So for the past couple weeks, even when I wanted to, I knew I wouldn’t have the lungs for it, and would end up feeling faint and breathless after only a mile or so. I’ve struggled through a few tough ones, just to get through them, and didn’t feel any better for having done it.  I had my first really good run in a while last night with both lungs and legs holding their own and not giving me much trouble. I did have a little inspiration, though.

I’m generally a very healthy person, and yes, I’m knocking on wood as I say this. I don’t fall ill too often, and when I do it always feels like the world is crashing in around me. When I feel poorly I always think, “how do people with chronic conditions cope?” and I feel very thankful for my health and the health of all my family. I spoke on the phone with my mother yesterday afternoon and after catching up a bit and telling her about how I’d been feeling, and her listening, being the ever sympathetic mom that she is, no doubt wishing she could do something to make me feel better. I ask her what’s happening on her end, then she pauses and asks me, “Has Katie called you yet?”

Kate is one of my older sisters. I don’t talk to her often, but not because we don’t get along or anything. We’re just not phone people and generally we can’t get a hold of each other even when we do want to talk, so we catch up whenever we get together. My mom proceeded to give me the low down, which was that Kate had been experiencing some pains in her neck and arm and it gradually got worse until she saw a doctor and they determined she had a “bulging disc” in her back, near  the base of her neck.  I don’t know much about this condition, but after talking to my mom and then later to my sister I found out that it’s usually caused by some sort of trauma (like a car accident or bad fall-though they can’t account for how this happened) and it is extraordinarily painful and does not have a high success rate for recovery. She wakes up every morning in pain, and despite the course of meds they’ve tried on her, not much works and when it does the relief is very brief. She’s had pains in her arm making her unable to lift it and when she moves her neck she sometimes feels as though “the muscles in my back are ripping apart.”

My sister is a very tough person. One of the toughest people I know. So tough, that when she went to ER the nurses were convinced she was  only having muscle spasms. My sister works in the medical field and insisted that was not the problem. They were shocked when they got the results of her CT scan. I guess they imagined she would have been a quivering mass considering the pain she must have been in. Talking to her about all this, she was calm and pulled together, and had a great sense of humor about the whole thing. They want her to have surgery right away, or as my sister put it, “the doctor is cut-happy.” My sister is going through physical therapy this week, to try and see if there is a way to avoid surgery. These kind of surgeries have a low success rate and even with moderate success the recovery is long and grueling. Kate wants to seek alternate therapies but the doc told her not to have high expectations for anything like that to work, so she told the doctor, “Go ahead and schedule the surgery for two weeks out. Then, when I’ve recovered from this with therapy, I will give you a call and cancel that appointment.”

We had a great talk, but it left me feeling sad. Sad that there’s little I can do to help her and sad knowing how she must feel. She’s tougher than I am, has always been. She can deal with more pain and grief than I think I am capable, but I don’t see why that means she’s got to carry such a crapload of it. I would gladly take this pain from her if I could, though I know I wouldn’t handle it nearly as gracefully as she does. I also felt ridiculous for feeling so badly about my own lame condition. It certainly put things in perspective for me. Suddenly, I did not feel nearly as poorly as before. All my little aches and pains from pounding the pavement seemed so dull and faint, as if maybe I’d only imagined them to begin with.

Last night I ran, thinking of  my sister and not the little annoyances of my own body. They were all still there, the pains and the labored breathing, but for the first time in a while none of it bothered me. I listened to my music and I ran, thankful that I was able to do this and to really know what a blessing it is to move in a body that’s not nearly perfect, but perfect enough for what I need it to do everyday. It won’t always be this way, but I’m happy for it now and for however long it remains this way.

I’m praying that before long I can run with my sister, too.

No? None of this strikes a chord? Well that’s good. Then you need not read on. If you love what you see in those race photos, then I think that’s awesome. But I cannot relate one bit, and I know many other runners who’ve felt the way I have looking at running photos of themselves.  The very first time I saw a still of myself in mid-stride I was horrified. Wow, I thought. That’s what I look like? Because that’s not what I feel like. I feel pretty cool when I run. I feel strong, I feel confident (most of the time!) and I feel like I look tougher than I am. But when I see a shot or a video of myself running I feel incredibly self-conscious knowing that the half-prancing, half-flailing woman in the image is really me. Now, ultimately I really don’t care. I don’t ever think about this when I’m actually running. Only when I am reminded through the fine art of photography of how truly awkward I am. I think in my head I just have a very glamorized image of myself, but I think that’s only because running feels so good to do (I repeat, most of the time) so how could I possibly look anything other than awesome while I’m doing it, right? Also I’m just critical of myself in general, but here for so long I had a very false (but positive) image of myself that could not have been further from the truth.

Now related to this topic, is the topic of clothing. We may not be able to help much the little quirks of our bodies moving as we run, but we can chose what we put on our bodies. I normally don’t give much thought to this. I am under no illusions that my running clothes are super cool and coordinated. In fact, I am one of those girls who is afraid of looking too “matchy” so I will make a point to avoid running “outfits” that look like they were made to go together. It’s not that I have a problem when other people wear them but for me I feel like if I’ve made an obvious effort to really match my running clothes then I appear self-conscious. Instead I consciously take measures to avoid appearing self-conscious.  So pretty much I end up wearing whatever is most comfortable. This time of year I have my super awesome “go to” shorts that I wear no matter what. And they are kind of colorful, so ideally I would just wear a plain, white or grey top with them to avoid a color overload, but sometimes I don’t think about that. Sometimes I don’t care enough and I end up wearing many, many colors say, during a race and oh, while there aren’t any professional photographers there, a good friend happens to be and gets a bunch of shots of me chuffing along in a blaze of purple, blue and some other color (I’m not really sure what to call it- burnt salmon?) and with my hair in two bizarre, nubby little ponytails that seemed really cute when I first put them in but have taken on a sort of  “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane” effect after they’ve come partly undone and my mascara begins to run.  See, these are the things that are helpful for me to see. That is at least something I can work on.

So now that I’ve laid it all out there, tell me- Does it ever bother you to see yourself run?

Life is hectic around here, but fun. We’ve got end of year school business to finish up, a house and garden that both need a lot of tending to, writing and artwork being produced left and right and two parents who somehow find the time to fit some running in here and there. Ernesto just completed two marathons within six weeks of each other (the Boston Marathon and Vermont City Marathon) and amazingly pulled it off, finishing Boston at a blazing 3:12:49  and Vermont at 3:13:06. He felt great after Vermont and had about the best time at a race that he’d ever had, running for the Stonyfield team with three other friends.

More to come soon, but I just wanted to get an update in here to smooth out my blogging chops a bit.

Run strong out there.

Now I am the chocolate chip cookie’s number 1 fan, but I was skeptical. I wasn’t feeling particularly great to begin with as I had a cold and was really lacking energy. But I figured it was better than nothing, so I nibbled one down, threw back some water and was on my way. I quickly settled into my comfortable warm up pace, but before mile 1 I picked up the pace and even scooted up a hill that I normally struggle a bit with. By mile 2 I was into cruising speed and had it all together- the legs, lungs, everything was completely in sync with not a whole lot of effort. I just kept going faster. By the time I reached 4 miles I was back toward the house, and I would have kept right on going if I’d had the time, but I promised to be back for dinner. I couldn’t believe how good I felt, especially considering how not so good I had felt prior to the run.

Now, I don’t know for sure it was the cookie. I will need lots more cookies (and perhaps several different varieties of cookies) to properly test my hypothesis. All I know is that one of those babies beats a GU or other standard runner’s fuel any day of the week. No sticky mess, far more palatable and a heck of a lot less expensive!

I’m curious to hear what other runners favorite “go to” snacks are prior to or during a run or race. And maybe even more importantly, what foods you especially want to avoid during a run. For instance, I don’t reccommend noshing on a big salad before you hit the street. You know, unless it’s a cookie salad.

So I’ve been running, among many other things. I just began a ten-week training schedule for the Manchester Half Marathon in November. Can’t believe I’m doing another half, but my sister-in-law kind of talked me into it. As my mileage increases I’m already noticing lots of tweaks and pains (mostly in my right leg) which annoy me mostly when I am just walking, not running. I can live with them, but then I get thinking about my form and my shoes and all the things that could possibly be contributing to my discomfort. I just finished reading “Born To Run” by Christopher McDougall which I highly recommend. It gets you thinking a lot and makes you wonder what good (if any) the modern-day running shoe does for us. There is a lot of debate over this subject and it’s certainly worth examination from every angle. Already the running shoe industry is trying to cash in on the “less is more” design for the ideal shoe (less cushioning, less motion-control) with the theory that the more material we put between our feet in the road, the less our foot is able to carry out its proper function, thereby causing runners more injuries instead of less. Personally I very much like the idea of staying in my current pair of shoes until the cushioning is all but destroyed because that fits nicely into my very lean budget.

I’ve got my “long” run today which is a scant 5 miles. Of course that will be increasing by at least one mile every week until the race. My overall weekly mileage is what will be key in this training schedule. This week I will have put in 17 miles and at the peak of my training my longest week will be 30. I’m hoping to beat my PR of 1hr, 12min which I think is completely within my grasp. I didn’t run nearly enough miles last time and had to deal with various illnesses as I was training during peak cold/flu season. Hopefully I will stave off both illness and injury and crush my previous time. We’ll see how it goes.

As I write this my husband is off on his long run, a mere 20 miles. He certainly serves as inspiration for my own runs. When I think of how far I need to go for each run, I just look at how much further he has to go and suddenly mine don’t seem so bad. Here he is all smiles with our good friend Curt having just finished a 10 mile trail race (Moose on the Loose)  in the blistering heat and humidity. These guys sure know how to have fun! I’m so glad that my race is in November-gotta love cool running weather!

When I was last tested I had just had my youngest daughter Isobel about 4 months prior and I wasn’t exercising regularly yet. Soon after I began running regularly, averaging about 3 times a week with some occasional strength training with weights. Since then I’ve logged many miles and a few races. My diet has not really changed. I eat pretty healthy, but I have a mega sweet tooth and indulge in chocolate whenever I can. The only thing that had changed since my last physical was the running.

Here’s the breakdown:

July of 2007-

total cholesterol: 174 (normal is less than 200)

triglycerides: 65 (normal is less than 150)

“good” cholesterol/ HDL: 66 (normal is greater than 40)

“bad” cholesterol/ LDL: 95 (normal is less than 160)

as compared to this year-

total cholesterol: 160 (down 14)

triglycerides: 44 (down 21)

good cholesterol: 78 (up 12)

bad cholesterol: 73 (down 22)

Now I have no scientific proof to back this up, but I’m guessing the running has something to do with it. I was floored by the LDL dropping by 22 points. It seems unlikely that me being a year and 1/2 older and pigging out on peanut butter cups was what did it.

The only way for me to really give some credence to my experiment is to stop running  for a year and a half and see what results that will yield.

Sorry. You’re gonna just have to take my word for it.

I did what I thought was four miles, but it turns out it was only 3.66, and that was disappointing because the whole run I felt like I was flying and when I checked my time at the end I thought, wow, I was cruising!  Turns out I was slightly slower than on my recent treadmill run and I felt twice as worn out. I had some hills to contend with, but I certainly made up some time coming down them. I was feeling really good as I was passing St. Anselm’s and then some young man (probably a student there) zoomed past me, coming out of what seemed a lot like nowhere. He shot on down the street as if it were no effort at all and I thought, oh, well here’s an opportunity to do some speedwork (which I am infamous for avoiding) so I dug in and started to chase him. And somehow he just seemed to get further and further away until he was no more than a bouncing blip in the distance. I don’t know how he eluded me (might have had something to do with him running a 7 minute mile vs. my 8 1/2 OR that he was a superhero. I’m thinking maybe a bit of both.) but he was gone in no time, and so was my desire to go any faster. I slowed it down, caught my breath and just enjoyed the rest of my run.

He might have been faster, but my headband was way cuter than his hat. Just sayin’.

But today I was determined to get out, if only for a quick run. I didn’t have much time since I was driving Ernesto to the airport later this afternoon as he was heading off for a business related trip. I did a quick 3 mile loop that I’ve done a hundred times, but it’s been a while since I’ve run it in temps over 30 degrees. The snow melt made for some crazy puddles, so it was kind of like a city adventure run of sorts. The new Saucony pro-grid’s I picked up a few weeks back at an expo are a little less “new” now, but that’s okay. I always feel a little self-conscious in clean running shoes and these are mostly white too. Well, they were, I mean.

So now I am hunkering down after a long day of fresh air (the kids of course did not care mom just came back from a run- they wanted to bike around the block a few times so off we went) and getting some home business stuff attended to. My face has that warm taut feeling you get from being out in the sun and air all day.

I’ll enjoy it while it lasts, because I hear it will be 30 and snowy tomorrow.

No, no more long winter races for me. I’m going to take advantage of all the other seasons as much as possible and leave the winter for more cross training and a more relaxed running schedule. I’m planning to register for a Mother’s Day 5k a few towns away. It’s enough to keep me motivated, but not too daunting a training schedule to have me frazzled.

I don’t know about all of you but I am looking forward to running in some real spring weather. Tomorrow is supposed to reach at least 50 and I’m going to take advantage of that. I imagine I’ll see more than the usual number of runners out on the road. Now I only have to figure out what to wear. Not exactly compression clothing weather. Maybe this spring I will be brave enough to wear one of these. Or maybe I’ll wait until I’m fast enough so that people won’t confuse me for a lady jogging over to the tennis court.