No Sweat
I’ve always associated endurance and perseverance with sweat. Atlas holding up the heavens with his shoulders. Sisyphus forever pushing a boulder up a mountain.
As runners, we know perseverance, endurance. We train to keep going, to run a little farther, a little faster, a little longer, to see if we can’t improve our form, our distance, our time. We persist through heat, rain, humidity, cold, snow, up big hills and across wide expanses of open terrain, under stars and moon and sun. A sweaty endeavor indeed. When we reach our goal, we have physical proof that we have persevered. We have endured.
Running develops these traits in us, as many runners will tell you, and they extend into so many areas of our lives. The past couple of weeks I’ve learned a new application of perseverance, one that is not so sweaty.
Stillness. To wait and do what at first seems like nothing. And nothing is a difficult thing to do. For all that running teaches us to endure, it should also teach us to endure not-running, not taking time but giving it, to accomplish those things that can only be achieved in stillness.
For me, the not-running started with a sprained ankle two weeks ago, but the lesson in persevering through stillness didn’t occur to me until much later. Runners lament not-running while non-runners look on quizzically. They don’t quite understand the stomach-churning anxiety that accompanies it. I don’t always either, to be honest. It’s just running, after all, and although I am a runner, I am so much more. Still. When a part of my identity is suspended indefinitely, it’s disquieting, to say the least.
But, I have found, if I’m quiet and let it be, if I can persevere through the stillness and simply wait, I improve in a different way: I develop an internal patience and peace. And, given time, I can say, no sweat.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )The Journey Up
The Angel Moroni stands erect, head high and horn to lips at the tallest point on Stone Oak Parkway. I’ve marveled at this golden statue perched atop the San Antonio LDS temple for the past few years. The temple itself stands at the pinnacle of one of the highest hills in the area. You can see both the temple and the statue from quite far.
This hill has been my nemesis, my nightmare—my dream, my goal—for years. Each time I’ve driven it I’ve thought that maybe one day, maybe one, if I was lucky (or crazy), I would maybe give it a run. And, if a miracle happened, I would make it to the top.
Until now, I have trained for nearly every half marathon alone. My friend Carrie is training for her first half, and we are using the same plan, one that calls for hill repeats as one of its two days of speed/strength work. We are both trying something new: Carrie, a half marathon. Me, a running buddy. We don’t run together every day. Just the hard ones. The longest of the long runs. The hills.
The hills. We figured if we’re going to run hills, we might as well run Hills. So we chose temple mount.
Last week, our first hill week, we stood at the bottom of the mount and looked tentatively up. We couldn’t see the top from the bottom, could barely see a jutting temple corner and the Angel Moroni heralding the dawn. Four to five short hills is what our plan directed. Our goal was to get as far as we could, maybe half way, for each repeat.
For the first repeat, we counted five lampposts, about a third of the hill, and stopped, excited. Maybe it wasn’t so bad after all. For the second through fourth repeats, we counted eight lampposts, somewhere around half way. We struggled for breath, lungs searing, and made a fifth repeat, five lampposts.
We went home thrilled with ourselves (though we would barely be able to walk the next day), determined to come back and try again.
This week, we met at the bottom of the mount. Three to four long hills, our plan said. Long.
Let’s start where we left off, I suggested. The first repeat to lamppost eight. Then we can shoot for the top.
Carrie looked at me sideways, hands on her hips, looked up the hill. I think, she said confidently, that we should go all the way up the first time. Get it over with. Then if we feel like it, we can do it again.
So we took a deep breath and began. We started up the hill in complete silence, eyes dead center on the cement in front of us. At lamppost eight I was breathing hard, lungs tight but not searing, and we kept going, up and up. Before we knew it, we were at the top, over the last steep hump, the end in sight. I eyeballed a fire hydrant where the sidewalk leveled out, my stopping point. Carrie bounded past me by two cement squares and stopped at the crosswalk.
We smiled, barely, and looked out and around. Lights twinkled for miles in the distance, the sky predawn gray. We sucked in air, high-fived, and jogged back down the hill. It seemed to take much longer going down than coming up.
The thing about doing something hard once is that in having done it you have proof that you can. It doesn’t seem right after that to not do what you just did and what you know you can. It seems that if you do not put in your best effort and repeat your success, you are only cheating yourself. And if you have a buddy, you are cheating her too.
Eight lampposts thus seemed like a silly goal for the second repeat. It was all or nothing.
This time rather than keeping my eyes trained straight in front of me, I glanced up from time to time, looking for the angel with his horn. I could see him at the peak, gold and shiny, beckoning me. I ran and glanced and ran some more, and before long the sidewalk leveled out and the fire hydrant appeared. Carrie bounded two sidewalk squares past me again.
The third time, I didn’t count lampposts, nor did I seek out the angel. I paid attention, instead, to my legs that did not hurt, my lungs that worked hard but were not searing, and my arms and hands and head that felt light as we ascended, and I thought how strange, it’s almost as if our altitude is increasing, like in the mountains, but my ears did not pop. And I remembered the hill at mile 12 of the Austin half marathon, how I cursed the idiot course planner for the giant, steep hill right there, and how this part of temple mount felt like mile 12 then, but now I was not cursing and thinking, as I was then, who does this kind of thing? Who actually pays to torture their body and run like this when they could be in bed with coffee and the newspaper? No. Instead I was running up and up and again, nearing the top, across the last stretch, fire hydrant in sight. And then I bounded past it, with Carrie, to where the sidewalk ends.
On the way down, that again seemed so much longer than going up, I told Carrie that if it wasn’t for her I would never have made it all the way. I would have quit near the top, would not have pushed myself until my arms and hands and head went light as a feather and I flew the rest of the way.
This is a much better plan than all my previous ones. Hills are so much easier to ascend with a running buddy.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Rethinking Pink
I just bought a new pair of running shoes. Bright purple Asics. Very unlike me. I’ve always hated purple.
A year ago I would have balked at the purchase, told the salesperson to take them back, thank you very much, I’d rather have a pair of shoes that maybe didn’t fit quite so well but that weren’t so, well, purple.
But that was a year ago. Times have changed—at least since I bought a pair of bright pink reading glasses.
I’ve always hated pink even more.
When I say hate, I mean loathe. I mean face-squinching, stomach-churning abhorrence. Growing up, my sister and I inevitably received the exact same gift for birthdays and holidays. Exactly the same, that is, with one exception. Whatever the gift was, she got blue. I got pink.
No one ever asked me what my favorite color was. (Decidedly not pink.) No one bothered. They simply bought every article of clothing, bedding, bathing accessory in pink. And you know how it is. Pink begets pink. When one relative saw me with All Things Pink, others made wild assumptions and purchased even more pink. I was forced to live in a Box of Pink.
When I left home for college, I quickly and thoroughly cleansed my world of All Things Pink. I did not purchase one even remotely pink thing until I was well into my 30s: One sweater, a beautiful cardigan with pearlized buttons that the store did not have in black. It sat in my closet, tags dangling, for nearly a year before I wore it—and then, only because laundry was weeks overdue.
Yet just about a year ago when I decided it was time to quit fighting the fact that I need reading glasses, I found myself standing in front of a rack handling a pair of bright pink frames. Pink? I shuddered, yet turned them over in my hands, tried them on, tested them on a label I’d been struggling with in aisle 3. I replaced them on the rack and loitered in the antacids aisle.
Pink glasses. Pink? I paced the aisle, completely dismayed that I was considering buying them. Why, dear God, why would the thought even cross my mind? These glasses couldn’t sit in a drawer for a year. I would need them daily to help me see clearly the very intricacies of life, the things that were right in front of my face.
Then it struck me. Pink. A primary color of Girls on the Run.
Since becoming council director, I’ve faced some of the most challenging days of my life. There’s not a day that goes by where I have to do something I can’t do. Maybe I don’t know how to do it, I don’t have the skill set. Maybe I don’t enjoy doing it and I simply don’t want to. Maybe it’s not my strength. Or, maybe, I feel incapable. Inadequate. That if I do this thing, whatever it is, surely I will fail.
But then I do it anyway. Because it must be done.
And because, as it turns out, I can.
Girls on the Run may be about the girls—empowering them to live outside the Girl Box and to reach their full potential—but along the way, serving them has altered the way I see the world. Inevitably, what I see differently is me.
So I put back the Alka Seltzer, Rolaids, and Tums and walked out of the store with pink glasses, a daily reminder that there is another way to see.
Last year, pink glasses. This year, purple shoes. I figure a new vision won’t get me very far unless I’m willing to take it to the street, give it a good run.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )The Tortoise and the Hare
from News to Swallow, meghanandtommy.com
My friend Lissette turned 50 this year. From her friends and family, she requested a unique gift: Run the San Antonio Rock n Roll marathon with her. Her goal is to recruit 50 family and friends to run this November race. The half, the full, the relay; run, walk, skip, jump, she doesn’t care what they do or how they do it, only that they try.
Many months ago when she told me about her request, I promised to be one of those 50. Last month, I registered for the half.
I made out my training plan then, deciding to try something new. The plan I’ve used for years requires 5 to 6 days of running a week. My new plan requires only three: Two days of intense speed work and one long run, plus three days of cross training and one day of rest.
Two weeks into my plan and I can’t decide if I feel like the tortoise or the hare. Not that I’ve ever run as fast as a hare (or would consider napping in the middle of a race like the hare). But I’m finding the speed work days to be not just intense but also fun. And on the days that I run long, the tortoise mantra paces me: Slow and steady, slow and steady.
It seems that I’ve found the plan that will get me there, as one among the 50.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Becoming Athena
Megan sat on the steps, fidgety and red with frustration. She blinked back tears, too proud or stubborn to cry in public.
“There’s got to be someone,” her teammates moaned. “Just pick a name already.” They, too, were frustrated. We’d been waiting 10 minutes after everyone else finished for Megan to come up with a name. Just one. Single. Name.
The goal of this Girls on the Run exercise was to identify the characteristics of a good role model. The girls were to come up with the names of women who had an impact on them. Megan couldn’t think of anyone.
Her mother? No.
Sister? Didn’t have one.
Cousin, aunt, family friend? Nope.
Surely there was a teacher or coach who had one good quality Megan wanted to emulate? Nada.
Lucy Stone, Harriet Tubman, Amelia Earhart…anyone public, famous, renowned? There was none.
Megan wasn’t the only one fighting tears. The other coach and I clenched our teeth against them too. How could a girl reach adolescence and have not one woman to look up to? We didn’t know how to feel. Frustrated and outraged for starters, but by the end of the day just plain sad.
The assistant coach—my sister—and I talked about this for weeks. We dissected our childhood to come up with the names of women who had an impact on us. We couldn’t think of many. Our mom, an extraordinary woman, topped the list, but there weren’t too many others. The fewer names we came up with, the more we felt the gravity of our role with this team of young girls. Whether we knew it or not, and whether we liked it or not, we were there to be role models. Our behavior and our words mattered in ways we would probably never know. They were watching (whether they knew it or not) to see how two ordinary women handled life.
Once I realized this, I wanted to vomit. If they only knew how many mistakes I had made, how often I still screwed up, they’d laugh me off the playground. But when my stomach stopped churning I recognized that this was part of what drew me to Girls on the Run to begin with. If I had only had someone to show me how to be, how to think for myself, how to choose, perhaps my life would have taken a different turn here and there. What I was looking for as a child was a mentor. I simply didn’t know it at the time.
Where did it come from, the idea of the mentor? Not from the world of business or education, but from a poem. Remember the story of Odysseus from Homer’s The Odyssey? Odysseus went off to fight a war, leaving behind his wife and son, and after years away wanted only to get back home. It took him nearly a lifetime to reach his destination. Along the way, he encountered peril after peril and was often unsure how to proceed. He needed advice and was fortunate to have someone watching over him, to help him through the rough spots: Athena, goddess of wisdom and strategy.
When Athena appears not only to Odysseus but also to his son, Telemachus, she does not come as herself. Rather, she takes on the guise of someone else: Mentor, Odysseus’s old and trusted friend. Her role is to whisper words of wisdom into Odysseus’s ear to guide him home. It is also to help Telemachus not simply adjust to his life circumstances, but to evolve. It is Athena’s guidance—the counsel of the goddess within the (hu)man—that sparks the courage already kindling within both men.
This is the role of the mentor: to set someone on the path of success, of living well. Mentoring requires we give all of our wisdom, our wits, and our hearts. It requires the mentor to reach deep inside to call on reserves she might not know she has.
I still run into Megan from time to time. She shouts me down, waves, smiles broadly, and calls me by the nickname she gave me: Miss What’s-Yer-Name. She never could pronounce my last name, refused to call me by my first. I don’t mind. I’m just glad she remembers me.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 2 so far )Observations for New Coaches
When I first heard about Girls on the Run three years ago, I knew I had to coach. I read everything I could find and cried the whole time. Why wasn’t there a program like this when I was a kid? It would have saved me infinite time and pain. The more I learned about the organization, the more I knew it was for me. Building confidence in young girls through running—could there be anything more perfect?
I now have the privilege of training our council’s coaches. There is so much to cover on training day, however, that there’s not time to tell them everything I wish I could. These are just a few things.
It’s ok to be afraid.
I (over)prepared for my first coaching season—6th-8th graders—but as day one approached, I was scared to death. It was the idea of Girls on the Run, I realized, that attracted me. I hadn’t really considered the fact that coaching meant I’d actually have to talk to girls. But the program is experiential. That means we have to do things together.
What did I know about kids, after all? I don’t have any. My nieces live halfway across the country. My foray into teaching kids lasted one morning in a preschool—3 hours of enough finger paint to shellac the entire school, more full and exploding training pants than I care to remember, and infinite Oreo cookie crumbs smeared in places that were never designed to see them. Not for me, thanks very much. I chose to stick with teaching adults instead.
So when week #1 rolled around and I found myself facing a dozen middle school girls, I was terrified. What if I said something stupid? Or, worse, what if one of them did and I didn’t know how to respond? What if someone came to me for help and I failed her? Would I even know they were asking—did we speak the same language? Not English or Spanish or anything you could pick up through Rosetta Stone. What I mean is, would we relate?
It took a couple of weeks, but I figured something out. Everything I felt and thought and feared—they did too. I may have had the words to express myself (or the wisdom to choose not to) where the girls were just learning. But the main thing they needed was to be heard, to know that not only did they have a voice, but that their voice mattered. They needed the space to take hold of their voice, and then to run with it.
As the season went on, my fear slowly subsided. I even added two words to my vocabulary: Awesome and joy.
Be real.
Being a coach can be tough. You’re not their mother (even if you are). You’re not their teacher (even if you are). And—don’t panic about this one—you’re not their friend. You are an amalgamation of all these roles and none of them. You are there to care for, guide, and mentor the girls on your team. You are there to serve.
Many organizations talk up “service,” a word so overused that we often take it for granted. Even McDonald’s serves. I’ve had to ask myself what it really means to serve, and I find a clue in the first part of our mission statement: “We inspire girls to be joyful, healthy and confident…” To inspire means that something external activates something internal. The internal piece is already there, whole and (im)perfect.
We are not there to fix anyone. To fix implies that something is broken. We are not there to help anyone. To help implies that they are somehow lesser, incomplete, unfinished. We are not there to save or rescue anyone. This implies that they are lost.
We are there to serve: The whole in you, with all your (im)perfections, to meet the whole in them—mind, body, and spirit. To do this, you must open your heart. You must be authentic and real. Kids are smart. They can sense when someone is posing. They will accept you and like you, no matter what, as long as you are you.
If you let it, it will change you.
Coaching for Girls on the Run appeals to people for a variety of reasons. Some coaches are parents or teachers who see the struggle of tweenhood first-hand and wish to somehow alleviate it. Others remember it, wouldn’t go back there in time for a bazillion dollars, and want to alter the trajectory of someone else’s life, to show them how to save time and pain. And then there are the runners. Those of you who know that running saves lives, because it’s saved yours.
If you embrace your fear and open your heart, your life will be different because of your team. They are wise without knowing it, and will say things that blow you away. You will see the look on their faces when they run, and it will stop you in your tracks. My hope is that you will come away from your experience with a new word added to your vocabulary too: Joy.
Someone asked me just yesterday, how do you tell a girl to be confident? You don’t. You show her. Not only that she can reach inside and pull out the beauty and greatness that’s already there. You demonstrate it yourself.
How incredibly fortunate we are to have such amazing coaches who can do just that.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 2 so far )Where’s the Margarita Stop? (Part 2)
There was no margarita stop, but we survived last weekend’s Tour de Jalapeno anyway. Although this was a 26-mile race, the event lasted 2 days—at least for us.
Day 1
Saturday morning 4:15 am my alarm rattles me out of bed. It’s the morning of my very first bike race, and I am moderately excited. It is difficult to be extremely excited about much of anything but coffee at this very early hour, so I pour myself a cup and sit on the dining room floor with my dogs, staring vacantly into the kitchen until cup #1 kicks in.
Robert, moderately excited upon arising at 4:45 am, completely misses the fact that there is a fresh pot of coffee waiting to help him kickstart his morning. He sees it at 5:25 am, as we are walking out the door.
We’re on the road at 5:45. Our excitement meter has moved up a notch from moderate but has not yet landed on extreme. We at least smile but are not yet ready to chat.
We approach San Marcos. The race day instruction sheet is in my hand, and I am reading the directions to Robert. They are very clearly marked. As we head east to Martindale, we both comment on how strange it is that there is not much traffic. Not one other car with bikes. We’d think by now—it’s 6:45 and start time is 7:30—there’d be a steady stream of cars down the country roads and into the parking area. There is none.
We follow the directions on the race day instruction sheet, still firmly gripped in my hand, turning left and left and finally right—and pull up to a gate. It is closed and locked. We are confused. This is the place. Why is it vacant?
Robert slaps his hand to his forehead and swears. I look down at the paper in my hand, very clearly marked. The race is tomorrow.
Day 2
I wake up at 4:13 am, minutes before my alarm. Today my excitement jolts me out of bed. On Saturday we made the best of the day and took the opportunity to drive the route. It is beautiful. Rolling hills, cows, mist settling on the sunflowers at daybreak. We even spot a Mexican eagle standing in a field. My excitement level is bordering on extreme from the get-go. 
Now that we’re old hands at pre-race prep (even though yesterday was a false positive, it still counts), we shave 5 minutes off our prep time and hit the road at 5:40. Before we get on the highway, we see vehicles loaded with bikes. This is a good sign.
We chat excitedly for most of the drive and arrive at the race site 10 minutes earlier than yesterday. A line of headlights thread through the country roads behind us as we park the car. We are in the right place, and on the right day.
We finish assembling our gear from the back of the car. Since neither of us has been in a bike race, we watch others to see how it’s done. I am used to pinning my race bib on the front of my shirt. Slapping a sticker on my bike. Getting body marked. The guy parked next to us is clearly an experienced cyclist. He is as sleek as his bike, unpacks his stuff confidently. He is kind enough to tell me where to put things.
As we gather near the start line, I realize how different I am than real cyclists. Like the guy parked next to us, most of the people here are sleek and have colorful clothing that inevitably match each other and their bikes. I do not. I survey feet and notice that I am the only person wearing bike shoes with laces. Anxiety curls my stomach and I wonder if I should take Alka Seltzer now instead of later.
Redemption Race Productions runs unique and fun races. This one has 4 events: 26-mile race, 26-mile jalapeno race, 26 mile tour, and 50 mile tour. An orange wristband distinguishes the jalapeno racers from the smart racers. We get one minute deducted from our race time for each jalapeno we eat. We start in waves according to event—smart racers, jalapeno racers, 26 tour, and 50 tour—and I quickly fall to the back of the pack. The first aid stop is 8 miles out. Before I reach it I am passed by some of the tourers, including a six-pack. I am briefly sucked along behind them as they pass me and disappear into the horizon.
When I get to the first stop, many of the other jalapeno racers are still there. A ripple of excitement stirs the crowd. Some brave person has already stopped in, devoured 20 jalapenos, and moved on. Volunteers meet each of us with a cup of 5 pickled jalapenos. I quickly consume the first cup and ask for a second. To my surprise, it’s not that bad, even if there are no margaritas. I pause after the 2nd cup and wonder if I should take another. Although I feel fine right now, we have 10 miles to ride to the next stop and I have never eaten anything hot before riding. My stomach may be OK now but may very well rebel somewhere between here and there. I drink water, get my wristband marked, forget to wash my sticky hands, and ride on.
The jalapeno heat actually feels good as I ride and probably makes me pedal faster. My stomach is holding out just fine. I cruise past the sunflowers and try to remember which field we saw the eagle in. But somewhere around mile 13 the pickled part of pickled jalapenos gets my attention. I don’t feel sick, but I can taste pickledness. I push on to the next stop, just before mile 18.
The brave racer-eater has cruised through long before I get there, devouring 15 more jalapenos. That’s 35 jalapenos he has eaten. I bow my head in admiration and take 1 cup. I try to calculate my pace, the number of cyclists I’ve passed, those who have passed me, and realize that racing, jalapenos, and math do not mix. I stop at 1 cup—5 jalapenos—and move on, happy that I can eat 15 jalapenos and still ride my bike in the hot sun, up the rolling hills we now face.
Before this race, the longest distance I have ridden is somewhere between 22 and 23 miles. I hit mile 23 at the bottom of a very big hill, which I whiz down so fast smiling so big that a bug may be lodged in my teeth. It is difficult to tell. It might very well be a jalapeno seed I feel instead. I am so excited when I reach this point—rolling into uncharted territory on my bike—that I forget about the jalapenos and the race and the eagle and simply ride.
The race ends in the gated community where we started. It’s a long haul around the lake to the back of the neighborhood, about 1.5 miles with a headwind. I am pedaling as fast as I can and out of the corner of my eye notice someone not too far behind me. I pedal harder. I can’t let whoever this is pass me at the finish line! I push myself as hard as I can, the taste of pickled-sourness rising in my throat, and cross the finish line first at 19 mph. I am stunned and wonder if I should eat jalapenos every time I ride.
Robert is waiting, smiling, having finished at least 10 minutes and 20 jalapenos before me. We rack our bikes, rummage for the bottle of precautionary Pepto Bismol, and mingle at the after-race party, fully stocked with jalapeno kielbasa. We are incredibly excited to find that we both medaled in our age group.
We are determined to be back next year. At least now we have a jalapeno training plan—and a year to find a portable margarita machine.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 2 so far )Where’s the Margarita Stop?
It’s official. I am entering my very first bike race ever, this Saturday: The Tour de Jalapeno in Martindale, Texas, a little town I had never heard of until yesterday when I pulled out the race instructions to figure out where the heck I’ll be going.
The Tour de Jalapeno is a 26-mile race with a twist. Pickled jalapenos are offered at each of 2 aid stations. Eat as many as you want—you get 1 minute deducted from your race time for each jalapeno you swallow. But there’s a hotter twist. Mixed in with the pickled jalapenos is the real thing: Big ole jalapenos spicy enough to blister your tongue.
Who would be crazy enough to eat spicy peppers in the middle of a race? Particularly in August–in Texas–when it’s supposed to be 100ish degrees? I don’t know either, but I’d like to find out. Which is why I’m doing it.
That’s not entirely true. I do know one person who would do such a crazy thing. My boyfriend.
Robert bought his very first bike about a month ago, and he loves riding. So much so, that he clocked in more miles in July than I have all summer. So much so, that it was his idea to enter this race. Not necessarily because it is a race, but because it is a race with jalapenos. (On a stick?) He is one of those crazy people who eat all kinds of hot and spicy things, just for kicks. It’s a wonder his taste buds aren’t seared right out of his mouth.
The Tour de Jalapeno is not only Robert’s first official bike race, as it is mine, but it is his first official race EVER. It’s been interesting to witness the nervous excitement that precedes someone’s first race. It’s making me nervous and excited too, but I think for different reasons than his.
I keep worrying and wondering—will there be aid stations for the margaritas? How else will we wash down all those jalapenos?
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )The Price of One Bad Meal
I’ve been recovering most of the week. Not from a race or an injury or even an illness, but from a meal.
I talk a lot about my love for (not-so-healthy) food. Chocolate. The -ito family (Dorito, Frito, Cheeto). Nevertheless, for the most part I am a healthy eater and know enough to stay away from certain foods, or at least eat them in moderation.
I generally avoid dairy and gluten, limit sodium, and try not to eat refined sugar that often. I eat complex carbs and protein and enough produce to compost the entire neighborhood.
So I don’t know what I was thinking on Sunday night when my boyfriend and I sat down for dinner at the Alamo Café. We had just come from his grandmother’s 90th birthday party and I was pleased with myself for by-passing sandwiches and cake (yes, cake—the chocolate kind, with gobs of white, fluffy frosting) and munching instead on nuts and fruit. Too pleased, apparently.
And too hungry to by-pass chips and queso. Margaritas with salt. The smell of fresh flour tortillas. Before I could sing “Deep in the Heart of Texas” I was elbow deep in carne guisada. Too much carne guisada.
I didn’t even finish my plate. I left the rice and refried beans, opting for a side of boracho beans instead, and picked out the chunks of meat, leaving behind the glop of thick gravy they came covered in. Still, I left there waddling like a duck.
Sodium, gluten, enriched flour and lord knows what else bloated my body for days. On Monday morning, I couldn’t even run. (Is this what my pregnant friends feel like? How do they do it?)
On Tuesday, I managed a waddle/run—at my slowest pace in years. The rest of the week was a wash.
An entire week of fruitful exercise and six pounds of bloat were the price I paid for one bad meal. I don’t know how people eat like this on a regular basis, but I know many who do. I wish they could spend a week clean so they could experience natural energy, healthy-food style. From now on, I sure will.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 2 so far )The Dark Side of a Morning Run
My feet know the roads surrounding Salado, Texas, better than any other roads. Having lived there four years, I ran them hundreds of times. In the predawn hours, a world completely different from the one most residents see in broad daylight thrives beneath the stars and the moon.
When I lived in Salado, I could tell you where the doe threaded their way from the creek to their bedding field, followed closely by their fawns. Two does bore twins each year, and I’d mark their monthly growth. I stumbled across bucks one early morning, gathered in a semi-circle around two sparring for dominance. I heard antlers cracking hundreds of meters away before I caught sight of the proud assembly.
I could tell you which field was manned by hawks, adjacent to the stretch of road on which I did sprints. Then there was Heron Pool, Woodpecker Corner, Skunk Alley, Camelback Hill—all places I named based on the animals that frequented them or the lay of the land.
So when I visited Salado for a couple of days early this week, my excitement swelled at the prospect of an early morning run. I planned my route: 5 miles, from my mom’s house at the top of the hill, in a circle through the hawks’ territory and the sparring field, through downtown, and then an out-and-back past the old Salado cemetery before I tackled Skunk Alley and headed up the ½-mile hill back home.
I woke up minutes before my alarm, at 4:28 am, and was out the door by 5:10. I no sooner stepped into the yard than a deer snorted and nearly gave me a heart attack. Even though there was a sliver of moon, the sky was too black to see much of anything beyond the looming shapes of trees. I walked to the end of the cul-de-sac, waiting for my Garmin to find the Salado satellites, and quickly realized that Salado, like so many other towns, was hard up for cash. None of the already sparse streetlights was lit.
I stood in the dark and stared at the stars and listened to the snorting taper off into the rustling leaves. It was dark, all right. None of the houses even emanated light. I waited there at the crossroads until my eyes could adjust to the inky black.
Did I mention it was dark? I paced down the road a bit, still waiting for the satellites, noting my amplified sense of hearing. More leaves rustled, although there was no breeze, and goosebumps prickled my skin.
I get scolded frequently for running alone, in the dark: Aren’t you afraid someone will jump you from behind a tree, drag you into a field? There are so many crazy people in this world…
Crazy people don’t scare me. I run with the awareness of a cat—which is why I don’t listen to music when I run. I want to know what’s around me. No, it’s not people or the possibility of being butchered in a field that triggers goosebumps.
It’s the old Salado cemetery.
Or, to be more exact, my imagination.
Most of the fiction I write has elements of horror, the supernatural. I don’t need to watch horror movies (I shun them like the plague). I have enough creepiness in my head to last nine lives.
So standing in the pitch black of pre-dawn waiting for the satellites, my skin rippling like the ocean before a storm, I got to thinking. I haven’t lived in Salado for 2 ½ years. What do I know anymore? It’s quite possible the deer have been domesticated like the Far Side cows and are hanging out in the newly cleared subdivision-to-be, a spotter calling “car” as the rest of the herd hide their newspapers and resume grass-chewing. Maybe the hawks have retired to South America for good. It’s even feasible that Skunk Alley has succumbed to gang activity and I may very well get sprayed—or worse—this time through.
So, really, who needs 5 miles?
Especially past the old Salado cemetery, where the pre-Civil War gravestones jut from the earth like ruined fingers under the waning moon, bats flit and dip through the phantom-shaped shadows, and willow trees cast their weepy leaf-arms about like matted, tangled hair.
My 4-mile run was a peach. The wind chimes big as organ pipes hung grandly from the house in the dip by the bend, and the kitty-cat mailbox painted in pastels stood welcoming and warm at the end of the cottage’s driveway. My mom’s subdivision, at least, hasn’t changed much.
Who needs nature anyway?
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 2 so far )« Previous Entries Next Entries »
More Than Running... 