Game changers

I'd kind of cooked up a goal for myself this year: flush with the thrill of my big race in October, the girl who'd never run longer than a 10k decided she could run a half marathon.  And yes, the dither implicit in that first sentence is intentional - I was torn between the couch potato I'd been for so long and the runner I really believed myself to be.

Late one Tuesday night in February, I had the registration form open for the Frederick Half Marathon.  I completed all the fields, but chickened out when it came to making the payment.  (Because honestly, spending the $80 is what makes it real, isn't it??) I chose to just leave the window open.

Wednesday morning 6am found me warming up at bootcamp, as I did every Monday Wednesday and Friday.  After a flat-out sprint, 6.25am found me hobbling along the baseline of the gym, painfully aware that my goals might suddenly be changing.

When I surveyed friends about treatment for Achilles injuries, the answer was unanimous:  GET THE HECK OFF IT.  DO. NOT. USE.

That first week, my goal was simply to stretch and ice it daily, so certain was I that it was a minor hiccup in my training plan.

After 7 days' rest, my goal was to do a slow easy run, just to ease back into things.   Twenty feet down the street and I knew I wouldn't be running for a long time.

After 14 days' rest, I finally called the doctor.  My goal was simply to find out when I could run again.

At the podiatrist's, he cheerfully ventured a guess that I'd probably ruptured it to some extent, and ordered an MRI.  More waiting.

A week later, the MRI completed, I waited nervously for the Official Diagnosis. More cheerful:  no rupture! he enthused.  Just some serious tendinitis.  But when, I wanted to know.  When can I run?

Five weeks he said.  A walking cast for five weeks. A huge, ungainly and extremely inconvenient walking cast.  If you're serious about healing this thing, he said, you will wear this for five weeks like it is the hottest accessory this side of Paris.  

So now my goal is this:  to run,  someday. To wrap my head around a season of healing, instead of a season of training.  To view renewed strength as success, as a different way of crossing the finish line.

Sometimes, goals are game changers.  Sometimes, you have to be ok with the goal itself changing.

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This post is submitted as part of Peter Pollock's One Word at a Time Blog Carnival, this week on 'Goals'.

Run Like a Mother...

Way back in January I told y'all I'd bought a pair of running shoes. Told you I wanted to be a runner again: not to lose weight, not to look better, not even to run fast. I just wanted to be the person who had the shoes to lace up, who had the willpower to roll out of bed at 5.30 on a summer morning to run through the steamy silent sunrise.

I wasn't sure, when I posted that here, whether I'd keep my word. Whether I'd grant myself my wish. Because life is crazy - I am up late in the night attending to details, adult details of my life that get ignored all day. I have three busy kids, one hardworking husband, and a million little things that demand my attention.

Well I have big news.


Yesterday morning I ran like a seven year old. I ran with abandon - up the hills and down the hills and around the lake and around the potholes and... I ran with unfettered joy.

I ran in a marathon relay: I was the fourth leg, with a run of 7.2 miles. This was the first race I'd run in 20 years. The longest distance I've raced ever. I ran and ran and ran and smiled the biggest goofiest smile you've seen on a mom of 3. I had a blast.

And guess what. Turns out, running for joy - for the sheer fun of it? Makes for a smoking fast time. Well, smoking fast for a girl who was planted firmly on the couch watching CSI reruns last fall.

What I felt yesterday goes beyond proud. Beyond 'accomplished.' Beyond happy. What I felt yesterday was Joy.

Is it Happy, or is it JOY?

Happiness is getting your three-mile run in on the treadmill.
Joy is early-morning running in the woods, watching the sun rise in front of you.

Happiness is watching your daughter onstage in her ballet recital.
Joy is watching your daughter twirl by herself in the backyard.

Happiness is hearing your toddler giggle with her 2-year old buddy.
Joy is making her giggle yourself.

Happiness is hearing on the phone that your husband will be home early.
Joy is him walking through the door early, as a surprise.

Happiness is dropping off your preschooler at school without a fuss.
Joy is when he proudly leads you to the gym for the Mothers Day Luncheon.

Happiness is sleeping through the night.
Joy is sleeping through the night, then waking up & realizing your kids are at your parents', and going back to sleep UNTIL NINE O'CLOCK.

Happiness is a new pair of jeans.
 Joy is putting on an old pair of jeans that fit perfectly, straight out of the dryer.

Happiness is a cute pair of flats.
 Joy is your favorite pair of boots, the ones that have traveled 1000s of miles, 3 continents, 2 dormitories and 5 homes.

Happiness is a mailbox with no bills.
Joy is a mailbox filled with a lumpy box that can only mean Care Package.

Happiness is making a new friend on Facebook.
Joy is finding out you can be friends in real life.

Happiness is the sound of coffee dripping into the pot.
Joy is the first sip of the first cup.

Happiness is the mashed potatoes.
Joy is the gravy.

Happiness is a walk in the park.
Joy is finding a climbing tree when you're there and getting to the tippy top branch.

Happiness is the moment.
Joy is the journey.

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This post is a [very late] submission to Bridget Chumbley's One Word at a Time Blog Carnival.  I've done Kindness, Patience, Faithfulness and Self Control so far, and I have to say Joy was one I was looking forward to.  Check it out - the pursuit of Joy is always fruitful.

Run run runaway

Back in college, there was this hill on my regular run - one of those hills that stretch forever upward. It was a long slow climb, steep enough to make your quads scream but not steep enough to justify walking.

I used to set myself these little goals to get myself up the incline:  "Just get to that little pothole - you can make it to there." Then, once I hit that, I'd look for the end of the pub fence, then the bumper of that red Fiesta up there, and so on.

Then, finally, the crest of the hill would come into focus, and often my running partner/steadfast friend Xander would dare me to sprint the last 100 feet.  And most times, I could do it:  with long strong strides,  I could spy the roundabout that marked the turn onto a long gorgeous straightaway through the village.

Well last week was the mothering equivalent of that hill.

I had a sick toddler, who apparently had nothing but a severe cold, but who constantly needed to wipe her snot fountain on my shoulders, constantly wanted to be held, and spent at least 4 nights waking up every hour, on the hour, and crying inconsolably until Mommy - of course only Mommy - would hold her and help her get a drink.  Her siblings, her father, her grandma - none were to touch her, none were to help her, or they'd be subject to the bloodcurdling wails of "noooooooooooooooooooo!  ONLEEEEEE MOMMMMMMEEEEEE!!"

Every morning I woke up more shattered than the night before, and encouraged myself just to get everyone off to school.  THEN I could catch a nap.  I slouched over my mid-morning coffee and told myself I could totally get through lunchtime, and then the baby would nap and then maybe I could too. Except that there was always laundry, always bills to pay, always One. More. Thing.  And then she'd wake up from the nap after 40 minutes, weeping from her own exhaustion and stuffy nose, and as I held her I'd promise myself if I could just make it through bedtime, I could go to bed early.  Of course I never did.

Which is all to say that this past weekend was my long glorious straightaway sprint.  It was my birthday, you see.  We had a long-postponed inn reservation in Annapolis, and plans for a quiet dinner.  Not fancy, not exotic, just...... away.

The drive away from my parents' was quiet - Torbjorn seemed to understand my need to sit without talking.  And then, in a sprint all of its own, my inner dialogue spilled out, for the rest of the forty mile trip.  It was a stream of consciousness brain dump, filled with all of the half-thoughts that had flitted across my mind all week.   Gently, cautiously,  my husband unwrapped the crazy talk, tried to make sense of it,  offered hilarious commentary and generally filled in as Best Guy Ever.

We checked in at the B&B, and changed for dinner.  I had time to put on makeup - even the frou-frou bits like [gasp!] concealer.

 This is a shot of our B&B, from the steps of the Maryland Capitol Building.

We ate at Level - A Small Plates Lounge.  Silly name, the small plates thing, but what a place.  All the menu items are sourced from local farms/fisherman, from the crab ceviche to the buffalo statay to the goats' cheese risotto.  They even make their own tonic for mixers - amazing.  With no rush, no sitter to return to, we savored bits of rice and chorizo, we toasted with a lovely Viognier, and we so enjoyed ourselves we didn't even bother with the Banana Dark Chocolate Bread Pudding with Vanilla Creme Anglaise.  (Not that I minded skipping it.  At all.  And not that I woke up thinking about it. At all. )

We then spent the evening wandering the brick-paved streets of Annapolis, under shadowy branches of blooming cherry and dogwood.  Then - guess what we did?  You'll never guess, I'll just tell you:  we went to sleep.  The week was that bad, people:  all I wanted for my 37th birthday was to go to sleep.

Well, to go to sleep, wake up at 7am - listen for the toddler wail, not hear it, decide I'll never sleep in again in a hundred years, and then wake up again at NINE. O. CLOCK.  Out-freakin-rageous.

 To make my twenty-four hour escape magic, all you had to do was top it off with diner coffee, Belgian waffles, a side of bacon, and watching sailboats on the harbor.  And that, my friends, is exactly what we did.

that's me, enjoying the silence, in the middle of a busy diner

I just might make the next leg of the run after all.

Run, Forrest, Run!

I laid in the new toddler bed at some point during Wednesday night, intending to climb out & return to my own bed.  And I couldn't sit up.  My muscles were in spasms of uselessness, having been subjected to unaccustomed workouts at Silly O'Clock on Monday morning and Wednesday morning. 

Now, I'm typically hopeless with New Year's resolutions.  (Unless, perhaps, if you count the year I resolved to start wearing more feminine socks.  That didn't last either, really.)  The resolutions for improved financial fitness in 2009 failed dramatically.  (But don't you like my new bag?  Isn't it pretty?)

But at some point in the heady, early moments of 2010,  I said to my husband "I want to be a runner.  This year, I want to be a runner again." 

Long ago, so many years ago, I ran.  I ran Track and Cross Country all through high school, for a coach whose first priority was always to show us just how much fun running was. He pushed us hard, he yelled until the veins popped out on his forehead, but if we didn't win the meet, if we didn't make our best times?  Not the end of the world.  He only wanted to know that we'd done our best.  I wasn't a great competitor and I won very few races, but oh the happy memories of running with the team on autumn-colored trails through Rock Creek Park in Washington DC. I even look back fondly on rain-soaked Sunday morning runs with Coach Paulson, my dad, my brother, and our oversized dog.

This is me c1991- the Amazon in the Winnie the Pooh shirt.  Unfortunately, the shirt is probably an indication of just how seriously I was taking the race. I was racing with BFFs Clare & Andrea.

Running kept me going through college as well.  What began as a regime to get rid of extra pounds due to dorm life became nothing less than a daily meditation, a respite from the close-quarters of small college living and an intense academic schedule.  As I hit the streets in the very early morning or the late evenings, and pounded my way through misty English villages, I'd always meant to tell Coach Paulson just how much he'd permanently changed my outlook on exercise.

Then, boring cliche by boring cliche, running slipped out of my life.  Newlywed life proved so cozy - all that cooking/eating/kissing, then our careers started to intensify, and then death knell of all death knells to exercise:  we started having kids.

SEVEN LONG YEARS LATER, there are no more kids in the pipeline. (Ooh, that reminds me, must send Torbjorn's surgeon a Valentine...)  There are no more excuses. There is some level of sanity at stake, and I think running (plus blogging, of course) will be the best way to keep us moving in the right direction.

I love running.  I love lacing up my shoes, I love getting out on the streets, and I love the sweaty feeling of cooling down from a great workout.  When I see posters of runners, when I flip through catalogs of sports gear, when I watch my neighbor sprint down the hill past my house, my feet still itch.

I went out on Friday, ditched the grocery store run and spent a happy hour in the running store buying a brand spankin' new pair of running shoes.  This year, it's my turn. It's my turn to KEEP getting up at Silly O'Clock, to put in the miles and finally get back to my Happy Place. 

Howzabout a little virtual cheerleading along the way? (Coach Paulson is way out West, you see.)