Peace and a 10K

Here is a 2015 Monument Ave 10K Race Recap... sort of.

For Richmonders there are few things more fantastic than running Richmond. We have a strong running community, well organized and friendly to both the veterans and the noobs. Every year we have a 10K that attracts 30K participants, both running and walking their way for 6.2 miles down the avenue of Civil War statues that slices through the west side of town.

Tree lined streets and a grassy park down the center of the road make this flat fast out and back pretty enough to enjoy without being distracting.

At the last minute I signed up to run it.  I know, it’s “The Year of The 5K”, but the 10K is like twice the Fun and if I’m anything it’s a sucker for Fun Things.

Thus – I’m not short – I’m FUN SIZED.

Saturday I ran with my 30K BRFs

I made a goal – run sub 8’s, listen to your body, be in the moment, run your own race, trust yourself, fight every step of the run for a PR because you’re almost fit enough to do that.... Oh, and above all - look like a sexy beast.

I’d like to say it was the #bestdayever.  I’d like to say I owned the course and that the masses parted and my lungs were clear and I ran sub 8’s and got a PR and my hamstring didn’t complain once and I looked like a sexy beast...

But wha’ hada happen’d wuz...

My hamstring was achy and tired feeling during the warm up, and my chest was tight while I was waiting for the race to start. I hit my inhaler, which makes my heart race. Once again I mildly underdressed, which was intentional, but I wished for more Throw Away clothes as I stood in my corral. I did not run sub 8’s for the whole way.

My name is a little ways down this list.
But for the record:
My name is a little ways down this list.

I ran a 7:56 on mile one, and even though it was a sub 8, I knew my shot at a PR was pretty much over.  Nothing should FEEL THAT HARD at mile 1 that’s what she said.

Mile one was brutal. I also knew, however, that I could still break 50 minutes if I worked hard.

At least I looked like a sexy beast...

I chased down another runner with a blond ponytail, pushed someone else, was pulled at the end, and ran a 49:46.  I crossed the finish line and collapsed into the arms of Coach Black for a deeply satisfying hug.

I knew that my finish time was probably not quite good enough for a place in the TOP 100 in my AG, but ultimately I accepted that it was a completely respectable time. There were 1871 women in my AG at this event. I would later learn I had placed 78^th.  I’ll take it.

As I made my way through the gates and corrals and water lines and photographer, I thought about my performance.  There was a point in my life when a sub 50 minute 10K would have been as unattainable as winning a race. I’ve done both those things twice now. What other “unattainables” are on my “list” that shouldn’t be there?

Plenty.

And they’re going to need to GO.

I didn’t linger at the finish. I was instantly cold. So I went back to around the mile 5 marker and found my friend Dimples. She lent me a jacket so we could spectate together before she sent me back to her house with a key so I could shower and warm up and beer.

Now, here’s the thing. I was a mile from her house... so I ran back through the city with my medal tucked in my bra and my phone in my hand. It felt good to run.

Isn't that silly? I had just finished a race...  

I was on the sidewalk parallel to the course, and there were thousands of runners making their way to the finish.

I was easily on my 8^th mile of the day when you combine the race and the warm up.  But I wasn’t really dead on my feet... I was just enjoying a chilly run through the city... It felt easy. I was completely relaxed and at peace.

The sun dappled through the tree branches, the sidewalk was chipped and crooked, the spectators were teasing me that I was running the wrong way...  my stride was light, and I felt like a beast.

A beast who could fucking run.

Saturday, in that moment, is when I realized how ready I am to run again. I mean, really run again, for me. I want to Run Richmond. I want to be in the city, winding my way down cobblestones to the river, cutting through the museum district, crossing flood walls and embracing this place I love so much. 

I want to run again. Not because I have to, or because someone else tells me to, but because I MUST run in order to be true to ME. 

And in that truth, I will find peace.

~savor the run~

Intolerable Rudeness

I recently read a blog post about how people will tolerate bad behavior in the person they love because they love them, and that a true test of a healthy relationship is to say, "would I tolerate this language from my friend?"  I'm very fortunate to be in a loving relationship with a person who treats me with respect, and I never have to ask this question, however, I caught myself listening to a voice in my life the other day and wondering why I tolerate that negative language.

I ran a Half Marathon in just a sports bra and skirt last week.  It was 96% humidity and 88 degrees.  Needless to say, I wasn't the only person out on the course who was only half dressed, and I figured it was OK.  As I crossed the finish line, however, there were photographers snapping photos as we were draped in our medals, and I laughed and said, "Oh Lord, I won't be buying THAT photo.  That is a lot of squish for a finishers pic!"

Of course, I was laughing.  I actually think I look Ok.

But later I thought back and wondered why it was OK for me to be so rude to myself.  If someone - a friend - had said that to me, I would have been very sad.  When I realized that, it made me want to buy the picture and save it, knowing that there may be a time in my life when I will look back and think, "Hey, when I was 38, I was very fit."

So women, and men, reading this - please be kind to yourselves.  Appreciate that life is a process, and that just because we are so often always striving toward a bigger goal, it doesn't mean we should dismiss our current greatness.

I know I'm going to try harder to celebrate my current self.

Also, next to me happens to be one of
my favorite Nursing School professors.
We didn't run together, but she caught
me in the last mile.  Great job Prof W.

106% WIN

Gentleman 3R "We've got 110 psi in the tires, 40 ounces of water, its dark and we're wearing sun glasses."

Hit it.

On Saturday I completed my 2013 New Years Goal. I remember it like it was yesterday, It was New Years Day, I was talking to a GOTR Merlin, and I said, "This year I'm going to do a Century".

It took till Oct 5th, but I did it. The Martin's Tour of Richmond Gran Fondo.

So let's discuss... “Gran Fondo” means “Big Ride” in Italian.  (That's what she said). 

Oh yeah. It was big (That's what she said). In fact, two days before the race I learned that they'd added 4 miles to the course. As if 102 miles wasn't enough, I was now doing 106 miles. Good stuff.

Leading up to the ride I was asked repeatedly, "What's your goal?"
Goals...
I'm big on goals.

Mostly the weekend consisted of these goals:
Survive the heat.
Finish the ride.
Smile a lot.
Did I mention "don't die?", cos it's on the list... the forecast was something along the lines of 92 degrees so... yeah, in October...

I did the event with my pals, The Gentlemen of the Roads and The Ladies of the Lanes. We were divided into pace groups - the A group, the B group, the DD group... that's where Lady Karen and I fell in....

shade = more important
than it looks

It was an awesome ride. Through parts of the city I had never seen before...
Riding down the marathon race course I spotted in the distance two runners standing on the street corner, waiting for 1,000 cyclists to ride past. They looked annoyed. Hands on hips. Sipping from water bottles... hey.. wait a minute...I know them...

"HEY YOU PEOPLE!"

At some point just before the first worlds longest hill I found myself on the tire of Gentlemen Tom. It was fun to hang with them for a bit, and I dropped myself when the climb started and reconnected with Mike, British & Karen.

First rest stop, quick top off water bottles, porta potty, and go!

TMI: Strategy for 106 miles in 90+ degree heat - I decided EVERY stop I would hit the potty and see if I was peeing enough. #weird. I think nursing school ruined me for normalcy. At any rate, it worked well. By the end of the day I knew I was WAY behind in hydration.

Rest stop TWO - This is SO much better with lube! (That's what she said).

A blur of miles... rest stops... drink again, drink again, drink again... and lots of eating. And Beer Talk.

The Fearsome Four - 60% done, and that ain't bad.

Connected again to the B group at another stop and Gentlemen Tom teased me about my standard melt down - predicting it would happen at mile 87. At this point we were around mile 60something and I was still smiling.

And then more miles and more miles and I started watching the clock... not because I was worried about a melt down, but more because... Gentleman British's Daughter had a birthday party he HAD to be back for... and my daughter had to be at said birthday party... 

so we started picking up the pace.

We fell into a new little group - and I was once again on Tom's tire. It was work, but only in the way that cycling comfortably is work. I wasn't struggling, we were just moving along. 

Tom: "My garmin says it's 94 degrees here."
Me: "Information I could have done without..."

Hot Sweaty Mess

It was hot, we were pounding our drinks. But we couldn't slow down, because by now, we were racing the clock... not sure racing is a fair assessment. I was moving my bike as fast as I could given the circumstances.

And wait a freaking minute here...

I realized that we were cruising, and I was 93 miles into my ride. Holy wow.

A wash of euphoria rolled over me and I grinned as I soaked in the HIGH that comes from endurance sports.

Somewhere around mile 93 or so my legs asked, politely, if we could just stop and take a dirt nap.

I told them to STFU.

They piped up again at mile 94.

At this point, I promised them that if they kept doing their job that there would be beer.  “Just keep pedaling up this hill, there’s beer at the finish. It’s true.”

 And

“The faster you pedal, the faster you get to the beer. Hang on Tom’s wheel and Go to the Beer.”

Until eventually, the cohesiveness of my thoughts unraveled and my thoughts became, 

“Tom’s Tire. Beer.”

And finally,

“Beer.”

Richmond International
Raceway - Victory Lap

I’m pretty sure the single mindedness of my mantra could have been a lot more inspirational. Imagine the power of this blog If I’d had some schmoopy inspirational laden mantra about the power of the human spirit to overcome adversity.

Not this girl.

She was focused on beer.

Ironically, by the time I pulled myself over the 106^th mile in the 90+ degree heat, beer wasn’t nearly as heaven sent as a cold iced washcloth and a bottle of BluesomethingorotherAid.  I think I proposed to the girl who handed it to me. I’m not sure, it’s vague. It might have been a guy now that I think about it...

After the event though, I realized that despite how hard it was, I did an amazing job. 

it's not pretty, but it's
authentic. I was suffering
and it is HOT here. But I am
getting it done at RIR.
1 mile to go.

But this was NOT about winning, or getting an age group finish, or being ahead of anyone else. This was about ENJOYING MY SPORT and EMBRACING MY OWN ACCOMPLISHMENT.  

Regardless of how fast or slow I completed the 102 106 miles, it was a STELLAR DAY. I consider it a 106% SUCCESS.

I was proud of my strong finish. I did exactly what I set out to do, and so much more than that. 

And oh look, there was a timing chip and the results are telling. The more fun you have doing something, the better you are at it

... Thanks to Tom, British Les and Mike, true Gentlemen of the Road, who pulled me to a 2^nd place age group finish.

As an aside - Sportsbackers did a great job. There was plenty of water, plenty of volunteers, food, etc. On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being a fail and 10 being Spot On, I'd give them an 8. 

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~

Friday's Thursday post...

yea... it's like that.  Yesterday I started to write a post...  instead I spent the day researching legal euthanasia in the netherlands for my ethics paper... so... here's my post, plus a few other thoughts...


1. Now that I’ve gone, and now that I’m back, I can say with conviction…  Vegas is not my cup of tea.  Vegas is like a slice of imitation cheese wrapped in plastic.  It looks like cheese, sort of, but it’s fake, and I don’t think there’s really any milk in that stuff…  so Vegas is fun, but it’s more like the “idea” of fun…  like the idea of cheese…

2. This week Pixie Green (PG) came down to The Glen for a business meeting.  It was too fabulous for words.  She is funny, and fun, and we had a great time at dinner, and then the next day on an early morning run.  Once a while back I had raved about sushi on my facebook wall, and PG mentioned always wanting to try it, but…  So, I decided that if we ever got together, we would go for Sushi, and I would bring her over to the “dark side”.   And I did, she loved it.

3. My level of exhaustion is palatable.  I can taste it in the food I eat, the air I breathe and the run I savor.   School is completely crushing my spirit, requiring me to wear brighter socks, more pink and lime, and generally do everything in my power to keep myself going.  I would never recommend a mid-semester trip to Vegas the week of class registration.  Just saying.

4.    Oh, one other small and nearly insignificant detail...  I signed up for this little race called the Richmond Marathon, and plan on training (again) with the Sports Backers MTT...  Can June just get here already so I can RUN MTT?

Coach ~

So next weekend I'll be taking T & SpeeDee up to DC to run the National Marathon.  I'm literally taking them, since we're planning on driving the "beige minivan".  I also plan to save all my run for the day, wait on the course, and run/coach T in... and go back for SpeeDee if I'm OK to do so... and run/coach her in.

I think this is interesting for one major reason.  I'm not the coach here.

SpeeDee is not just a coach, she is one of the coaches for a PINK power force here in the Richmond area, Sportsbackers MTT team PINK NATION.

T has been "my" coach for a long time.  Heck, she was my coach before she was a coach.  And when I ran my GBA marathon last November, T was waiting for me at mile 22.  It was probably one of the best moments in my running life.  There were a lot of things that day that were "the best moments", and T definitely had her hand in pretty much all of them.  Like "Remember that time..." when TMB completely refocused all my energy on the finish line when I still had an entire mile left to run?  I just hope that I can be half the coach she was for me at mile 22 of the marathon next weekend.

~shiver~ these are big shoes to fill.

To be honest, I am not sure what I am going to be able to offer either of these GBA women on race day, but for the day, it will be my job to spectate, cheer, carry stuff, and heck-fire-and-shoot ~ if coaching is needed, then that's what I'm going to strive to do.

Just call me "GBAg, Temporary Coach of GBA Team Red Sox Nation".

Experience.

Good judgment is the result of experience and experience is the result of bad judgment.                                                            

-Anonymous

Today I signed up for the SportsBackers Marathon Training Team.  Yes, I plan to run 85% or more of my training runs with TMB, but let's be honest, she might not want to run 24 miles one Sunday morning, and since she's training for an 8K, I won't really blame her.  So, I figured a plan was better than no plan.


As far as I can tell Lady Em, SpeeDee, TMB, DeNiece & myself will be running a lot together this year, and you know what?  I'm so down with that....