Rare

I don't do this very often, but I just watched a video and voted (with one click) to send a DetermiNation athlete to compete in an IronMan in Hawaii. What got me crying was this: she could be any one of us. Any one of us "runners" or "healthy people" or "friends" or "family". And she keeps going.

I'm inspired by her words and her bravery. Please, click on this link, watch this video, and let yourself be inspired...


http://konainspired.thismoment.com/base/kona?region_id=&content_id=622

Decisions

A potential-newbie-runner said this to me:

"I was going to go to the shoe store, but something happened. I think I took a nap."

Ahhh. Yes. The "nap". It seems really weird that so often the choice comes down to napping or running. If you're a morning runner, extending sleep looks mighty temping most mornings. If you're a daytime runner, that 30-45 minutes would be PERFECT for a little feet-up time. And evening runners... well those people are just nuts. Or not parents. Or really REALLY lucky to miss the 4-5pm witching hour.

**But yes, Jedi, "Do. Or Do Not. There is no try." The Nap or the Run. I would argue that napping does not reflect poorly on you. But running when you feel like napping is one of the things that makes a person a capitol R = Runner.

I trained for a marathon during the first year of my son's life by exclusively forgoing "sleeping when the baby sleeps" and relishing a two hour run. At some point in the development of a Runner they realize that they actually feel BETTER after running than they do after napping.

Case in point: I had a bad day. The kind of bad day that ended with me curled up on top of the blankets on my bed with tears in my eyes. Stephan took one look and told me to get my shoes on.

"No. Leave me here. I need to wallow."

He wouldn't take wallowing as an alternative. He pressed the shoes against my hands, threw headphones at me, and told me to just get out of the house. I pouted. I have a permanent crease in my forehead because of how devastatingly mopey I was. But, yeah, I did it. I ran the hell out of 2 miles. And I felt great when I got home.



**Edited to input an actual quote from Star Wars because my husband had a small seizure when he read my original "pathetic attempt" and misquotation. He's fine now. Not to worry.

The View From Here

---or---

Two Stories



Everyone has that one thing they're freaked out about relating to their own health and mortality. For me, it's diabetes. I had a teacher in college who lost one foot, then a leg, then another foot, all to diabetes. It eats your body. And... the most painful thing... a lot of times... it's a lifestyle disease. What you put in your body, and what you do with your body, has everything to do with this disease.

I was once asked to drive a diabetic person to a routine health screening. They looked up at me terrified and asked, "What if it's cancer?"

My brain answered, "Cancer? I did cancer. Cancer can be easy. What if it's diabetes?!"


Second Story:

There is a giant study the American Cancer Society is conducting. It's called Cancer Prevention Study-3. That's a link you can click if you want to check it out. I learned about it during a volunteer training a few weeks ago. The friend next to me nudged me and asked, "Did you sign up yet?"

"No. I don't qualify."

"Why not?"

"You can't have had cancer already. And I've had it."

"Aw, your cancer didn't count. Oh, I mean, I'm sorry. That was rude."

"No, dude. You just made my day."

Lie to Me

"I can't do interval training because if I stop to walk I won't be able to start running again."

The entire time I was training for that Marathon I kept thinking, "If I stop I won't start again." I practiced drinking water while running, taking on and off layers while running, not peeing for 4 hours... all on the assumption that slowing down or stopping would mean I had failed. 

God, that was such a mind f*ck. 

I'm learning so much going through this C25K program. The most important thing: take a break. You'll do much better after 60 seconds of catching your breath than if you try to gut out the next 25 minutes without it. 

A crazy man once told me to live like a wave crashes on the beach. Waves don't always swell- sometimes they recede. It's ok to recede. It'll make the swell that much sweeter. 

Grasshopper. 

"Remember Me?"

"Hello there. It's been 5 weeks since I've seen you. You've been so busy with that interval-training program that I was starting to think you forgot about me. But we had that big snowfall last night, you spent more than an hour shoveling, and you woke up with a bad head cold. I knew you weren't going to try those sprints today. I was worried you were going to leave those pink Sauc's in the living room, but when I saw you put them on I knew it was my day to shine.

"And boy, did I deliver: steady pace, just the perfect amount of sweat, a wonderful mind-clearing, thought-emptying, space-out, no aches-or-pains, chill-out...

Love,
Your Easy Run"

Bandwagon

All of the running bloggers I follow have posted lists of their race season.  I vowed at the beginning of the year to run 5 medal-worthy races. Here they are (totally subject to  change for any reason, at any time).

Ragnar, Chicago June 7 & 8... still looking for 5 runners for our team...
R&R 1/2 Chicago July 21st (for DetermiNation)
Ragnar, Great River August 16 & 17
Tough Mudder, Wisconsin Sept 7 or 8
Schaumburg Turkey Trot half marathon (because I PR it every year!!)

That's 5 races.
That's 5 "medals" (the Tough Mudder doesn't have a medal, but doing 2 Ragnars gets me a second medal from them).
That's 5 separate training programs.
That's not insane.... right???