Going Batty
Twice this week I hit the road at just the right time. Although I enjoy any morning run, I especially love running early, when night and day collide, during that short crack in the dawn when the birds are not yet up and the bats are getting ready to call it a day.
If I run with my eyes up, I can usually spot dozens of bats flitting and diving for their last meal before they disappear. They’re hard to spot against the darkness at first, but as the sky fades to pre-dawn lemon, they’re pretty visible. If you know what you’re looking at.
It’s easy at first to mistake bats for sparrows, but they don’t fly the same. Or sound the same. As soon as the bats disappear, the sparrows come out to chase down the scraps. I’ve seen a sparrow hunt a bug as big as its head, chirping bloody murder all the while, and win a meal big enough to feed a family of four.
This time of morning is the loudest of the day. The treetops quiver with birdsong. Long before they arise from their nests, grackles, doves, sparrows, and every other bird in the neighborhood announce the dawn. If you’re quiet and run without an electronic device shoved in your ears, there’s no mistaking nature’s music. My favorite.
If you want to see the bats and the birds vying for the sky, you have to be quick. The crack closes in less than half an hour. It’s about that time right now, in fact. I guess I better get moving.
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 )In a Minute There Is Time
One of the interesting things about having read so much literature is that snippets of poetry pop into my head at what seem like weird times. I’ll be sweating in my car and Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” trickles into mind:
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.
Or maybe I’ll be in a public bathroom and get a whiff of that lovely orange-scented “fragrance” and lines from Stevens’s “Sunday Morning” waft by:
Complacencies of the peignoir, and late
Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair
For the past couple of weeks I’ve been haunted by Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” one of my all time favorite poems:
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
These lines fall upon me at what seem like odd times. When I’m running. Biking. Staring at my training log tacked on the side of my fridge.
On Thursday morning I figured out what it is that’s been getting me, why Prufrock haunts me. I stood staring again at my log. Just over 4 weeks until the Olympic distance tri I was sure I would enter. Thursday. I was supposed to swim. Instead, I drew a line through the day. I looked over my plan. Three more swim days Xed out. Two strength-training days.
My upper body isn’t doing what it’s designed to do. It’s supposed to be strong. Lift things. Move other, heavier things. Like me. Through the water. Nearly 3 months since a shoulder injury caused me to stop doing “normal” activities, I am still unable to resume them fully. (I somehow suspect that when my doctor said go ahead and resume normal activities, his idea of “normal” was a bit different from mine.)
No Olympic distance tri for me, it seems. Not yet, anyway.
By Thursday afternoon I revised my goals. Lofty ones, maybe, but why not dream big? San Antonio RnR half marathon in November—to qualify for the Houston marathon in January. And, if I’m going to dream even bigger, why not see if in Houston I can qualify for Boston?
Who knows if I’ll qualify for anything, but it can’t hurt to aim high. If I can’t swim, I might as well run.
At least that’s my plan. For the minute.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )When You’re Smiling, the Whole World Smiles with You
If there’s one thing that bothers me it’s being ignored. Not by my mom or siblings or friends, but by complete strangers. It seems odd to me to pass another person and not make eye contact, whether I’m in a hallway, on the sidewalk, or in a grocery store. I find it especially weird to not acknowledge someone when we are the only two people in sight. Like, say, on a trail in the middle of a forest.
I try to be a friendly everywhere, even when I run. I like to smile and say hello to everyone I encounter. On long runs, however, I may not always smile at passers-by. If you catch me in the last quarter or so of my run, you may get only a nod, a flick of the hand in your general direction. Eye contact, for sure, but it may be the case that all the extra energy I have is expended by looking at you.
However, I rediscovered something during last weekend’s long run. The power of a smile. I don’t mean how a smile affects the recipient—at some point in my run I really don’t care. I just want to get the damn thing over with and get back to my car. I mean the power a smile can have on your energy level.
I started my run a little later than usual last Saturday on a trail I haven’t run since February. It was packed—alarmingly packed—with people of all persuasions: Runners, walkers, bikers, stroller-pushers, dog-walkers, meanderers, and even kids on Big Wheels.
I found all these people to be a challenge. On the one hand, I was happy they were there, particularly the runners. My competitiveness piqued and I ran a little bit faster because of it. On the other hand, there were so many people (dogs, bikes, walkers spread in a horizontal line across the trail—and even a startled deer) to dodge that I initially found it difficult to get into my own head space.
But once I was there, it was bliss. Thank God. The reason (one of many) I run.
Since it was later in the morning than dawn, the Texas sun was up and blazing. Since it was later in the morning than I’m used to, I didn’t think to bring a hat or sunglasses. I headed back to my car squinting into the sun, sweating profusely, and probably not quite the friendly runner I try to be.
Before long, my squint screwed into a scowl. I didn’t really notice it, however, until a pack of people came into eyeshot, walking slowly toward me. Somehow, I had been running a stretch of trail virtually alone. Just me and the cardinals and an errant mosquito or two. Bliss. Thank God. Another reason I run.
Because I had such a long stretch alone, I forgot about people, pulled into my head, and apparently twisted my face into a grimace. When I passed this mob of walkers, I forced myself to make eye contact, and I smiled.
Incredibly, all the tension in my body melted away. A simple smile loosened my facial muscles, which are connected to my neck muscles, which are connected to my shoulder muscles, then back, arms. You know the song. It’s all connected, and like a ripple the tension throughout my body released. I felt stronger, lighter, and faster. In short, I hauled.
And then I remembered that I had heard this before from numerous sources: We tend to clench our jaw, tighten our face when we’re stressed. If we can remember to relax our face, our whole body loosens and we de-stress. What better way to relax your face than to smile?
So I tested this theory for the rest of my run by making faces. I must have scowled, grimaced, frowned, glowered, glared, smirked, and puckered, then alternately smiled, beamed, grinned, and glimmered. It was amazing what a difference a simple expression could make in the whole experience of my run—my pace, gait, attitude, and posture improved remarkably.
I made it back to my car and walked around the park a bit, drinking water, cooling down. Another group of walkers I vaguely remember passing must have parked there too, because they came back loudly, chatting it up. Until they saw me. They stopped, quieted down, and gave me a wide berth. I guess I had forgotten to pay attention to passers-by mid-experiment.
I made a point of walking by them as I left. I smiled, Chesire cat-like, and nodded. They averted their eyes nervously, as if I wasn’t there. For once, I didn’t mind being ignored.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Where Do We Find Courage?
“I really like to run,” the woman at my elbow was saying. I was only half listening. The 3rd Annual Girls on the Run Cupcake 5K Fun Run, our annual fundraiser sponsored by Kate’s Frosting, was about to begin and we were gathered at the start line.
Was everyone here? Did they know where the start line began? Was the water stop ready? Was it 8:00 yet? My attention was divided between too many things to listen adequately.
“I really want her to like running,” the woman nodded toward her 10-ish daughter who was pacing the curb, drawing a line on the pavement with her toe, “as much as I do.”
“Yes,” I murmured, still distracted. Kate was setting up the tower of cupcakes at the finish line.
“You know I’ve run 14 marathons,” she said nonchalantly, as if she declared she’d eaten 14 cupcakes instead.
For perhaps the first time during our conversation, I looked straight at her. She was shorter than me, the top of her head reaching maybe my chin. Not muscular or runner thin. Plump, to be precise.
I closed my gaping mouth before a fly landed in it, acutely aware and somewhat ashamed that—blink—just like that I had made a judgment about this woman and her ability or propensity to run. Unconsciously, I had observed and assessed her. She didn’t look like a runner—whatever that means—to me.
Two seconds, Malcolm Gladwell contends, is all it takes for us to decide. In the blink of an eye we make up our minds about what something—or someone—is or is not.
Fourteen marathons. Four. Teen. Never in a million years would I have guessed. I must have looked as surprised as I felt because she smiled wryly and nodded. “I’ve done a half Ironman too.”
“No way!” I blurted, no longer able to contain what by now had become excitement.
When I closed my gaping mouth I fortunately opened my mind. Standing here in front of me was true inspiration. If she could do these things, then why couldn’t I?
It’s been in the back of my mind for years that maybe one day I could do a half Ironman. Maybe start with an Olympic distance tri. I’ve still never run a marathon. Trained for 2, but stopped by injury. What was I waiting for to try again?
Inspiration. Courage.
I have had neither, and didn’t even realize it until I met the marathon woman. I haven’t lived up to the message that’s been posted on my refrigerator since January 15, 2009, the date on the tattered calendar square that states:
“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”
– Anaïs Nin
This square of paper has stared me in the face for four years in two different homes. The message travels with me, so that I don’t forget it. Some days I stop as I’m rummaging through the fridge and read it. Other days I don’t see it at all, hanging amid the Mickey Mouse and bluebonnet magnets.
For the past 3+ weeks, however, I have seen it. Read it anew. Each time, I think of this woman and her fourteen marathons, her half Ironman, and I see my own possibilities expand.
I am excited to try something new. And when I think about this woman, I remember her daughter tight-rope-walking the curb and think what a lucky girl, to have a mom who can show her so many things.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Circle of Care
My friend Erica is a grief counselor for children. A heart-wrenching job, for sure. You enclose these kids in a circle of care, she says, to help them understand what’s happening to them and their world.
When she says circle of care, Erica holds up her arms in front of her for emphasis like she’s holding a laundry basket. Their lives are like a basket filled with things that have become soiled but can be made clean again. Erica’s job is to hold the kids loosely, but firmly, until they’re ready to unload their own basket.
I see this image of Erica with arched arms often when I think of Girls on the Run. Most recently at last weekend’s race.
On the way to the race, the SUV I was driving, loaded with nearly everything we needed for race day, was forced off the highway and into a cement wall, totaling the car. It was my mom’s SUV. She was my passenger. Miraculously, we are both fine.
Everything that was loaded into the SUV in an orderly, organized fashion suddenly looked like tornado debris. Somehow, with the help of my great friend Chris who showed up within minutes of being called, we were able to transport the race gear to the park in time for the run.
Each girl who participates in Girls on the Run receives a medal when she finishes the race. It’s a mark of accomplishment not only for achieving her race goal but for completing the entire season. 
I love to see the hanger full of medals strung from our tent, each one waiting to be hung around girls’ necks. This season, we arranged the hanger weeks before the event, just so we could look at it.
The medals swayed in the back of the car, streams of blue and pink, and jangled as we drove. When we hit the cement wall, the medals flew off the hanger in every direction and crumpled on the floor.
I picked up all I could find and held them in a ragged mound on my lap as Chris drove us to the park. There was no more order, only wrinkled or dirty ribbons speckled with broken glass. I carried them in my arms, a mangled heap, to our set-up site, still a bit dazed, wondering how to recreate order out of what had become chaos.
It was then I was reminded of Erica. I put the medals down and stepped away. Dozens of others stepped in and did what they were there to do. The tent and tables went up, gear was organized and distributed, girls and buddies signed in, medals re-hung. There was smiling, laughter, nervous anticipation. Clouds of pink hairspray.
And then, girls running. Not alone, but with their buddies.
At the finish line, I watched coaches drape a medal around each girl’s neck, followed quickly by a hug big enough to enclose us all.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 2 so far )Seeing Stars
San Antonio is the first big city I’ve lived in since I started running 13 years ago. Before now, I’ve lived in small towns or on the outskirts of big ones, far enough away from neighbors that I didn’t have to worry about loud music or closed curtains.
I love San Antonio, and I’m glad to live here. But one thing I miss about living away from a city is stars.
When I took up running, I lived in Guam. If you want to see how small you really are, live on an island for awhile. I never comprehended how vast the sky is until I could see it unimpeded by buildings, light, or smog. There were few well-lit routes to run, but the sky was so clear and bright, especially when the moon was on either side of full, that lights weren’t really necessary. And the bonus? I regularly got the privilege of running under shooting stars and meteor showers.
The skies above Salado, Texas, where I moved when I came back to the States, were nearly as clear as in Guam. Minus the shooting stars and meteor showers. Nevertheless, I ran in the dark, under starry skies, eyes always up in search of constellations.
Darkness has its drawbacks. When you’re unaccustomed to your route you run the risk of tripping over roots or falling into potholes. But if you tread the same dark path enough times, your feet learn where the sidewalk ends, leaving your eyes to pursue higher things.
Now that I live in the city, I am learning to refocus my gaze. We all know the trick of running up hills: Train your gaze a few feet in front of you instead of on the horizon. Trick your brain into seeing a straight, level path instead of an incline.
My gaze has been cast down not so much to level the hills with my eyes, but in an attempt to avoid treading in the dog poop thoughtless people leave behind. You run the same sidewalks enough times, you learn where to take the detour into the street.
I still love to run in the dark and am fortunate to have a few stretches on my route that fall outside the puddles of streetlights. I find that when I’m running through the darkest stretches, my eyes automatically look up, searching for the pattern of stars that lets me know where I am. I guess I’ve trained my eyes well after all. And tomorrow when I set out on my path, maybe I’ll be fortunate enough to see stars.
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