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Month: February 2020

Tempering

Tempering

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More often than not, I tend to ramble on about The Process — capitalization for emphasis, clearly — with marathon training and the inherent joy and challenge of going through it and coming out on the other side. The Process, the grind, the daily showing up when you don’t always feel like it for whatever real or perceived reason, is part of how we grow as athletes and as human beings. It’s that whole “if it were easy, everyone would be doing it” thing. 

Knowing all that, I tend to hold tight to the value of fairly low expectations for myself. I may have a very vague idea of what I could possibly do on any given day, but it’s exceedingly rare that I go into a race, a workout, or even just a plain ol’ training run with an abundance of confidence about what’s going to happen. Will I fail spectacularly? Will this all go over without a hitch? No idea either way. Won’t know unless (and until) I try. 

That’s a good enough reason, most of the time, to get me out the door to see what’s possible.

I was thinking about all this stuff recently, after my eldest’s swim meet over the weekend and after reading this article from Matt Fitzgerald about his upcoming 100k. I can’t pretend to know what must be running through Matt’s head as he attempts his longest race ever, with a lot of extenuating circumstances that hamstrung his training and his ability to have a minimal-suffering race. His attitude is awesome though — show up, be there for it, and just see how it goes — and this characteristic is one that I’ve been trying mightily to foster in my own approach to my training. 

My eldest’s meet over the weekend also got me thinking about this stuff because she raced very well for her with what I’m pretty sure were fairly non-existent expectations. Of late, she has been drawn to the 500 (500!!) freestyle and has been racing it as often as it’s available in competition; they also fairly routinely do it during practice each week, too. She had been sitting at a certain time for the past 3 or 4 attempts, plus or minus a couple seconds, and she seemed really satisfied by it and happy with the consistent effort she had been putting out. On Sunday though, she took off a solid 20 seconds from her time — 20 seconds! — and when I told her her finish time after she hit the wall (the wall is good to hit in swimming…not so much in running, I know), she was FLOORED, so happy she was nearly in tears. She probably never thought she could do that, or make that huge a jump … until she did. 

radiating joy

As her mom and as an athlete, it was such a joy to witness her realization firsthand.

It is comparably joyful to see how she has become attuned to the beauty of The Process and to watch it unfold night after night at practice and week after week at meets. 

Tempering our high-achieving standards for ourselves with a heaping dose of humble pie, and who knows what will happen? It may not be so bad.

It may, in fact, be far sweeter than we could have imagined. 

Two years

Two years

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How January is already behind us and that fewer than 100 days stand between my first marathon of the year and me is mind-boggling. January brought with it a solid month of training, with a handful of days off (most of them while we were in the Dominican Republic with family at the beginning of the month). Since school and life as usual resumed earlier in the month, everything seems to be rolling along at its usual frenetic pace. 

January: ~209 miles; ~10,200′ vert; lots and lots of smiles (PC: Janet)
gang’s all here four time zones away!

In recent history, the end of January/beginning of February transition always leaves me feeling a bit unsettled — equal parts hyperaware and uneasy, like I’m constantly searching for something.  It was on February 4th, two years ago, that I had a stroke out of seemingly nowhere.

To this day, it’s still such a bizarre thing to talk about when it comes up in conversation because the topic brings with it an onslaught of questions that I don’t necessarily feel like entertaining. 

All I can say — rather unhelpfully — is that weird shit happens every single day of the year, to people all over the world, and sometimes without a lot of reason or explanation. On February 4th, 2018, something weird happened to me. That said, without question, I was one of the extremely lucky ones. 

The fragility, sanctity, and gift of life is something that I think has always been at the forefront of my mind, in some capacity, thanks to the media that I regularly consume. Even still, since having that major health emergency two years ago — as well as the truly life-changing experiences of being pregnant, giving birth and raising children — at the risk of sounding super crunchy, there are so many times now in my day-to-day life where I often wish I could somehow capture a moment or feeling forevermore.

Breathing it in isn’t enough; I want to bottle it.

I feel it when I run, regardless of pace or distance, but especially on those special days that Csikszentmihalyi talks about, when it all just flows, and there’s no stopping or limit imaginable. As a runner in my mid-30s now, who has been doing this long stuff for over a decade, I have more mileage and speed in my legs than I could have ever imagined when I began it all in earnest in 2007. Lindsay Crouse’s recent NYT opinion piece really resonated with me (and with so many others), and like she said, there are runs that happen where I finish and all but let out a HELL YEA! I JUST DID THAT! because I’m in disbelief at what my body just produced. Not knowing the end limit of my potential is really exciting and is enough to get me out the door each day to strive.   

I feel it with my children, even in the most inane circumstances of our day-to-day. The best way I can describe it is that sometimes I watch them talking to me — and I hear them, and I see their mouths moving — but it’s as though I’m watching from above. I am just in utter amazement that we created these two beings and that they are growing every day and figuring out the world in their own way, but they still need us in ways that they can’t always describe or ask. I am immeasurably proud of them for who they are becoming as individuals, and watching it unfold some days all but takes my breath away.

I’ve heard it said before that having children is like having your heart and soul on the outside, or something like that, and man, that’s right. Raising children is truly harder than any job I’ve ever had or degree I’ve ever earned. That said, it’s so deeply gratifying (and frustrating at times, of course) that I swear that I can feel it on a cellular level. 

Wanting to freeze time to capture a moment and feeling isn’t limited just to running or to my kids, of course. There are so many instances with my husband, with my own parents and siblings and in-laws and family members, and with my friends where, when we all part to go our own separate ways, the feeling that I have in my chest is just indescribably satisfying.

The shit-eating grin marks and crow’s feet lines just get deeper; I’m okay with that. 

This is all getting way more crunchy and embarrassing than I was going for — my bad — but I guess given the experience that I had two years ago and what I could have had, it’s damn near impossible to not be a little (a lot) reflective at this time of year.

Waking up each day grateful to have woken up at all and to be given another day of life is enough. 

I am one of the supremely lucky ones.