joy.

wow - it's been awhile. to fill in the gaps here:

after that disappointing 2:03 in the half, i picked up the pieces and slogged my way through a windy ice storm to run 1:57:01. success!

two days later, i fell in ralston creek on a training run and, according to the doctor, "did major trauma" to my ankle. five weeks of nursing the ankle followed, which meant no training, minimal walking, and no third 20 miler.

i went into the michigan trail marathon last sunday hoping for the best and willing to drop out if my ankle needed it. but i hit the course and magic happened - no ankle pain. maybe the pain of the 80º weather and high humidity just canceled out the ankle.

nonetheless, it was a glorious day on a glorious trail. filled with pain and doubt and utterly triumphant in the end. just like life.

so where does this chapter of my running life end? with a seventeenth place finish off of a 5:25.33 and, appropriately, a smile on my face.




















happy trails, c.

two-oh-three.

i ran my second solo half marathon this morning and finished in 2:03. here's the route.



i'm going to admit that i'm disappointed at - again - not breaking 2 hours - though i know i can. i'm trying to fight the urge to rely on "knowing i can do it" though. just because i know i can do something doesn't mean i have done it. i need to stop justifying a lack of effort by rationalizing that i could do something if i really wanted to! ugh. please, i need to get over that... besides, by throwing in the towel like that, i never get the joy of reaching a goal!

and so, in the meantime, here are some thoughts for the record:

• focus on one goal at a time! i tried to cram in too much this morning - a half-hearted attempt at knocking off the sub-2, combined with trying to get in a good, hilly workout and hitting a stretch of icy trail. pick a goal and run with it.

• get better at pacing. when i hit mile one in 8:20, i knew i was in trouble! but couldn't quite get it back. turn it up one gear, not five.

• don't lose heart. trust the training. let myself be great!

• get tough. long runs hurt - get over it.

• run my own race - i was chasing shadows all morning and i knew it.

and finally,

• celebrate the 2:03! a 2:03 hilly-ass half with 338 ft. of ascent and 15 minutes of walking in the middle is pretty damn good. enjoy!
  

next 1/2, i'm going to either hop on a treadmill at 9 minute pace or hop into a half with pacers. i need to get this monkey off my back and re-focus on what's important: enjoying myself and enjoying those trails.

chasing coyotes.

i'm back in iowa city after an aborted trip to waterfall glen. after getting stuck in chicago last night because of the snowstorm, i set my alarm at 5:30am and planned to hit the limestone loop at waterfall glen by 7am. when i got there, however, it was closed! it turns out the dupage forest preserve district opens their parks one hour after sunup and fines people for entering the park illegally. so, i hopped back in the car and started the trek back west to iowa - planning to run the north route at lake macbride (twice) when i got there. thankfully, i stopped at one of the iowa oases and chatted with the very nice "welcome to iowa!" woman who gave me a bunch of iowa state park maps. i checked them out, threw caution to the wind, and decided to head towards palisades-kepler state park, just west of mount vernon. and thank god i did!

palisades-kepler is a bee-you-tee-full park. i wish it were about four times bigger than it is (~800 acres), but i'll take what i can get! the park sits on top of the cedar river, with a bunch of park up on top of some bluffs and a bunch of park down below along the river. there were plenty of geese, ducks, and racoons. there were also - though i didn't see any actual coyotes - plenty of coyote tracks. which brings me to my theme of the day: chasing coyotes.

when you spend as much time as i do driving down the interstate - alone - and running for hours - alone - you tend to have alot of big thoughts. and this is today's: chasing coyotes. as i ran up and down the snowy bluffs at palisades-kepler, attempting to retain my sanity while running and re-running over my own tracks in the snow, i invented a game to keep me going. in my darkest hour, the moment at which i found myself trying to convince myself that 8 miles might be just as good as 18 (yeah, right!) and that i should just pack up and head on home, i noticed how all the coyotes in palisades-kepler state park seemed to follow the park trails. the same trails that i was running, had been run sometime in the last few hours by either one endurance-crazed coyote, or a whole slew of them. everywhere i looked were coyote tracks, and i made it my business to follow these tracks - to chase the coyotes.

now chasing coyotes is a pretty ridiculous pastime. for one thing, they can outrun me. for another, what the hell am I going to do if I actually _do_ catch a coyote? but "f&ck it!" i thought, i'm going to spend my afternoon chasing coyotes, which is exactly what i did. instead of throwing in the towel at 8 miles, i chased those tracks for a good three and half hours - up and down bluffs, through the trails, across roads, over downed trees, along the river, across the cliffs. and i loved it.

and that, of course, is when it occurred to me that chasing coyotes makes a nice metaphor for trail running - for the absurdity of running through the woods for hours at a time with no destination and no specific goal. just a chance to embrace the hunter gatherer in all of us. a chance to focus completely on the (absurd) task at hand. to lose yourself in pain, yes, and also joy. and i know i could use some more of that in the rest of my life - embracing the hunter gatherer, forgetting the bullshit, losing and finding myself, chasing coyotes.

no news is good news!

hmmmm... long time no write.

i seem to be noticing a pattern. when all is well, i'm too happy to bother writing! training is coming along well. i'm still on the wagon. i'm up to 35 miles a week. and, after the saga of trying to find a neutral trail show, i think i did! i just picked up the montrail streak after reading rave reviews here, here, and here. huge thank yous to ann h. for helping me with the search, drew for putting up with my bitching, and to kara at the scheel's in iowa city for actually having the shoes in stock. i've only done a quick 3 miles in them, but so far so good.

things i'm thankful for this week: my darling husband, my wonderful marriage, my sweetie pie kittens, my sweetie pie daughter, my amazing parents, sister, and bro-in law, my wonderful town, my health, my sanity, my energy, and my future. kisses to all.

let go and let (the running) god(s)...

things are still rolling along. i'm up around 30 miles per week and just completed week four of marathon training. my body is definitely feeling the training - i'm having some trouble sleeping and am just plain tired - but i can tell i'm getting stronger and faster. i had a lovely xc ski outing this week in chicago and a hard 60 minute run on the hills in hickory hill park to cap off the week. onward and upward!

it's official - i'm in!

i'm still hurting a bit from the trail race, but i figure i've got to get right back on that trail horse! so i headed over to hickory hill park, for the first time in a long time, to re-embrace its snowy hills. two slow miles, two quicker miles, and one very slow mile later, i emerged with a renewed appreciation of the trails. they're rougher than the roads, but it doesn't get much better than roaming free in an empty park, listening to your own breath, broken every once in awhile by the sweet song of a cardinal or a chickadee. i love those trails!

so what better way to cap off the love fest than with my official entry into the michigan trail marathon on april 26, 2009. i'm in! and i intend to do everything i can to make it to the start. woo hoo!

happy trails,
me.

one hell of a trail run!

on saturday, i headed to rock cut state park in rockford for race #2 in the rock cut trail series. from what i understand, the rockford road runners put on this trail race series every winter, consisting of a december 5k, january 10k, february 15k, and march 20k. i knew it was cold out (20º) and windy and snowy, but i had no idea what was in store!

i arrived at rock cut in time to register for the race ($20 cash in order to pay out the winners!) and head out for a two mile warm-up. i had to head straight to the start after that, where about 150 people (many of them in their 40s and 50s and FIT) started chanting "LARRY! LARRY!" in an effort to summon race director, larry swanson, for the gun. he arrived, offering a few last minute bits of advice, "Don't get hurt! You're going to cross that frozen lake not once - not twice - but THREE times!"

and then we were off!

straight up a hill ankle deep in fresh powder, onto narrow singletrack through the woods, along the edge of pierce lake, up more hills, across the lake, up another hill, through the woods, across the lake again, up more hills, through more powder, across the lake x3, around the lake, and in.

HOLY MOSES! i remember thinking to myself that i was hitting the wall, and then seeing the little yellow plastic pie plate mile marker for mile TWO! this was going to be a LONG 10k. for the first half mile or so, we had to stay single file on the singletrack. i made a few moves into the deeper powder for better position. after that, i got passed by one guy around mile 4 who shouted, "why are we doing this?!?!" when he passed me! other than that, i was pretty well on my own the whole race, with usually not more than two people in view ahead. i passed a few guys on the lake passes, passed a few more on the singletrack, and cut through knee deep powder to pass the only other woman i saw on the course in the final five yards. she seemed pissed but a race is a race! as i passed through the chute, i heard the race official say, "1:18." 1:18!!!!

my legs were literally shaking at the finish. i grabbed a homemade chocolate chip cookie and some water and headed out for a two-mile warm-down. i made it back for the awards ceremony and discovered that i finished 2nd in my age group - though there may only have been two people in my age group! i'm still waiting for the results to be posted, but i think i finished in the top of the second half of finishers.

and i'm really thrilled with that! my 1:18 says something about the difficulty of the race. 12:30 pace really got my heart rate up and there were definite moments where i was thinking that this was harder than any marathon i've run. it took a whole lot of digging deep. it was also great practice for learning to walk (gasp!) up hills and run smart - trail running is a whole new animal and i'm learning as i go.

but for sure, in february, i'll be back!

there's nothing like a snowy, pre-dawn 8 miler in 10º weather to start the day off right! thank you, morning run, for getting the good vibes flowing. after that, i sat down, started working through my dissertation notes, and am in a much better place. all hail the running gods! for dissertation wisdom and for guiding me through week one of sixteen. 22 miles down, several hundred to go!

onward.

the cuckoo sign man.

as i ran down the edge of a very snowy bowery street this dawn, a man in an old, red pontiac - refusing to move to the center of the road - made the cuckoo sign as he plowed on by.

i laughed.

maybe letting go is the easy part?

i've had a great couple of days - legs are good; mind is good. i'm getting over this cold, getting lots of sleep, and drinking more water than fat tire for a change. but as the beginning of the semester approaches, and my inbox fills with things to do, i'm finding myself a bit - shall we say - overwhelmed.

it's funny because i've been re-reading 'zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance' for the first time in almost 15 years and i just read a passage where our narrator, a teacher of rhetoric (!), is talking about writer's block. to be blocked, he tells us, is not to be without ideas, without thinking; rather, it comes when we're thinking too much - seeing too much - in short, when we're overwhelmed.

i know, for instance, that i need to get to work on this dissertation, but my usual strategy of plowing ahead come hell or high water doesn't seem to be working this time around. i can't seem to push through this one by sheer force of will - the way i've accomplished almost everything in the last ten years.

i'm learning - in running - that i can't force myself through some things - or, rather, that i can, but that it might be a better idea to sit back, let go, do the work, show up, and let the magic happen. but i don't know how to do that with this whole "ph.d." thing. pushing through, imposing my will, has worked pretty well until now, but now that it doesn't, there doesn't seem to be a way to sit back, show up, do the work, and make the magic happen. there isn't a nice, clear, well-researched bob glover plan i can follow for sixteen weeks to get where i want to be. instead, there's just a whole host of people waiting for me to do the work and wondering why i haven't, or why the work i have done doesn't look the way it's supposed to.

which, of course, gets me to that fear - that deepest of fears - that i'm not good at this kind of work. and that it's not good for me. that i feel too much, care too much, am too involved to attempt to write an ethnographic study of something i care about, love too much, am too deeply involved in. and that scares the crap out of me. is that why i'm hemming and hawwing? is that why i can't get started? is that why i'm overwhelmed? maybe so.

and, in fact, that's the same thing that kept me from running for all those years. maybe they are the same. maybe i just need to show up, do the work, and let the magic happen. but, for now, i'm simply overwhelmed.

the journey of 26.2 miles starts with a 3 mile loop around the neighborhood.

after a good year of silence, i've decided to revive this here blog. i know no one reads it other than me - and maybe drew! - but i think it might be nice to start this record of my thinking and running again.

so here's the scoop:

we live in iowa city now, not chicago - though i do live in chicago once a week (long story). i have been running and, in fact, trained for chicago 2008, but i haven't run a marathon in over a year now. i've been busy passing prelims, starting a fellowship program, moving to iowa, doing my thing. now that all of that has calmed down, i'm ready for marathon #5 - the running fit trail marathon this april. the race is 16 weeks away, which means that today marks my first day of actual training: a three mile spin around the hood. despite the nasty cold/sinus thingy I'm fighting off, the run went off without a hitch - woo hoo!

more important than that actual three mile loop, though, is my attitude. it occurs to me that i've spent quite a few years trying to get running and, more specifically, the demands of racing, to bend to my will. i've tried to find a way to get through the training without really making room for the training. i've tried to rationalize that as long as i could check off those runs, i could work too hard, sleep too little, drink too much - in other words, i think i tried too hard to do things "my way." that seems to me, now, to be a pretty stupid way to do things, and i'm not entirely sure why that just now occurred to me.

maybe it's because things have finally quieted down. the insanity of the last year or two subsided this winter break and, when i was finally forced to sit with myself, in myself, for a few minutes, i realized that i was scared - absolutely terrified, in fact. i suppose most people are scared of something, but this realization - that i was scared of everything - shocked the hell out of me. i didn't take myself for the fearful kind. it took a few weeks after that to figure out just what i was scared of - or why - and here's what i came up with: the future! more specifically, a future that i want desperately to control.

once i figured that out, i realized that this fear was silly, ridiculous in fact. no one can control the future and trying to do so only makes you miserable. armed with that epiphany, i am going to try very hard to get out of the future and get into now. and what better time to do that, than as i embark on my training for my first ever trail marathon.

it's not that i'm running this marathon to "save my soul." i'm running this marathon to run it! and, for once, to give myself up to the training. to let go and let god as they say. or, in my case, since i'm a little wary of the whole "god" thing - i'm going to let go and let the running gods step in. i'm going to pledge to take this training seriously for the first time. to revel in it. to luxuriate in it. to quit trying to impose my will on it. to embrace my fear of the future and enjoy the 3 miles of today. to face the scary fear of actually trying my best at something and letting the world see what that "best" is.

this is it: my gift to myself in 2009. to give myself up to training. to take it seriously. to enjoy it. to make room for it. to give up controlling it. to surrender to it.

to let go. and to let the running gods in.