Belated Weekend Write-Up

Ugh, not sure what’s up…maybe the grey? The fickle early spring weather? I’m dragging and this blog-writing has been dragging too. Sigh. My son threw a tantrum yesterday morning that he was tired and just wanted to sleep all day and NOT go to school. #allthefeels He went to school.

The weekend’s run was…ok. 13 miles of trails out at Palos averaging around 10 min miles (with one flight of Swallow stairs). It was great company, but we did 1.5 loops, and that second .5 loop was tiring. The hills felt hillier, the mud muddier. I was just glad Kelly was doing it with me (the others only did about 1 loop). Still, we had a nice little crew out, and it was my first run with Deanna (I think) since the Hateya Trail Race in December (that’s her, third from the left)! And I think my first run with Katie in a year (second from right). Geez, people get busy. Katie’s busy training for a half iron distance triathlon in the fall. Sigh, I still haven’t made it back into the pool since that one time earlier this year…

One of the things I like about trail running is that no one makes you feel like a loser when you walk the hills 🙂

Most of the path was decently dry, but there were definitely some patches that were still bogged down. 

It was nice getting the group together, especially since Laura, Kelly, and I will all be at Ice Age (Laura is doing the half). I was sad to see most of the group break off, leaving me and Kelly to suffer through another 5 miles. I’m not sure if it was the 6 miles I did the day before that left me tired or if I’m just TIRED lately…either way, it’s not doing much for the old self-confidence for Boston. I’m also doing stupid things like looking at my mileage and comparing it to previous training cycles and then berating myself for not running enough.

Sigh. I’m trying to just be in it and just accept where I am, but it’s a bit much right now. For a variety of reasons, I feel pretty checked out from training, work, parenting, life…and I keep dredging the reserves to keep moving and keep doing what I need to, but it’s not great. A friendly recently called me out on some of that behavior and it hurt, but it was also much needed. I can’t keep using excuses of “I’m busy” or “It’s too much” to NOT show up for other people in my life and think I’m “getting away” with it. There does need to be some accountability. I’m not sure if that makes sense, but I think I need to find a way to both recharge and re-connect with what I need to do. This is the point where I flash back to those, “Calgon, take me away” commercials of my youth. Ha. A few years ago, I was really working on mindfulness and simplifying. Instead of running around so much like a chicken with its head cut off, I think I need to really slow down and reconsider what I need to do…

We had a pretty open weekend for the first time in a bit, so we decided to go downtown and check out the Field Museum. It was crazy busy, but we got in to see the terra cotta warriors from China exhibit. It was pretty amazing to think that there were thousands of these buried. I was slightly disappointed to see that there were less than a dozen figures on display, but it makes sense. They are over 2000 years old, so I’m sure it’s quite a production just to transport these. I was fascinated to see that they weren’t all the same. Meaning, it’s not like they were stuck in a mold and cranked out. Each figure was different with different facial features, positions, and clothing. Amazing.

They had a mock-up of what they thought these warriors looked like back in the day PAINTED. They weren’t just the raw terra cotta color, but they were painted to look more life-like. I guess there were enough bits of paint for them to reconstruct the appearance. The almost cartoonish brightness of the colors reminded me of the Sistine Chapel when they started restoring the panels. People had assumed for a long time that the somber, dark colors were what they were painted like. When they started restoring them, though, they were startled by how shockingly bright they were. It’s funny to think that the sepia-toned images of history we have get translated into us thinking that’s the color people lived in 🙂

Gotta say, you can’t beat Chicago’s skyline on a blue day.

I was really excited to get Japanese food afterwards at a joint within walking distance. The ramen, sadly, wasn’t as good as it looked in this picture. The broth was super-yummy and flavorful, but the noodles were on the dry side. Still, we don’t often get a chance to eat Japanese since the kids don’t do sushi, so it was a fantastic end to a pretty good day.

The boy also really enjoyed the ramen broth. I tried to convince him to either hold the bowl and drink it (the more Chinese-way) or stoop over the bowl and quickly spoon the broth into his mouth (the more Korean-way…I think, anyway, I could totally be wrong). He decided to go with a completely different method, the straw.

Anyhow, how do you try to juggle things in your life, be present and show up? But also not fry out completely? How do you keep your training fresh? Or at least grounded?

Marathon training is like locking yourself into a personalized prison cell

Today was the first 20 miler of the season.

It was hard.

I’m not entirely sure why it was so hard. It was surprisingly hard. While it’s not like I want to run 20 miles every weekend, most of last year’s were surprisingly doable. They didn’t feel like an immense struggle for big chunks of it. Today’s was a different story. The last 8 miles were torturous, and I found myself having to talk myself through it much like I would the last 6 miles of the marathon. I went to a dark, lonely place. My two friends were similarly locked in their own individual prisons as all conversation shut down, though I think at one point I jeered, “You’re almost there” to Jen. We even stopped running as a group but strung out single file. It was grueling. Granted, it was 32 degrees and a 12mph headwind the whole way back. And we had already run the toughest week of training, with almost 40 miles for the week before the long run. Oh, and Jen’s kid had barfed all over his room right before she was ready to leave. Like barf on the ceiling and on furniture. Hm, maybe I’m starting to understand…

There was a hill right before an overpass around mile 18.5. There was alot of cursing. This picture makes it look like nothing. That’s Jen in front of me in our little line of runners. She was very intent on finishing as soon as possible although I kept hollering at her to not push the pace too much.

I have no words of wisdom on how to talk yourself through those miles. Alot of it is just trying to find a groove to settle into so that you are on auto-pilot and your feet keep shuffling along. This autopilot can be a great thing on a strong run, and it can be a saving grace on a hard run. I like to think of it as perpetual motion or inertia. It’s easier to keep moving if you keep moving, harder if you stop.

When you get into that head space, though, it’s hard to talk yourself through. You have to constantly nudge, encourage, berate yourself to keep moving. You lie to yourself and say you “only” have x miles left, you can do this, etc. I actually was thinking about this line, “We make the road by walking.” I know it in relation to a book by Ira Shor and Paulo Freire (two critical education scholars), but I’m not sure if it originates with them. My baby attempts (Googling for 5 seconds) at finding the origin online brought me to a poem by Antonio Machado, a turn-of-the-century Spanish poet. Whether it begins with him or not, the poem is lovely and appropriate.

Wanderer, your footsteps are
the road, and nothing else;
wanderer, there is no road,
the road is made by walking.
Walking makes the road,
and on glancing behind
one sees the path
that he will never trod again.
Wanderer, there is no road—
Just foam in the sea.

Our reward for this test of mental and physical strength? Strong, hot coffee. Mmmmmm. This is a fairly cute picture, but I have to be honest. I cropped part of it out, because my outer layer had a pouch that made me look pregnant and Michelle (in the middle) had a waist belt that hung in an–uh–“interesting” spot.You can still see my bad tired posture, though. And #nofilter

I will say that I am glad this week is finally over. While the training plan still has another 20 miler, since all the weekly mileage is less from here on out, I consider it taper! Woohoooo!!

So, friends, what do you use to get yourself through those tough miles?

Favorite post-run treat?