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 )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 )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 )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 )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 )A Breath of Inspiration
One important fact I confirmed this week: Breathing is essential to running. I’m not talking about breathing technique. I’m talking about the simple act of inhaling and exhaling a single breath of air.
Sometimes it’s not so simple.
The upper respiratory infection I’ve been fighting for over a week is almost gone, thank God. I think I might have been a pain about it. This is the first time in 7 years I’ve been sick, have had to take antibiotics, have closed up shop and hung out on the couch watching endless reruns of The Closer.
Finally, it has run its course.
Now that I feel like a lump of, well, something not so good, I need inspiration to hit the pavement again. Thought I’d share with you some of the quotes that remind me why I run.
It’s very hard in the beginning to understand that the whole idea is not to beat the other runners. Eventually you learn that the competition is against the little voice inside you that wants you to quit. ― George Sheehan
No matter how slow I run, I’m still faster than my couch. ― Anonymous
Even though I can’t tell others whether they should chase their marathon dreams, I highly recommend they do something completely out of character, something they never in a million years thought they’d do, something they may fail miserably at. Because sometimes the places where you end up finding your true self are the places you never thought to look. That, and I don’t want to be the only one who sucks at something. ― Dawn Dais
The reason we race isn’t so much to beat each other,… but to be with each other. ― Christopher McDougall
The trouble with jogging is that by the time you realize you’re not in shape for it, it’s too far to walk back. ― Franklin P. Jones
People think I’m crazy to put myself through such torture, though I would argue otherwise. Somewhere along the line we seem to have confused comfort with happiness. Dostoyevsky had it right: ‘Suffering is the sole origin of consciousness.’ Never are my senses more engaged than when the pain sets in. There is a magic in misery. Just ask any runner. ― Dean Karnazes
Jogging is very beneficial. It’s good for your legs and your feet. It’s also very good for the ground. It makes it feel needed. ― Charles Schultz
If you are losing faith in human nature, go out and watch a marathon. ― Kathrine Switzer
There is something magical about running; after a certain distance, it transcends the body. Then a bit further, it transcends the mind. A bit further yet, and what you have before you, laid bare, is the soul.” ― Kristin Armstrong
Have an awesome week. Breathe easy; run hard.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )The End in Sight
In a little more than 48 hours I will have PRed the Austin Half Marathon.
It will be cold Sunday morning, somewhere in the mid to upper 30s. When my alarm goes off I will already be awake, half dreading getting out from under the warm covers so blasted early.
I’ll sit on the living room floor like I always do, cup (or 2) of coffee in hand, and stretch, not necessarily because I need to stretch promptly upon awakening, but because it’s a nice excuse to sprawl out on the floor and half-doze instead of crawling back into bed.
My dogs will look outside at the still dark sky, and then at me like I am crazy, burrow into a cozy nest in the throw on the couch, and go back to sleep. Like they always do.
But this Sunday won’t be like any other running day. No stalling on this cold morning with endless coffee or straightening up. This day is going to rock.
I have visualized race morning for weeks–waking up and getting ready for the race, driving to Austin, walking to the start line, warming up. I know what I will eat and when, what my clothing options are for any kind of weather (this is Texas, after all–the thermometer can fluctuate 40+ degrees within hours). I have reminded myself to press my Garmin’s ON button as soon as I cross the Start line.
I have visualized what my negative split will feel like, particularly the second half, fast and hard to the Finish line.
Most important, I have repeated in my mind’s eye crossing that line. Finishing strong. My best run ever.
Strangely, perhaps, visualization comes so easily for me that it often resembles daydreaming. Especially on long runs. Maybe my mind needs a distraction in order to let my body alone to do what it will. Or maybe I am simply determined to get the result I want. Regardless, I have seen the end of this race, over and again, and I know it won’t be good. It will be fabulous.
I can’t wait.
Come to think of it, I haven’t. I’ve seen it.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 2 so far )On the Cusp of the No Plan Plan
At this time last year, I had a plan. Not just any old plan, but a Master Plan. I wrote out my vision of where I wanted to be in a year and then laid out corresponding goals, each month for a quarter, then six months, a year. I posted both documents, Visions and Goals, on my bathroom mirror so I would be reminded daily of what I needed to do, where to go.
By April I found that I had met maybe 1/3 of my goals. My Master Plan wasn’t so masterful after all, it seemed. The documents came off the mirror as I thought of Woody Allen’s line, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.” Nevertheless, my visions and goals were embedded in my brain.
Now, at the end of the year, I find that I have met many of these goals, even if I didn’t meet them in (my) time. The goals I missed have more to do with focus than desire. A fortune fished out of a cookie sometime this year waves from my fridge to remind me: The most powerful element in the world is a focused mind.
But it’s almost December 31 again and I have no Master Plan, no vision, no list of goals to post on my bathroom mirror.
This realization set in yesterday when for the first time in a month I stood completely alone in my house, in silence. Last December I had the luxury of time for reflection and planning. This December, by contrast, has been a whirlwind of incidents and events, from beach time and the joy of season’s end to family illness, unexpected home repairs, the stress of season’s end, and the preparation required to begin a new season.
Oh yeah, and then there was Christmas.
For some reason, I’m not so worried about not having a plan. December 31 isn’t the official Master Plan Deadline and, as far as I know, I won’t melt if midnight strikes and I’m on the No Plan Plan. There will be enough time.
Among the many lessons I learned this year, two apparently contradictory principles stand out:
- I seem to be happiest when I forget about myself.
- We receive in life what we think we deserve.
I’m not exactly sure how my Master Plan will take shape, but I know I need to begin here.
Fortunately, as I begin to think about 2013’s visions and goals, I am not completely planless. My training plan is still tacked up on my fridge, guiding me toward that half marathon in February.
At least there is this: I plan to run.
Have a blessed New Year.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Taking Time
I don’t have time.
Can’t fit it into my schedule, don’t know how it will get done, it simply won’t happen, there is just not enough time.
If I could plant and grow a pumpkin seed for every time I heard time as an excuse for not exercising, the Great Pumpkin would be rising from its patch nearly every night.
But I don’t buy it. We all have time. The same amount, every day. What we choose to do with it is up to us. We base our choices on our priorities, those people, principles, or things that mean the most to us.
When I’ve led a priorities exercise in workshops, I’ve found that two things are often glaringly missing from people’s lists: their health and their God. Even if they tell you in conversation that their health and their spirituality are two of the most important things in their lives, when pressed to list priorities, neither make the list.
Why not? I ask.
No time.
One reason for this may be the way people view time. They take time to do the things they want or need to do. They take time, for instance, to attend a meeting. But while there, they’re not actually present in the meeting. They’re busy checking email or texting or making notes about a dozen unrelated things.
They are subtracting time from their day, eliminating tasks one by one.
Maybe instead of taking time, people can learn to give it. To add something worthwhile to their day, their sense of well-being. To their actual, physical well-being. We seem to put emphasis—more of ourselves—into the things we give, so why not give something, a gift, to ourselves? Why not time?
There is always enough time. What are you going to do with yours?
I’m going to run.
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