It was super. I’m serious. It’s a wicked feeling to be wrapped up in that energy.

Of course, I didn’t do a lot of talking with my friends on the run. I listened as they exchanged stories and bantered with each other. I was not running on the edge of death, but I probably wasn't far from it at points. It’s laughably the quietest I’ve been in the last 4 years...

At some point I gasped a small comment about holding them up. They generally scoffed at my statement. I was running with The Team, and they were fine with the pace, regardless.  Besides, they were all pretty quick to point out that I was holding my own.

And I was.

Could they have dropped me? Oh sure, in a HOT minute. But the point they were making was WHY?

And then it happened. On Grove Ave I suddenly remembered:

Oh freaking yeah. I’m a Galactically Bada** runner, and I have some Bada** Friends.

They can freaking run.

And so can I.

Turns out I ran the first 5 miles only a few seconds above my PR 10K race pace from last spring, and the second 5 miles 8-35 seconds under my goal marathon race pace for this spring.  So. Am I ACTUALLY slower this year?
It would seem no...

And, if I'm struggling with pace these days, is it possible have I allowed myself to become mentally defeated?
Perhaps...

Sunday's run was a good reminder that even when you're training for a marathon, it's a good idea to drop in and run with faster people now and then. And, I really need to thank Coach Black & the All Black Team for sharing their collective MOJO with me Sunday. It was just what the Dr ordered going into the 50 mile weeks ahead. ~Thanks Coach~

Also, Harry Potter, On The Edge Of Death will be my new PRN motto. #justsayin’

~savor the bada** run~

*PRN - as needed

Where's Waldo?

Do you all remember the X-Files?  Loved that show... I even had a key ring that my little brother gave me for Christmas that read:

Trust No One ~ Fox Mulder

No one, Fox?  No one at all?  Not your mother?  Your Father?  Your BFF Bart Yasso?  Your AP English Teacher?  Your Running Coach?  

Huh.  Serious Trust Issues there.  I wonder if Fox had MOJO issues too...

About a week ago I went out and ran 13.1 miles for my friend in honor of her brother.  I wasn’t even sure that I could cover the distance.  It’s not like I've been running that much.   I did it though.  Easily, in fact, when you compare it to the 14 miler I did a few days later.  Perspective, now you have it.

I didn’t know it then, but by the time I hit 8 miles of that 13.1, I was already on the path to finding my mojo.  And the answer came to me when I was rereading Mere’s blog post.  Where’s Waldo?

Oh, the Waldo I'm thinking of is probably 50 Shades of tied up in the red room of pain, also known as High School English class...

Self-trust is the first secret of success. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Emerson is really right. 

Yeah. 

Hard to accept that a dead guy knows more about running than I do.

But he does.

If you can’t trust yourself, who can you trust? 

I think a lot about trust these days.  I have a hard time with it.  Not in a romantic light.  No, this is much more personal than that.  Much more.

This is about my running.  

And here's what I realized.  At the same time I lost my running MOJO, I lost trust in the one person I always believed I could believe in.  So why have I suddenly lost faith in myself?

And it's not just me.  It seems to be a summer epidemic around here.  My friends have lost their MOJO's too.

We’ve looked around in some crazy places from Sports Backers MTT runs to 5Ks.  Even went looking in some mojitos, and all that seemed to provide was a temporary sense of Cuban rhythm that was completely unfounded. 

At first I thought maybe the loss of MOJO was spreading like negative energy...  and then I realized the common theme I’m hearing comes down to one word.

Trust.

My friends don’t trust they can run fast anymore.  And everytime I lace on my new Mizuno Wave Riders I don't believe I can either.  I'm sad when I look at my Garmin splits after almost every run.  I'm questioning my hunger, doubting that I should be eating *this much*, not trusting the voice in my head that tells me to eat more.  I'm doing all this training toward a race that I might not be prepared for because... well, I suck at triathlons.  I don't trust my GBA** Super Powers to get me to the finish line in the (goal time) that I want to finish it in.

Am I the worlds worst triathlete?
Am I going to finish?
Am I going to fail?
Am I training all these miles for nothing?

Am I over training?  Under training?

Am I, AM I?

And with every Am I question we collectively ask ourselves, we chip away at our core, peppering our self trust with pock marks and dents until it’s an unrecognizable lump that’s susceptible to rust and decay.

IF you don’t trust yourself, who will you trust?

No one.
And if Waldo is right, we must have self trust in order to succeed at any of this running nonsense.

Belief in ones self is the foundation for the belief in others.  

So let's just step back for a minute and identify what weapons we are using on ourselves this summer.  The Garmin, the Doubt, and any other ways that we lie to ourselves when we utter the words, "I suck".  Those are the weapons of MOJO mass destruction... so let's now determine how we can repair the damage.

And let's see how we can prevent a re-injury.

Because we don't suck.
I mean seriously.  We couldn't.
It's GBA** rule #2 subsection b.

~savor the run~

MOJO Running Loose

I lost my mojo. Again.

It’s happened before, so I know I will find it.  Eventually.  The thing is, it’s never really where I found it last time.  Once I found it in a book.  One time I found it in a pair of shoes.  Oh, then there was that time that I found it in the e-mail that read, “Sportsbackers Marathon Training Team Registration Confirmation”.

SO I’m out here pounding the pavement, looking and looking.  Barely hanging on in some respects because without mojo, you have to do a lot of mental work to keep forward momentum. 

I kept thinking that this time I’m going to find it in my Brooks, on my bike as I'm out riding with The Ladies of the Lanes, or in a blank Word document.  Odd how Word has the ability to wipe my mind completely clean of all inspiration and thought...

I’m pretty sure I’m not going to find it in my SPEEDO, because even though SPEEDO and MOJO look a lot alike in the ‘words that make sense to no one’ department, most people would agree that finding extra anything in a speedo is kind of difficult, or even disappointing, for the average swimmer.  And then there’s the point that I’m certainly not looking at anyone else’s speedo for my mojo... there’s a fail just waiting to happen....

I thought I MIGHT have found my MOJO a few weeks ago running loose on the streets of Richmond.  It was an early morning MTT run, and we passed a woman in platform stiletto heels on the corner saying, “Here ‘tis.  Here ‘tis!”.  Upon closer inspection of the situation I determined it wasn’t my mojo she was advertising.

So, I kept pushing on without it.  And Tuesday night, I had a breakthrough.  A  development that is making me wonder if this time I will find it in my grocery store.

True story. 

See, I had a glimmer of my mojo the other night on a hard effort bike ride.  There’s a hill on the route we took that freaking scares me.  Not the down part.  I mean, yes its steep but I’m not afraid of the drop.  That I can control.  I can choose my speed of descent.  My rate, my pace, and my position are my choice. 

No... what scares me on that hill is the climb.  What if I fail?

So, on Tuesday I dropped to the back of the pack and was patient.  And then when I felt the balance was right, I took a risk and attacked the hill.  I realized on the way up that I was riding completely free of fear.  I trusted my bike, my legs, and my ability to handle myself... 

Aha!  MOJO!

And the only thing I really changed on Tuesday was that I ate a calorie dense high protein high carb meal around midday with Biolabud.  It was a ridiculous amount of food, but I was starving.  And I felt great afterwards.  The midday beer might have helped my mood too.

Huh.  I have to wonder...

What if I went back to eating like an elite athlete, instead of eating like a girl-scout cookie ingredient list?  

Could my mojo be found in a proper amount of protein?  

Possibly my mojo is searching for a better carb balance?  

Regardless, the MOJO is gone again.  

I know because I was wimpy, whining, complaining and somewhat b*tchy by the end of my Wednesday morning ride.  It’ll come back eventually.  I’ll find it.

In the mean time, I’m off to the grocery store for some eggs, whole grains and produce.  Because even if the MOJO isn’t in the food, I’m still ravished and need to find a way to fuel myself responsibly.  Like the athlete I am.

~savor the Mojo~