It's about how it makes you feel.

A lot of times people don't start things because they feel so far away from the results.  Whether it's running or training for something else, or learning something new like playing guitar or crocheting...getting good at it feels  very out of reach.  So they just don't.

People tell me all the time, in reference to running, that they could never do it: "I don't know how you do it.  I could never do it."  I always tell them I started at the beginning.  Barring injuries, all it takes is dedication (or hard-headedness...)

Whether or not you think your actions can make a difference in your life, starting and believing means more than just getting you to where you want to end up.  Taking a stand changes you in the present.  I became different when I became a runner.  I looked at my surroundings differently.  I felt my strength growing and I translated it into prayer, sending that strength to the people who came into my mind, or searching my mind for the people I knew who needed what I was digging into.  I don't look at it as God giving me that strength when I became a runner, though, but that it was always there.  And when I concentrated on sending that strength to other people, it was prayer to me because I wanted them to have something that was of God in me.  My way of praying for people.

Who knows if it has ever helped anyone.  It helps me.  Taking a stand for things in life is similar.  It doesn't matter if it ever makes a difference.  It's about me and what I do.  What I choose to do affects me in the present, affects other people in the present.

Your vote in an election may seem to not count.  It's unlikely that my vote will ever affect the outcome of any election.  That's not the point.  The point is how I feel for voting, for going and being involved in the process. It affects how I feel about myself and how I feel about my country.  This is not one of those "You can't complain if you don't vote" kind of things.  Complain away.  How does that feel?

I tell myself all the time, I could skip this run or cut that run short by 3 miles and really, how is it going to affect my overall training?  Not at all, probably, but it will affect how I feel about myself that day, and those effects are cumulative.  So much hinges on where I am in my mind.

I want to be an open-minded person, interested in hearing other points of view and thinking them through.  Sometimes I take things personally.  Sometimes it feels personal to me when it's totally not to the other person.  Sometimes I need to speak up and other times it might be better to let it go.  It depends--on the effect speaking up might have and on how I will feel about myself and my actions.

I just read a piece online suggesting that the real way to respond to chick-fil-a is for lots and lots of gay people to go there and be visible.  Dan Cathy doesn't care if no gay people go there ever again.  That's another point of view to consider.  Visibility can do more than anger in many situations.

Yesterday was the first of two 20 milers I have planned for training for Tupelo.  It was the morning of a hot day but the run felt...fine.  The humidity was low-ish and I ran smart and stayed hydrated.  I bathed in water fountains and stalked yard sprinklers, even danced and laughed in the sprinkler on the JHS practice field.  The water felt so cool and so beautiful I couldn't help but pull my hat off and just laugh.  It didn't hurt, I didn't struggle, and I'm not sore today.  That means I could be pushing harder, but I'm going to branch out into some other areas of fitness instead of pushing harder with running.  Let running be calm and comfortable for now.

I dug in a little in the last couple of miles.  I wanted a short walk, but I thought, say there were 2 miles left in a marathon.  How do I feel?  Would I want myself to walk now if this were the race?  Would I need to?  No, of course not.  Push through it.

This week is another fall-back week, then another big week, then tapering.  After Tupelo I would like to do one marathon a month (or even a 50k) until the end of the year, or maybe until March and the next Little Rock Marathon.  It's easier that way...

Beach rain running.

We got rained out in the middle of our beach day, so I decided to hit the treadmill since I slept in this morning. When I got there the fitness center was packed, so I hit the pavement in the sprinkling rain instead. The air felt great and I felt only slightly crazy as I watched lightning strike off in the distance and heard thunder rumbling.

I had a good run, glimpsing the sea from time to time, and appreciated the cloud cover. I need one more 5 mile run and an 8 mile run while we're here, and then a 20 mile run on Sunday.

Here's me enjoying a Summer Shandy on the balcony after my run.






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Think.

This morning I took it easy.  I had 5 miles planned and I've been asking a lot of myself running-wise in the last week so I decided to give myself an easy run, take some walk breaks, and enjoy myself.  It worked.

I had something on my mind.  Yesterday I saw several snarky posts on facebook about something the president said: that if you are successful you didn't get there alone, if you have a business, you didn't build that.

I don't have a business, but I do have a successful career as a teacher and have enjoyed accomplishments as a runner.  To what extent did I build my career alone, or get to where I am as a runner?

We can look at my career first.  I went to a public high school in Jacksonville, AR where I had good teachers and was adequately prepared for college.  I attended a state school, the University of Central Arkansas, on a full academic scholarship.  Alone?  Not so much.  When I moved off campus, I commuted to UCA on state highways and interstates.

What I did with those things was up to me, of course, and my excellent grades at UCA helped land me my first teaching job.  My pay has increased in part due to my Master's degree, which I also got at UCA.  My actual work as a teacher was on me, but would I have had the chance to build this career "alone"?

Then there's the running thing.  Would I be where I am now as a runner without government, without things and services provided in part by public money?

I started running in my neighborhood, which is safe enough for me to feel comfortable out alone.  When I leave my immediate neighborhood, I run on sidewalks.  I depend pretty heavily on a water fountain in a city park off of Loop Road.  So I owe a thank you to the JPD, whoever pays for the upkeep of sidewalks, and Jacksonville Parks and Recreation.  I wouldn't be a runner without, at least, the safety of the community and the sidewalks.

I do most of my long runs at the River Trail in Little Rock and North Little Rock.  I criss-cross the Big Dam Bridge week after week.  That project cost $12.5 million.  I use the Two Rivers Bridge ($5.3 million) and the trail itself (begun with a $1.9 million bond issue, which I assume is different from using tax dollars.  Someone can school me.)  I doubt I would be running distance if the trails weren't there, since it's the long, scenic option that keeps me motivated on distances of over 10 miles.

Then the running ties back in to my career.  I work in a field which gives me hours that are friendly to running.  I make enough money to buy the gear I need to run.  Maybe I don't "need" the gear I use, but I doubt I would have stuck with running without it.  The money I use to buy that stuff and to travel to marathons and pay entry fees comes from my job as a public school teacher.  If I get injured, I have insurance through my job to pay for medical care.  When I get sick, I can afford to go to the doctor and recover quickly--and keep running.

Some people choose to be snarky about the comment the president made, but I chose to think about it.  Nobody does anything alone.  I may have been born with abilities and talents, for which I am thankful, but the possibility of growing them depends on the conditions around me.

The election is, of course, coming up, and each side loves a sound-bite of what they perceive as the other side "messing up."  I've laughed at them before, and I probably will again.  But I also choose to think.

Running in the Rain.

This morning I woke up at about 4:15; I had dreamed that it was time to get up and it wasn't. I rolled over almost gleefully to savor the last hour in bed. When the alarm went off at about 5 I slowly got moving.

It was raining. I looked at the radar on my phone and used my mad meteorological skills to deduce that it wasn't storming and wouldn't rain long. Kristin texted in response to my facebook post and recommended goggles.

When I got to Cook's Landing there were lots of people out. I decided to first go over the bridge and down to Two Rivers.

As Lee Lee said earlier, it was like the rain was set to sprinkler mode. It was soft, steady, and cool. There's a part of Two Rivers where the water comes up next to the trail and is a swampy green. It felt tropical today. Frogs echoed deep throaty calls back and forth across the trail and big white flowers hung from bushes.

On the way back after my first turnaround, I saw a mother and baby deer. They turned back toward the brush but didn't go far. I watched them as much as I could.

I stopped back at my car and got some more gels and then went south on the North Little Rock side, 9 miles in. As I passed the golf course at Burns Park, the rain picked up quite a bit. I went over the wooden bridge feeling euphoric, taking my hat off and holding my hands out and up to the rain. Into the trees, it seemed for a minute like I was the only person left out there. Not for long, though. I passed a cyclist grinning as much as I was. Along the stretch before the skate park and along the cliffs, I looked out at the wide river. Something about the currents or the rain made a camouflage pattern of color along the water, lighter and darker and rippled and pricked with rain drops.

After my second turnaround while going back down a hill, two guys on bicycles came from the other direction. One told the other to look in front of him: a deer had stepped out onto the trail behind me. He must have been standing right next to the trail but I was looking ahead. I watched his tail as he ran up the trail.

The last few miles were a bit challenging because my shoes and socks were sopping wet and heavy. Still, I felt terrific, kissed by the soft rain all morning, cool and wonderfully spent. Days like today are rare.




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Words to the Past.

This morning I took it easy.  I had five planned and wanted to do six so I could take it off of one of my longer runs this week.  I also wanted to just look at today as a recovery run so I walked when I felt like it and drank plenty of water.

I tried something that Kate Evans suggested: start with A and go through the alphabet, thinking of a word that makes you happy for each letter.  I made a few revolutions, and one thing that I found--that I liked--is that thinking of one word would make me think of another.  Of course the other word wouldn't start with the right letter, so I would try to put it off.  Tomorrow when I run I won't.  I'll let the words take me where they want me.

I tried to hang on to the words that I liked particularly the sound of: supine, effervescent, luminescence, vivacious, voracious.  I was stuck at E once but chose edamame: my sushi bar comfort food.  A few times my words triggered memories of the lake when I was a kid: baking on the rocks at Dam Site Park until we couldn't handle it any longer and plunged off into the cool clean-smelling lake water, climbing up moss-slicked rocks back to the top, breathless and dripping, collapsing back on the towels until time to do it again...Driving home a bit sunburned, smelling of tanning lotion and hair in knots from the wind blowing through the windows.  Really those summer times are never far from me, but I liked it being close today.  It's a nice place in my past.

My calves were hard on me again today and didn't loosen up until about half-way.  I went down Brockington to the bottom of the first hill and then came back, feeling good with about 2 miles to go.  I got my six in.

This afternoon it finally rained and we had to go outside and feel it.

We walked barefoot down the street that was wet but still warm from the sun, holding out our hands and our faces to the drops.

A is for acclimate.  O is for open-minded. G is for gregarious. Q is for queer.

A gritty, dirty place.

The alarm went off this morning at...5 am?  I drank too much wine last night.  Not too much for a regular night, but too much for the night before a scheduled 17 mile run.

So the alarm went off.  I hit snooze.  Max rolled over on the remote and turned on the TV.  George Lopez was on at 5 am.  That's enough to get me up, but not necessarily enough to get me moving.

I hadn't gotten anything ready last night, so I had to drag my bag out and start throwing stuff in it.  I thought for a second about hitting the road in the neighborhood, but 17 miles of circles around Jacksonville sounded like more than I could take.  I went outside to the laundry room in my underwear to get my shorts and running bra.  I was going to wear a shirt but the one I wanted was dirty.  Yeah, ok, no, that doesn't usually stop me, but there was a black tire-track looking mark on it from taking Ty's bike out the other day.  I went without a shirt.  I hate that little belly pooch but I do keep reminding myself that it keeps my water belt from riding up.

I parked at Cook's Landing and started running at 6:40.  I decided to break the run into 2-3 segments based on which direction I was heading, and started down the North Little Rock side.  There was that little hitch in my left hip/groin for the first bit, but I finally got it to pop and all was well.  It was cloudy, which turned out to be my saving grace today, though I did worry constantly about getting caught in a storm.  I needn't have.

I ran to the skate park and then turned to go up the hill at Ft. Roots.  This was the first sign of difficulty at about 3.7 miles or so.  I was huffing and puffing up that hill and did walk a little.  Some firetrucks were just finishing up putting out a small brush fire near the top.  I rounded the curve, went around the building at the top of the hill, and got a good look at the view.  Then I enjoyed the run back down.  I was feeling what I am coming to know as "first half bliss," where I think about what a great run this is even though I'm not even into it that well.

Back at Cook's Landing I went over the big dam bridge and had a bit of a mental debate about what to do now.  I was at 12 miles and only needed 5 more.  The trail seemed busy down toward Murray Park (I like busy) so I almost went that way, but then changed my mind and turned toward Two Rivers instead.  I crossed the bridge and made the loop.

It was around the time of coming back over Two Rivers bridge that I really started to feel the miles.  I fought the urge to walk up the incline and dug deep instead.  I dug for a place, told myself to dig down to the gritty dirty place where no one else is and no one else can find me, to dig down to the place where nothing else exists and just run.  I powered over the bridge and back down stream toward my finish.  I focused, tried to make a tunnel in front of me and not think, just repeat, nothing else exists, nothing else exists, nothing else exists.

With about 1.25 miles to go just after the 430 overpass I slowed to a walk for a drink.  I felt my calves start to cramp up and knew that I needed to get back to a run quickly, so I gulped some water and kept going.  One more time I walked, accidentally, when I went for a drink and pulled the whole spout of my water bottle out.  I grabbed it up and went on, glancing at my watch too many times until I crossed from 16.99 to 17 miles.  Stop.  Walk back over the Big Dam Bridge.  I averaged a pace of 10:18 (not including my stops for water fountain bathing) and I'm happy with that.

I thought some today about what people are carrying around with them that we don't know about, how we don't know their stories or where they keep their baggage or how they cope.  How I can meet people or even know people for a while and not see or even imagine that they might be a little like me, but not in the good ways.  But not in the bad ways, either.  It's actually a good thought.

My goal to pick a word every day has not taken hold.  I have made lists, though, of things that I have been putting off and just being anxious about.  I have crossed quite a few of them off, and tomorrow I'll have more chances.

Confessions.

In case you don't know, I haven't been doing very well lately.

I won't go into the details of why, but the symptoms are there.  Some of them are odd.  Like I can get up in the morning, however much I might complain about it, and run 4 or 7 or 15 miles, but the thought of bringing in the four 12 packs of soda (shut up, it's not all for me) makes me want to take a nap.  I can't make myself read books, so I refresh facebook and other online amusement over and over even though it's not amusing at all and probably contributing to my malaise.  I put off things that I know are important even though I know I would feel better if I got them done because the thought of actually doing them makes me anxious, and I don't want to be anxious.  Facing my anxiety feels a little like jumping off a cliff.  I don't like that feeling in my belly.

I can't bring myself to talk openly about some of my reasons why I feel this way, so I just keep feeling this way.  I know it's a symptom of my problem to want other people to fix things for me, to make things better and easier, and I know that won't really fix anything, but I still want it.  I want to feel reassured and safe and sure and I know that to some extent I have to find that for myself but I'm scared maybe that I'll find out something I don't want to about myself.  Or something.  I don't know.

I see things in my face and hear things in my voice that I don't want to see or hear.

I took a step today to try to work on fixing it.  I need to figure this out as much for me as for the people around me.  I half deal with things because I'm scared and tentative all the time.

This is not the person that I want to be.  I've worked so hard to get where I am athletically and that has brought a strength to me but sometimes I hide behind the power that I get from that and pretend it's something other than it is.

Today I did two other things that I had been putting off.  They weren't really things that made me anxious--more so like bringing in the 12 packs of soda.  Stuff I think of doing and then delete in favor of sitting and refreshing facebook and hating myself for not reading a book or taking back control of my mind.

My run yesterday was terrible.  It was so hot.  I got out a bit too late and it got so hot...I stopped and started and wanted to just call it off at 10 or 11 miles.  I found sections of road that were shady and ran them up and down a couple of times to cut down on time in the sun.

There were some good parts.  I saw a flat-topped turtle.  At the water fountain by the community center the crepe myrtle was dropping purple confetti on the ground.  The sun at times seemed friendly instead of white-hot.  The couple of times that I found a sprinkler the feeling of the water on my shoulders was something out of heaven, and the breeze after wetting down in the water fountains brought me back to life.

Mostly it was so hard but it made me thing of what people must think when they say they wish they could run but they can't or are so out of shape.  The sweat, the heat, the fatigue, the stopping and starting and stopping and dragging and sheer stubborn refusal to lose the mind-game by skipping the last two miles.  Because that's what it is.  It's not like it's only hard for beginners, and you can drag ass on a half mile run the same way you can drag ass on a 13 mile run.  Would reducing this 13 miler to 11 miles really affect my over-all training---no.  But it would affect my perception of what I can do this time and next time and our perceptions of what we can do are so important.