New thoughts on running

That's what the Tarahumara must sound like, I thought to myself as I chugged along on the trail. I had decided to venture into Discovery Park to run the loop trail, and I was already wondering why I hadn't before. I think between the cougar sightings and the reams of homeless that tumble off the 33 at the Discovery Park stop for an adventure in urban camping, I'd convinced myself that it was deserted and dangerous. So far, the only thing that had given me pause was the enormous blue heron I'd come around a corner and surprised as he sat 10 feet off the trail finishing his lunch. I stopped long enough to look at him, which seemed to make him feel self-conscious. I was also passing and being passed by reams of walkers, dog folks, and other runners, most of whom were crunching the gravel like it was granola and they were starving, me included. I was sort of enjoying the feeling of pounding down the earth, landing hard on my heels on the downhills.

Then, I heard just a faint rustling shuffle on the trail behind me. Was it an animal? It didn't sound like the rhythmic runner's steps I'd gotten accustomed to hearing right before I was passed.

"Good morning!" she said cheerfully as she nudged by me. She was about 10 years older than me, similar build, with a knit cap and shorts over her running tights, and on her feet were a burgundy pair of Vibrams.

"Hey," I panted. "How do you like your Vibrams?"

"Love them!" she said. "My calves were sore, but if you ease into them they're fabulous!"

We chatted about Born to Run a bit before she pulled ahead with a "Have a good morning!" and made her way down the trail in front of me with that quiet, shuffling step. I studied her form closely. Her body seemed very still - no arm pumping or odd gestures, they were just relaxed in a bent position at her sides - and if I had a book on her head I don't think it would have fallen off. Her stride was compact and cadence was fast, and, most notably, her heels almost never completely touched the ground. They came close, but I could tell she wasn't really putting any weight on them. And she was out of sight in no time.

Watching her, I remembered Caballo Blanco's advice to the author of Born to Run: smooth, light, easy fast. I was observing all 4.

I came down out of the woods, and continued my run along the flat, even sidewalks around the park. Let's give this a try, I thought. I shortened my stride and increased my cadence, and concentrated on letting my weight fall on the front part of my foot. I made sure my back was straight and thought about keeping things smooth and easy. I thought about how the author trained by pulling on a rope tied around his waist while running forward, and was instructed to keep that feeling in mind.

A few intriguing thing happened. First of all, my breathing eased up. I'm not sure what my pace was, but I felt like I was running at about the same speed, if not faster. I also noticed that my calves and hamstrings were working harder to keep my heels up. Most notably, I found that instead of feeling like my knee action was driving me forward, the forward drive was coming from somewhere deep in my quads. It felt, at the best moments, effortless and easy. Maybe not so smooth, getting to be light, and definitely not fast....but I'm on the right track.

I came home excited, and (finally!) didn't need to rest my knee, although my heels took a beating on the downhills on the trails and my PF flared up a bit. I'm going to need to figure out how to run those better. I don't think Vibram lady flies down them and lands on her heels.

I was able to recreate that feeling from Saturday a bit on the treadmill today and the results were even better - no knee pain or foot pain at all after the run. My hamstrings, predictably, have complained and the muscles in the bottom of my feet and ankles that are responsible for holding up my heels when I put weight down have also made themselves known, but these are lazy muscles that need to start pulling their weight anyway and I don't feel sorry for them. My totally-not-endorsed-by-a-professional plan at this point is to continue to do my ankle/knee exercises to strengthen those areas, and continue to explore this new form. Just like any technique change (hello, singing), the learning part is going to take me back a few steps in terms of speed and distance, but rebuilding on a more solid foundation is going to be worth it as I up my mileage for the half marathon.

I'm excited!

My 3.1

Finally, here I am. I'd been pacing the kitchen in my running gear, waiting for Mark to get home so I could make my escape. The longer, brighter days have meant that my runs haven't needed to be confined to the treadmill at the gym anymore, and I'm ready to break free.

Outside the condo, I look to the left and set the stopwatch on the iphone I put in my running belt. I zip my jacket a little higher against the gentle but stubborn March wind and a few scattering raindrops, and adjust my belt so that the bottle compartment rests on my back.

I begin.

My body feels relaxed and easy, my arms loose. Across the street, a runner is heading in the same direction as me. He looks much more like a typical runner - tall, thin, his long legs seems to effortlessly gobble up the sidewalk. In no time he's a few blocks beyond me.

I head up the hill on my traditional 5k loop of the neighborhood. This is the only serious hill on the route, and I'll see it again at the end of the run when I return home. Somehow, it always seems easier at the end. Maybe I'm warmed up, maybe it's shorter and less steep returning, maybe I'm delirious. Whatever the reason, I'm glad it's here at the beginning, too, so I can get it out of the way before I have too much time to think about it.

I lean into the hill, running with my weight on my toes, and feel the weight lift off my quads as I crest the top and fall forward. My breath is now coming as it will for the rest of the run, in a two-step rhythm that dictates my pace: breathe in, step, breathe out, step. I concentrate on filling my lungs fully to combat a creeping stitch after the hill, and think about how I probably shouldn't have filched the kids' leftover pizza right before the run.

I pass the Thriftway with its bold display of flowers out front and continue on the sidewalk toward the Village, the gathering of shops in our neighborhood, about a mile away. I can see all the way down the road to the blinking red light at the place I turn. It seems so far away, but I'll be there in about 10 minutes. I keep my eyes focused up on the road and the distance. I've run this sidewalk enough to know by now where the cracks and bumps are.

The road I'm running on is a main thoroughfare, and although the sidewalk is set away from the street by a greenbelt the sounds of cars whizzing by this time of night is constant. I wonder briefly what they see when they look at me? I've gotten past the point of feeling like a "fat runner," although I still break the mold in terms of typical runner physique. I remember a few weeks ago when I was lifting some weights and looking at myself offhandedly in the mirror, and suddenly an uninvited thought zipped into my brain: "I look strong." That was a first. Is that what the cars going by see, too? It's a small neighborhood, I probably know at least a handful of these people driving by. Did they know I was a runner? Would they ever expect it? Thinking back to my pre-running days, I'm not sure I even registered runners on the sidewalks or roads. Now, it's sort of like being pregnant and seeing pregnant women everywhere. Everywhere I drive, I see runners on the road. I find myself wondering if they're training for something, checking out their gear, wondering how far they've run and how far they have left to go, if they think that hill they're running up is hard. If there are any runners in those cars, they are thinking the same thing about me. And they might be just as jealous as I am when I see my brothers and sisters out on the road instead of where I am, trapped behind the wheel.

If I register with the non-runners, they are probably thinking I'm borderline insane, as the rain has now started in earnest. It's not the large drippy rain that other climates experience, but that uniquely Pacific Northwest rain shower that is more of a really dense drizzle. My face is covered with condensation, and large drips accumulate on my eyelashes and the tip of my nose. I thank myself for remembering my jacket. I've turned by the church now and am passing the ball field on my right, where the baseball players are huddled with the coach in the covered dugout, listening to instructions for the next practice. They've ended early because of the rain. Those kids don't know what they're missing, trying to stay dry like that.

I turn the corner to the right to circle the ballfield and make my final approach to the village. I only know this because I've been here so many times, but this will be a long, gradual downhill all the way to my next turn, one of those downhills that you really only notice because you once tried to run it in the opposite direction and realized that yes, it is a hill. I've been fooled before by this hill, when I forgot to enjoy it until it was too late and it was over. I let my body fall slightly and revel in the more open pace while I let my breathing come a little easier.

Now, I'm in the village and making my second right turn around the ball field. I have a flashback to a year ago, when Mark threw on his running shoes on a whim and ran to the Village and back. He came back sweaty and happy. I didn't think I'd ever be able to make it to the Village and back running the whole way, and he got up one night and did it because he felt like it. I was insanely jealous.

I view the slight hill at the end of this block. It's short but steep, and a precursor to the slow incline for the next block after the corner that is the sibling of the slow decline I enjoyed just a few minutes ago. For a while it was my Waterloo on this course, the place where I needed to walk to catch my breath for a minute before running home. Now, I concentrate on running on my quads and return to my pace around the corner, and cruise by the middle school on the home stretch.

I enjoy this mile of flat sidewalk as I always do, getting into my typical post-two-mile mindspace when I really feel the benefit of the run, readying myself for that final hill. When it comes, I'm always surprised that I'm halfway up it before I really even notice I'm climbing. The way down is steep, steeper than it's sibling ascent on the other side, and I let my body fall down the hill again, my arms loose and useless at my sides. I don't think I could stop if I tried.

And back I am at the door of the condo. I fish out my iPhone and notice that at some point around 2 minutes it got jostled and stopped, but it doesn't really matter. As I wait for the buzzer to be answered, my friend from the beginning of the run passes going in the other direction. His long legs are still devouring the cement, and I'm sure that he's covered at least twice as many miles as me. We nod at each other as he passes, and I notice that his clothes are just as soaked as mine, his drenched hat is now in his back pocket.

"I'm back," I pant into the speaker when Mark answers it, although my heart rate has already slowed quite a bit. As I walk toward our door, it's already open for me in anticipation of my return. I walk through it, and three faces turn to me.

"Are you runned, Mommy?" asks the two-year-old, with her typical sweet, expectant expression. Just a few weeks ago, she had grabbed her shoes and headed toward the door with them, declaring that she, herself, was going for a run.

"Yeah, baby," I replied, "and it was great."

Where was I?

I'm not really sure what I'm going to type here, but I am totally certain that the 5 entries I managed this year is completely lame. I was a little busy, to be fair. Did I mention I did two triathlons and a handful of 5ks? And didn't die? I also shepherded procurement for the Choral Arts auction while singing in the season, held down my new church job, trained like a maniac, and chased an increasingly mobile toddler around the house. Incidentally, I started drinking coffee again. That might be related.

Maybe much of what kept me away from here for so long was that this is very much associated with my mom for me, and there was a lot of grief deposited here for many months. I didn't really want to go revisit that. Plus, it's so much easier to be witty and avoid my feelings in small 140-character-or-less snippets on The Facebook.

But a lot has changed for me since March. Physically, I feel stronger and more confident than I ever have before in my life. I went from screaming silently underwater at my own bubbles in waist-deep water to completing several open water swims this summer, complete with weeds in the swimsuit, fish flitting underneath me, and boat wake in the middle of Lake Washington. I ran an entire 5k in about 37 minutes, and will be running my first 10k at the start of the new year. I saw my dad and my brother tear up when I crossed the finish line at the Skoggins Valley Tri on my birthday in September, and convinced them to do the Olympic distance with me as a team next year.

Emotionally, I'm better. Probably typically, I didn't really realize what bad shape I was in until I looked back at how I was feeling in the months after Mom died. I found myself this fall completely dreading the winter in a way I never have before, and when I really thought about why, I realized how severely depressed I had been last year at that time, and how I was dreading the increasing dark. As a side note, I got my vitamin D checked and it was severely low. It's amazing, though, what some vitamin therapy will do!

I find myself now being constantly reminded of her, but not in the ponderous, over-reaching ways of this time last year. I spend a lot of time thinking about and noticing things that would have made her laugh, things I would have called and told her about randomly throughout the day. And I still tell her, and I still talk to her about them.

Anyway, I don't want this to just be about my mom, although I don't want it to NOT be, either. I've taken on a new challenge for the new year: training for a half-marathon. If you had asked me two years ago if it was even possible for me to think about, I would have snorted with laughter, and then hid just in case you were serious. Now, running has become my sanity. When I have a good run, I am zoned, fluid, steady, almost drooling with relaxation. Every part of my body works together in perfect balance. I told Mark, it's like I turn into some sort of running zombie. Miiiiiiiiiles.....miiiiiiiiiiles......

We'll see what the new year brings.

Me This Morning, or The Sad State of A Mother Suffering from Sleep Deprivation and the Aftereffects of T-box.

Well, crap. I need to get up to go swimming. But darn it, my eyes won't open. Ok, ok, I'm up. Wait a second....why do we have a ladder instead of stairs? Hold it....is this a dream? (opens eyes) Yep, there's my pillow. That was a dream. Ok, I'm really going to get up now. Feet on the floor, I'm walking, walking, going up the stairs....hold the phone! These stairs, they don't stop! I'm in our inaccessible attic! How the hell did that happen? Wait a second, I think I know what's happening here. Yep, there's my pillow again. Still a dream. Ok, FOR REAL I'm going to get up now. Yes, yes, I can feel my body getting out of bed, boy am I stiff. Going up the stairs, here's the kitchen...wait a minute, I didn't know Laural was coming over! And why did she put all my feminine hygine products in the sink? Ok, now I'm pissed. I REALLY thought I was awake that time.

This happened, kid you not, about ten times before I actually got up. And I was seriously mad about it.

I eventually made it to the pool.