A Running Collection

Friday  Marathon training reaches deep into the furthest places of the mind, body, soul, and heart and courage and endurance and patience and tenacity and whatever it takes to get to that day where you wait to start running and hope that all that you did — all of the woven pieces stay together long enough to get to the finish.  I feel like I’m careful about everything. Careful about sleep, food, cross training, weight training, stretching, timing runs, shoes, pace, sunglasses, cool downs — all of it. I try to remember to not go barefoot outside during training and I definitely wear shoes that won’t mess with my feet.  I’m not sure what happened, but something happened. The second toe on my left foot is angry. It is so angry that I feel it when I sleep, when I’m awake, when I walk. It is red and purple and weird. It is tingly and tender. It is swollen and huge. I can’t fix it. I’ve tried to rest. I’ve tried ice, heat, oils, balms. I tried digging into it to se...

This morning was the morning. The morning to buy the shoes that will go to Boston. The shoes that will glide over the giant word painted in bright blue and yellow - START, and hopefully 26.2 miles later cross the FINISH in the same bright blue and yellow letters. This was a thoroughly calculated move. I purchased Brooks Women's Ghost 12 running shoes size 8.5. The shoes cost $121 with the $8 discount I had from Amazon points. In November, I ran 27 of 196 miles in a 36 hour relay race. As I neared the day of the race, I knew my shoes were nearly worn out. I waited one run too long to buy a new pair, which meant I had to run in new shoes for the race. I tried running in the old ones during my first leg and immediately I knew it was a bad idea. The better idea was to run in the new shoes. This might all sound like too much information about a pair of shoes, but hang with me for a minute. This will be at least my 12th pair of Brooks Women's Ghost running shoes in three years...

In the fourth grade, we went as a class to gymnastics at the YMCA once a week. There were people finding life one day at a time at the Y. It was a busy place. I remember the smell of the cafeteria. Food  smells, books, pools, gymnasiums, couches, chairs, beds -- all of this at the YMCA. We were a tiny class from a tiny school and it must have been part of our P.E. requirement. The girls in my class surely took gymnastics outside of our P.E. requirement because they were bending and jumping and flipping and balancing all over the place. I was pretty excited about the foam pit and the trampoline, but not the split, not the flip, and definitely not the balance. At ten, this was not natural. This was hard.                                            Fast forward thirty plus years. Stretching and bending is a regular part of my life. I set the alarm early enoug...

It was the Kiawah Marathon. Mile 22. Everything hurt. My stomach was in shreds. It took all my focus to take the next step. Move. That was all there was left to do. There was no crowd. It was silent and still and cold. There were no women anywhere near me. There were several men running the same pace through the empty streets. We were plodding. It was silent. We were in pain. I had an idea. They might be interested to know -- this feels like labor! So, the very one sided conversation began..."He guys, if you were ever wondering what labor feels like, this is it!!" For some reason, I was sure they would say, "No way. Tell me more." They didn't. So, I just shared a little bit about the pain that we were all sure to be experiencing at this point in the race. Now they could tell people they understood labor! I don't think that was important to them at mile 22.  It was my first marathon after birthing two children and comparing the two, was of course, a great way...

Most every run these days is an out and back. There are not that many loops around here -- or side roads for that matter; therefore, running involves heading out for a certain number of miles and turning around and coming back. This might seem like an excruciatingly long boring way to log miles, but it is also the way to guarantee miles. Because, not matter what, I can't quit or I'm stuck. I can't cut corners, I can't give up. The choice is made in the first part of the run. The choice is made at mile three to go six, at mile six to go twelve.  And every up hill guarantees a down hill and every down hill -- up you go on the way back. On my last long run, by the time I made it to mile seven, I knew I'd made it -- 14 miles was in the bag. Because there was no sitting down. There was no quitting - there was only moving. To get back home, to be done, I had to move and run those seven miles!                         ...

Twelve Mondays: Resistance Training. A week ago, I ran 12 miles with an average pace of 8:28 minute miles. This wasn’t bad, especially for the giant hills around us, but I know I'm at the cusp of taking it to the next level. There is one way I know for sure to improve my time. Resistance. The elliptical is my go to for cross training. It gets the job done and its easy on these old knees. The settings usually stay put. Resistance -- 5. Incline -- 3. I did one little thing this week -- moved the resistance to six. This simple change meant big burn believe it or not. Burning lungs, burning legs, burning arms. But, it is the resistance that pushes the body -- that takes the body further than it thinks it can go. The push gives power. One week later, I ran 14 miles at an 8:03 pace. Twenty five seconds off each mile! This is crucial. This took the entire training process to the next level. And the only change was resistance. Recently, a very wise woman explained t...

There are thirteen Mondays from now until the Boston Marathon. It will be the third time I line up with herds of humans to run 26.2 of the most coveted miles on the planet. And this is the crazy thing. I'm a mom with four kids. I look like a skinny turtle-chicken when I run and I'm posting a picture to prove it. I don't train the right way because I don't like rules and I sort of just make up my plan as I go.  There are at least two marathons that I lined up for and I had only run 14 miles as my "distance training"-- but I was in my 20s and there wasn't a lot of easy to access information about the importance of training. But my body begs me for miles and I give in because I can and for that I am forever glad.                 For my entire life I've loved running. There are very few miles in the 1000s of miles I've pounded out that I did not want to be running and I probably found out the next day that I was pregnant. Yes, you now defi...