Holes

I admit, I'm a glass half-empty kind of person. I hate that I'm like that way, and I do my best to think from the bottom up, not the top down, but still: most days, my glass is not full.

I was reading my essay from the P.S. Anthology (last plug, I promise) out loud in bed on Monday night, preparing for a reading on Tuesday night. It was after nine--the hour my brain officially punches out for the day--and I hadn't seen the essay for months. As I read it aloud, cozy under my comforter, all I saw was what wasn't there: the words choices I didn't think hard enough about; the sentences that weren't as funny as I thought they were; the deeper meaning that I thought I had conveyed, but clearly, clearly hadn't.

I decided I didn't really want to read it--it's a pretty personal essay, and I didn't want people judging both my thoughts and my bad writing--and walked around all day on Tuesday with a pit in my stomach. I was so nervous, I hardly ate a thing all day. Which doesn't even happen to me when I have the stomach flu.

I've been the same way with this training plan, now 3 weeks old. Instead of seeing that I almost nailed a workout, I dwell on the fact that I took two walk breaks. Or I that was a whole 3 seconds off the ridiculously anal paces the authors give. Or, when I did actually nail a workout, I think, thank God it's over. I couldn't have hung on for much longer.

So Tuesday night rolls around, and feeling emboldened by two glasses of wine (one too many, in retrospect) and the fact that my two co-contributors who read before me didn't drop dead at the podium, I got up to read. My legs were shaking, but my voice was steady. I got some laughs for a line about dialing my own phone number to call my imaginary friend (1977: pre-voicemail days), and I relaxed. My glass was filling up. I barely looked up at the audience, and I'm sure my jittery legs must have burned 200 calories during the 10 minute reading, but I really enjoyed the experience.

I didn't see the holes. I saw the whole.

Thursday morning, trying to embrace my new perspective, and I've got my least favorite workout so far served up: 3 miles at fast tempo pace, which is 8:10 for me. My second attempt at 24:30 of suffering. I set out in the gray darkness, only seeing the numbers on my Garmin when I ran under a streetlight. At the halfway point, I was still under 8:10 average. Rock on.

Then I turned around. Oh, turns out, I was running on a slight downhill with the wind at my back. F*&^. The sound you hear? Water slowly pouring out of the glass. I tell myself, just run as hard as you can and don't worry about your splits. 

Of course, I obsessively checked my splits at every opportunity, but I didn't launch into self-berating mode as they inched up past 8:30. Instead, when 3.00 miles finally, finally appeared on my Garmin, I immediately put on the brakes. As I was catching my breath, I said to myself out loud, "Nice job, Dimity. You didn't walk. Really nice job."

In other words, I did the whole workout. It's a start.

A Commercial Interruption

While I catch my breath from my tempo run yesterday morning (a bit of a hyperbole, but entirely possible, unfortunately), I wanted throw out two bits of shameless self-promotion:

PS: What I Didn't Say, is an anthology of unsent letters to female friends written by a range of witty, smart, interesting women that I'm thrilled to be grouped with. For any local Front Rangers out there, I, along with my friends Bevin and Megan and soon-to-be-friend Jill, will be reading our essay from it at The Tattered Cover  (the Colfax location) on Tuesday night, the 10th, at 7:30 p.m. My essay? To my invisible friend from my childhood, who--big sigh--I still miss more than I should.



 
Run Like A Mother is a running book unlike any other (clinical, boring, workout-heavy) running book out there. Sarah and I spun the non-marathon-centric text out of our 2007 marathon adventures, and it will be hitting shelves in mid-March. But there's no time like now to start promoting it, considering I found it today on Amazon (killing time by, you know, googling my own name). We haven't cracked the egg yet on marketing it—stay tuned for a mothering/running extravaganza—but just wanted to throw it out there in case ordering gifts for March birthdays is on your to-do list.

(Also, there will be one change on the cover: it'll read: How To Get Moving--and Not Lose Your Family, Job, or Sanity. While we love our jobs, we love our families more.)

O.k., back to your regularly scheduled blog. I've got a long run tomorrow, and a post I'm cooking up in my head about supplements. Stay tuned.

Snow Daze

Snow day: the words conjure up making a snowman, followed by hot chocolate and pumpkin bread, rosy cheeks and general love all around. We got over 12 inches of snow in two days, enough powder to cancel school for snow days except that my kids were already on fall break. What's fall break? most of the country might ask. I wish I knew. I guess maybe Denver students deserve a break from such academically challenging exercises as looking for circle shapes in preschool and memorizing vowel blends in first grade. Or maybe the teachers do.

 But I digress. We did have those nice marshmallow moments, like walking down the middle of the quiet, white street to get to the sledding hill. For about 20 minutes total. The rest of the time? Not so peaceful. Ben takes off his mittens then grabs the snow with his bare hands, and wails for the rest of the 10-minute-walk home. Amelia won't share the one snow shovel we own. Ben whines for more TV after finishing a 90-minute Thomas video straight through. Amelia is sooooo bored.

Hearing the word Mom--as in, "Watch me, Mom" or "Can you wipe me, Mom?" or "MOOOM!"--roughly 60 times an hour, I'm not much better. I get huffy after dressing and undressing them each in winter garb three times daily. I'm pretty sure it's easier to run a mile through waist-deep snow than it is get a 3-year-old to get his thumb into the correct mitten slot over and over and over again. Each time the duo is locked and loaded, I tell them it might be a good idea to stay out a while because it takes so long to get ready to go outside. Each time, they're knocking at the door sooner than I can read a section of the newspaper. Accompanying the disrobing of the roughly 50 pieces of winter gear are clumps of snow that melt and turn into slick puddles that Ben slips on. More whining.

Release for me came at about 6:12 on Thursday night, when I decided to head to the Y for my second RLRF run. I had big plans: PT exercises first, then rolling out my muscles, then 2-mile warm-up before the 3-miles at hang-on-for-dear-life pace, a mile cooldown, and stretching. Then I saw a sign that said the Y was closing at 7 p.m. So I flung off my sweats, sped through a 10 minute warm-up, and braced for the short tempo run (8:10 pace). I made it through .8 mile before I (had to?) hit pause. Regained my breath for about 20 seconds, and started again. Made it to 2.2 miles, and another break before finishing 3 miles, cooling down for about 4 minutes and driving home.

I'm pretty sure I defeated the whole purpose of the workout by taking short breaks, but I justified it by telling myself this first week of RLRF is a kind of test drive. I'm kicking my tires, checking under my hood, hoping my lemony body is stronger than it feels. Round three--an 8-miler at a not-crazy speed--is tomorrow. Even though I'll be running through puddles the size of Lake Erie, I'm definitely, definitely running outside.

Thanks for all your great comments to my previous entry; I'm so excited so many people have had such success with RLRF. And I'm glad a few are going along for the training plan. (Priscilla: I think you can do it without a Garmin, but I think at least having mile markers on a trail so you can gauge your effort would be helpful.)

Good luck to all in the NYC Marathon and anybody else getting out there this weekend. Run strong and have a ball.

Experiment Austin Underway

I realized, ever since I really became rededicated to the craziness that is endurance training, I've always had accountability--a huge asset when my motivation goes MIA for weeks. Mostly, that accountability has been in the form of a coach; I was fortunate enough to enlist a coach for the Nike Women's Marathon story in 2007; that worked so well, last summer, when I had my first real triathon "season" (read: four races), I opted to pay for a coach.

But I'm feeling the recession as sorely as my quads felt after the half-marathon last week, so I've decided to go old-school on this training plan. Grant has used Run Less, Run Faster to get race-ready a couple of times. Every time he returns from a RLRF run, he looks cooked and complains a bit about how hard the run was, but seems very pleased with his effort. (He hasn't really tested his training in actual races...long story.)

Since I'm an ace complainer, I'm giving the training plan a try for the Austin half-marathon in February; one of its hallmarks, only three runs a week, sounds like the nirvana to my slowly crumbling body. Two days are reserved for fairly easy cross-training (and physical therapy) and two days are for rest (and physical therapy).

But, as I learned today, sounds and feels are two totally different verbs. My first workout: 12 x 400, with 90 seconds rest between intervals at a pace determined by my finishing time last week. (The authors leave nothing to guesstimate, giving exact paces for the three weekly runs: speedwork; fast-, mid- and slow-tempo runs; and longer runs.)

I don't think I've ever pushed an "8" on the treadmill until today.

But 8.2 was what the authors ordered, and I had to give it a whirl. I hung on for dear life. After the first interval, my hands were tingling and I grabbed the top of the treadmill display with one hand as I fumbled to press 5.5 mph as quickly as possible with the other. I jumped to the railings as I caught my breath. I settled into the drill a bit until I got to number seven, and then I had to replay "I Gotta Feeling" by the Black Eyed Peas about four times to get me to the end.

That was easily the hardest run I've done in over a year, but it was also one of the most fulfilling; I could see how rosy-cheeked Grant was both exhausted and exhilarated after a session like that. I'm intrigued to see if I have it in me to get through 18 weeks of three tough weekly runs, especially when speedwork will likely fall on every Monday morning. (Nothing like easing into the week.)

I promise I won't relive every run, but I am going to try to be much more consistent with posting here; at least once, and hopefully twice, a week. If anybody wants to join me, either virtually or in person, let me know; I welcome as much support and accountability as I can get. (To recap: 18 week training program, 3 runs a week, all paces welcome--I'll happily send along your challenging-to-you numbers.)

In the meantime, I'm mentally preparing for my first tempo effort on Thursday: 3 miles at a 8:10 pace. That seems obscenely fast for me, but one Black-Eyed Peas line from today is still on repeat in my head, quieting those no-no-no monkeys: Go out and smash it.

Smash it? Unlikely. But definitely go out and go for it.

Courage at Sea Level

The Nike Women's Half Marathon was unlike any other race I'd done this year. Because, in fact, it was my first race of the year. Given that I'd been prepping for about five weeks for it, my expectations were fairly low. Prior to race day, I'd run 12.5 miles twice, but neither felt particularly good. I'd done a couple of workouts where I was supposed to run 2 x 3 miles at half-marathon race pace, which I thought--based on nothing other than it sounded about right--would be 8:45. Those really hurt, and I decided to readjust my random race pace: 9:00, which I wasn't sure would be right either.

On race morning, I purposely left my Garmin in my hotel room. I know the kind of mental havoc that ridiculously accurate thing can wreak on my mood, and I wanted nothing of it. I wanted to feel the fog, hear the huffs of my fellow runners up nearly vertical hills, notice the Pacific and all my other surroundings. I did not want to get in a funk because my splits in this half-marathon didn't match those in my last race, the Denver half in 2008.

I did, however, wear my trusty Timex Ironman. And I figured out how to mark my mile splits on it. I couldn't go cold-turkey on feedback, but at least now I'd have to wait for a mile to pass before I could adjust my mood accordingly.

So I set off. First mile: 8 minutes. Way too fast, Dimity. You'll pay for that later. Mile 2: 8:30ish. Better, but still way too ambitious. Mile 3 and 4 were weirdly marked, so I got a combined split for them: 18:50. I'm already way past 9:00 on one downhill and one flat mile? Dang it! I watched the road ahead of me and silently threw a pity-party. Mile 5: 7:02. Huh? I don't run 7:02 miles, especially after I've already run 4 miles. Then I saw the clock at mile five, whose red numbers were ticking in the 41/42-minute range, and I knew that something was a little awry with the mileage markers, and that I was actually speedier than I thought I was.

I felt really good, too. I highly recommend anybody who lives at altitude to race at sea level; I literally felt like I could drink the oxygen. So I remembered words I heard Kara Goucher speak the day before at packet pick-up: she told herself before the 2008 New York City Marathon to be courageous. She knew she had done the work and that it all came down to having the courage to put it to the test. Riding on the heels of Paula Radcliffe, the winner, for most of the race, she came in a courageous, kick-ass 3rd place in her first marathon.

I'm no Kara Goucher--I probably run less in a week than she runs in a day--but I told myself to be courageous. It's easy to do when the temps are in the 50's, the Pacific is crashing next to you and you're enveloped by the feminine energy around you--a running mother's version of utopia. Plus, coming from a marathon, the half-marathon distance is incredibly liberating; the worst thing that would happen is that I would bonk around mile 11 and have to walk the last mile or two, and I'd still be in under 2 hours, 30 minutes...a far call from bonking at mile 20 and slugging out the last six, which is what happened last time I ran this course.

Courage is relative. When I wanted to walk to eat a Gu, I ate it on the run instead. I didn't walk through water stops either. I only gave myself two, 10-secondish walk breaks on a hill that was roughly a mile long. When my head starting telling my legs hurt, I was too slow, I did my best to ignore them. I tried to accelerate on the downhills and not lose all momentum on the ups.

I came in around 1:54, which is a faster average than the 8:45 miles that slayed me at home.

Brazenly empowered, I now wonder what I can do if I actually commit to a longer training program on a flatter course. Stay tuned: Grant, my husband, and I are going to run a half-marathon in Austin over Valentine's Day.

Having A Moment

Having a moment in pink heels.

My little sister, affectionately known as Sassy, got married this past weekend. While rehearsing for the ceremony on Friday morning, the wedding planner, a beyond hyper woman whose enthusiasm was of the contagious, not annoying, kind, kept reminding us that we could, "have a moment" at any time that felt right. Sassy and John, our step-father, could have a moment after they reached the officiant. Megan, our older sister, and I could have a moment with Sassy and Tom, her now husband, after we finishing our reading. My mom could have a moment with the grandkids, the only attendants Sassy and Tom (thankfully) chose to have, as they sat clustered around her.

When you have a moment, you stop time. You appreciate where you are and whom you're with. You truly realize that you'll never have this exact moment back, so it's best to taste it and talk about it and maybe shed a tear through it.

It got me thinking, I don't have enough moments in my life. Check that: I don't ever allow myself to have a moment. I rush and I worry and I cook chicken nuggets and I e-mail and I sort laundry and I sleep. Having moments is not on the agenda.

The next morning, in 34-degree crispness that feels so refreshing, you're sure you could push the reset button on your life, I went for a trail run on singletrack near Fraser, Colorado. Through the confetti of fallen leaves, over icy patches of snow, across wooden bridges that span trickling brooks, on a trail that is my favorite combination: slightly uphill on the way out, downhill heading home. I could run that trail for the rest of my life and never get bored.

On my workout calendar was a 14-miler with the last five at race pace to prepare for the Nike Half-Marathon this weekend. Hungover and rushed to get to a Mimosa-laced beauty session with Sassy, I opted for an easy 60 minutes instead. I ditched the Garmin and wore my plain old Timex, and started at 7:58 and ended at 8:57 and hardly checked my watch.

I thought about how excited I was for Sassy and Tom to begin their newest chapter; how weddings just breed optimism; how being surrounded by family and friends lets me forget about e-mailing and sweeping and similar tasks I'll never regret not doing 40 years from now.

The song "Seasons of Love" from RENT—to repeat: my music list=cheese-o-rama—and I vowed to try to measure my life, from here on out, in doses of love and similarly significant moments. Not in writing assignments, average pace on my Garmin, achievements of my children or any other tangible thing that can just as easily bring out my pride and confidence as it can, when I hold them up to the light, my jealousy and pettiness. And I wished the same for Sassy and Tom. (They don't care about assignments or marathon PR's and they don't have kids yet, but we all have our issues.)

I was having a moment. Then I smiled as I thought: I do have moments. Running is my moment. I'm never more at peace than when I'm running. I'm never more appreciative and less critical of myelf than when I'm running. There are times when I never want to relive a certain momentous mile, but I'd say that over half of my runs create some kind of sublime moment, if only for a second.

I guess it says something about me--something not very good, I'm guessing—that most of my moments are by myself, and often spurred on by corny lyrics from the early 90's. Still, I'll take what I can get.

Off the Back

So Saturday morning was much harder than I was anticipating. A group of five of us set off, 5:30 a.m., headlights blaring. Each of them had their own music on low; I left mine at home, so I felt like I was handicapped to begin with. In the cool darkness, trying in vein to find a rhythm, I looked down and saw our first mile was an 8:35. I was not surprised, given how hard I was working. But considering I'd run 40 minutes total in the past 2.5 weeks, this was not the way I wanted to start an 8-miler. Fortunately, by the grace of God, they then slowed to a walk.

For what seemed like 15 seconds.

Then we were off to the races again.

I stayed at least 10 steps, if not more, behind them for about five miles. I didn't want them to think I was too slow, so I somehow forced myself to stay near the pack. (I decided, I think because I was kind of delirious, that I'd run 10 with one of them.) At the turn around, though, the sun was coming up and I wasn't feeling quite so nauseated. I ran the final five side-by-side a very sweet woman named Tasha, a stylist who listened patiently and sympathetically to me gasp my woes about my new, kinda punkish, not very me-ish, reddish hair. Then we talked the usual: how balancing motherhood, working, running is impossible but how it's also impossible not to try; ages of kids; stages of kids; why she started running; how ready she is for marathon training to be over.

I think we kept our mile splits below 9:00, but I'm sure she would've run faster if I weren't her wingwoman. She and her friends--the rest ran 12 miles--are doing the Galloway method for the Denver Marathon, so as soon as her Garmin tinkled at the mile mark, we walked. I always glanced down about .6 miles into another run segment, and Tasha would see me do that and say, "Not much farther. We're almost there." During every break, I said a silent prayer to thank a Higher Being for letting them choose the Galloway method.

Long, kinda boring story short: I made it. Ten hard miles for me. Ten miles I would've never run so fast if I was by my lonesome. Ten miles I was super proud of, considering the other women are in the thick of marathon training and have been running regularly for at least four months. Ten miles that will definitely help me come half-marathon time.

Sunday, I had scheduled a 2 hour endurance bike ride for myself--I set up my own training plan, which I'll write about in the near future--but knew my legs, particularly my aching hip and ankle, wouldn't be psyched with me, and I need them to stay somewhat happy so I can get through mid-October. So I walked the dogs, and then went for an easy ride with my favorite peloton:


Tomorrow: easy run, definitely solo. Tuesday: a hill workout. With the group (they invited me back!). And I'm going to fight my hardest to be just off the back again.