RunSingTeach

**I could write a race report in which I tell you that I ran my 12th marathon. I could also tell you that my training group was amazing. I could tell you that I didn’t train hard enough during the weekday runs. I could tell you that I ran awesome until mile 24 where I fell completely apart. I could tell you that this will not be my last marathon….but I’d rather tell you this-which I’m telling my 7th/8th graders this week at chapel.**

Running can be a solitary sport. It can be a selfish sport. We take mass amounts of time out of our days and away from our families to train. We often race for the sake of racing. We race because we like to-it makes us happy, feel strong, feel accomplished, feel proud. Sometimes we race for charity-I’ve done that a few times. But more often than not, as you hit the starting line of a marathon the vast majority of your participants are in it for themselves. Two weeks ago-I was one of them. I wanted to start, run, and cross the finish line for myself. Not so I could boast-but certainly not in service or honor of others. As I started the marathon two weeks ago-there were charity groups EVERYWHERE. As this was the Marine Corps Marathon-a lot of the groups are dedicated to wounded warriors, veterans groups, and the like. As we started the day-we walked through a gaggle of wheelchair athletes-many without legs or arms or sight. This in and of itself was incredibly humbling…but as we started to run-and I kept seeing blue shirts with THIS logo. They were vibrant and they were constantly around me.

I wasn’t sure what they meant-I figured like many of the other groups-they were a veteran’s memorial group. I remember thinking-that’s nice, I like that logo. I like that font. (such a dork) Then I put it out of my head and continued to run.

I knew that mile 12-14 were going to be terrible. Hains Point, near the Lincoln Memorial, is typically the most boring part of the race. It is flat, breezy, and QUIET. Too quiet.

Then I saw this….

A picture. A name. A birth and death date. Lots and lots of them. Faces of YOUNG people. Young people who lost their lives in service to the country. The quiet changed from dreaded to holy. humbling. reverent.

The names kept coming and coming-Ryan, Michael, Juan, Michelle, Jonathan. I started to say them names, with each step or two a new name. Pushing my brain away completely from running and into trying to hold myself together from the emotion of seeing picture after picture.

Then the pictures ended and the flags began. The families of the fallen soldiers  for half a mile holding large American flags in honor of their loved ones. In loving honor of their lives. In pride for their service. HUMBLED. Small. I felt very small, but not in a self-deprecating way but in a “wow, this world is so big and I am so grateful that these people have done this for me.”

But this is particularly hard for me because I don’t consider myself patriotic. I love my country. I love my freedom. But I don’t consider myself a cheerleader for America. I tend to wish for peaceful solutions to global problems and I don’t really support the idea of using force as a solution. However, I always believe in supporting the people who do make this choice, in service to this country-selflessly. And in this moment-of seeing those who had passed on serving under the guise of the flag-I was most simply grateful.

Wear Blue:Run to Remember has a simple mission. Honor the service and sacrifice of American military members. They are a young foundation but they are absolutely meeting their goal of serving as a Living Memorial. I’ve been walking past the memorials in DC for 35 years and this was the first time I have felt a sense of humility, gratefulness, and emotional connection to a memorial. Perhaps it is because these faces are my age or younger. Perhaps it is because these wars are present-in my lifetime. It doesn’t matter to me, either way-I’m thankful.

“True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.”

― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

It is ok to be proud of oneself. It is ok to accomplish things for yourself. We don’t have to put ourselves down to lift others up. But perhaps, now and again, we can lift them up before ourselves.

“Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.”

— A.A. Milne (Winnie-the-Pooh)

On that day, for that mile, and now days later, I feel a great sense of gratitude. I think a bit like Piglet-even as a small person in a big world-I can have a LOT of that.

 **Source for All Photos: Wear Blue: Run to Remember**

Right now I should be halfway through a 17 mile run on the C&O Canal. I should be chatting with my pace group along the beautiful path with sweeping vistas of the Potomac River. Alas, I am on the couch. The stupid Sesamoid bone of my right foot has reared it’s ugly head again. Two years ago, I spent 12 weeks in a boot with this teensy weensy, very painful bone broken in a sliver.

With four weeks to go until MCM, I’m not taking the risk of further damage and pain. I have a full 20 under my belt and 21 total miles for Ragnar next weekend. I feel confident that I can finish the race. But it doesn’t change the mental game. The mental game of resting and injury.
The waiting. The guilt of watching runners go past on the trail in my backyard.

I have avoided the doc because I know he will say that a cortisone shot is the way to go. I’m just not confident about putting a needle into the teeny bone in the ball of my foot and the joint of my big toe. (Does the visual make you squeamish? Yeah, me too.) He told me last year that this bone is prone to re breaks and sesamoiditis is hard to cure. Great…..

So for now, I wait. Rest. Ice. Heat. Advil. Nice cushy shoes. And pray that healing will come, and quickly. 4 weeks.

A bonk out of my 18 miler last week and a week of pain left me feeling deflated about marathon training. Everything hurt and I was exhausted to my core. However, today’s run at the Parks Half Marathon has completely renewed my spirit! I went into the race telling myself it would be better than Riley’s but not to make any expectations. Just run comfortably and hold back if necessary.

Always fun to start a race with this guy.

We have trained this course all summer. Up and down the “Silencer” in the humid swelter of July will kill your spirit but make you stronger. The long stretches between Ken-gar and anywhere will make you curse the Rock Creek Trail but will allow you to kick total a$& come September. I know this for a fact because I felt completely awesome today.

I did start out conservatively with a 10:32 first mile-this was mostly downhill. I saw many of my long run friends whip ahead of me but I just stayed the course. Once we hit the trail around mile 3, it felt like any other Sunday. Except I felt really good. So I ran a little faster. Up and over the Silencer, I passed a bunch of people. I took advantage of my yard being at mile 6 and ditched my water bottle. I felt free. As we crossed Connecticut and heard towards Mormon Temple, I found myself picking up the pace. And then a little more. I took a mile at sub 10. Well, that was neat, said my inner monologue. As we switched off the RCT and into the Georgetown Branch-with two miles to go I finally checked my overall time. I was still under 2 hours so I did some quick math-yes, I did math. If I pushed, I had the chance to break 2:10. So off I pushed and then some more. When I passed my pace coach, I knew I must be cooking. It would be very close. As my watched clicked over 2:09, I knew breaking 2:10 wasn’t happening but I still wanted to go hard. So I did. And came flying through the finish chute at exactly 2:11 (Garmin said 2:10:59….)

 

Whoa. Well, that was totally unexpected. I haven’t raced this well in a while. Sure, I didn’t break land speed records, but I felt great. Even when my quad and hip were screaming for the last five miles, I pushed through it. It was a great practice of mind over body. A few hours later, I’m still combating a headache from the lack of proper hydration, but this was just a lesson learned. Water in the early miles is so important-I really neglected it and now, at 8pm, my head has still not recovered. Also, looking in on my splits (see below) I’m still really inconsistent. Some of it is course related but some of it is working out my slower internal pace calculator. I need more time on the track to work out this issue.

For now, I bask in the bliss that is feeling good about a run/race. My mind and my body are exhausted, but immensely happy. 7 weeks to go until Marine Corps. I now feel with a few more weeks of hard work-I will be ready.

Splits:

1: 10:32, 2: 10:00, 3: 10:21, 4: 10:13, 5: 10:17, 6: 10: 08, 7: 10:03, 8: 10: 15, 9: 9:50, 10: 9:57, 11: 9:32, 12: 9:05, 13: 8:48 (holy flat pushing Batman…), .1: 1:58

Happy to be finished and re-united.

Our move into our new (rental) home has been quite an adventure. Things had proceeded so very well with our amazing movers and our great teamwork. We unpacked boxes and set up furniture. We put books on shelves and hung pictures on walls. And then the contractors came to replace the floor (pre-planned)-which turned into….the floor in the utility room is rotted out-which turned into….there is a leak in the master water in-take-which turned into…..we have to shut off your water for two days. After having had no hot water for a few days when we first moved in, this was sort of the icing on the cake. Add to it the cracks in the windows needing repair, the sink completely backed up and the missing crawl space cover in the back of the house and things are just not so cracker jack right now.

I could get mad. I could get really mad. I could yell at someone and lose my cool. But I’m working very hard to not get mad. To recognize that if this was our owned house, we would be up a creek not being able to pay for all of the work. To recognize that at the end of the day, we have a roof over our heads, food in our bellies, clothes on our backs, shoes on our feet, jobs, health, care, and friends and family who have offered beds, showers, and running toilets. We have each other. We have Parker (even though he is stuck with his buds at Wagtime for this ordeal.) We have a whole lotta AND in our life. Our blessings are abundant and this minor set of house details in the scheme of life are small. How we focus the realities of life is up to us. I’m choosing the route of grace today. I’m choose to dwell on the blessings and gifts rather than the frustrations and inconveniences. This too shall pass but this (see below) remains. Today I choose joy.

 

 

Yesterday, our training group ran the Riley’s Rumble half marathon as part of our marathon training. This was supposed to be a practice in pacing, mental toughness, and race strategy. We were given key instructions NOT to race this half. This was simply for training purposes. I was a little worried about this directive as I’m typically one to lack the ability to put on a bib and just “coast”. Well, as it would turn out for this race, this was not a problem whatsoever.

We (the spectacular dbf K and I) spent our pre-race prep days moving from our apartment into a new-to-us (rental) house. We gave ourselves the gift of movers. After 10 self-moves in the last 12 years, this was completely worth it. I spent most of July packing a little each day but the last few days were a mad dash to prep for the final packing and movers. Once the movers came and went on Friday we were left with a teeny house full of boxes and a dreadfully dirty apartment. On Saturday, we trudged to the apartment to try to make headway in cleaning only to have our vacuum completely crap out on us. It just couldn’t take anymore Parker hair. (It breathed its last and ended up in the dumpster.) After our cleaning bonanza, we returned to our petite bungalow to do more unpacking and attic storing. We are going from a 2br 1100 sq feet apartment to a 2 br 800 sq ft house. Thank goodness for the attic and creative arranging.  (We have lots a ton of space in the house but have gained a yard for our dog!!) By the time, 8pm came around on Saturday night, we were simply dreading the 5am wake up call for a race that is sub-titled, “Hot, Humid, and Hilly.”

Sunday morning I laid in bed for a few minutes seriously considering backing out. I know if I had stayed in bed that K would have too, so I forced myself to the Keurig, slathered on the body glide and dressed up to run. This is considered a “low key club race” for our road runners club therefore entry was $5 for your annual chip/bib. No frills.  No shirt. Just a motherlode of freaking steep hills.

I met up with my 10:45 pace group but said, “I’m just going to go by feel, which today means really slow.” I decided to run with my Garmin but to keep it on total time/distance rather than pace. I just needed to get through the morning. After about 2 miles, my girls headed on without me and the 11 min pace group passed me too. I decided not to worry about it. I decided to take a deep breath, put one exhausted foot in front of the other and run easy. The hills were, as anticipated, terrible. The course takes a short loop and then sends runners out onto three country roads. A long out and back with a dog leg in the middle. On the out, it became clear that the back was going to be rough. The downhill was pounding on my less than strong knees and I knew I would pay later. The best part of the race came on the dog leg. It led us up a hill past lovely pastures filled with mama and baby cows. The gorgeous views of our Maryland agricultural land made me so thankful to live in such a diverse state. I was also incredibly thankful for the fact that our weather was unseasonably cool. Start temps in the low sixties and cool breezes through the shady course that led into temperate sunshine in the open air.

(Photo by Ann McDermott)

As expected, the back came from the out and I had to head about 3 more miles up some steep and long “rises in the pavement.” The race crew brought levity to the situation with hilarious sayings such as, “Who is Riley and Why Does He Hate Me?!” My fantastic friend-priest had put the phrase, “The Joy of the Lord is Your Strength” on my facebook wall the day before and I decided to use it as a focal point. I spent the last three miles rhythmically chanting, “the joy of the lord is my strength, amen” in my head to the beat of my footsteps. This was tremendously helpful as it kept my mind fresh as my body failed.

My pacing was all over the place. I had a mile as quick as 9:42 (mile 12) and as slow as 11:50. In the end, as was encouraged by our coaches, I averaged 10:43 overall pace.  My legs, feet, and mind were definitely finished as I crossed that line. I made a huge mistake of taking in the “free evaluation” from a local PT. She was very helpful in her thoughts about muscle weakness  and hip rotation problems. But I had never had ART performed on me before and now suffer three bright purple bruises from her working out my knee and calf (and they hurt more….)

This race was a great exercise in mental tenacity. Fighting the pain of the body with the work of the mind. That is my favorite part of training. Pushing through to what you KNOW you can do, even when your body says no.

We came home to our boxes, took freezing showers (no hot water until Tuesday), and wrapped up for naps. I slept like a dead person for two hours which proves to me that I ran as hard as my body could go. It might be slow, but it was strong.

I wasn’t sure I came fully ready to Rumble with the anonymous Riley, but I’m pretty sure I got the KO.

Yesterday was my 35th birthday. I’ve been joking for a while now that I am “halfway to 70.” A tongue in cheek way of saying-time is flying. Some days I feel like I have only just leapt into adulthood while other days I panic thinking of what needs to “happen” before I get any older. And then the other night there came the restless feelings of socking enough money into retirement. (Damn you commercials for ING!)

But in all seriousness, I am slowly but surely embracing that 35 does not need to about what “hasn’t happened” or what “has happened that I didn’t expect” because all of these things are and were meant to be. When I think about the last five years in particular, where such great change has occurred, I feel overwhelmingly blessed. I have been given challenges, delights, setbacks, highs, lows, love, sadness, death, new life, athletic mountaintops, injuries, and happiness. These are all blessings. They are all opportunities for me to grow. They have knitted themselves into the fabric that is my life and have molded me into the person I am here at age 35 and 1 day.

And for this, in the words of Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson, I am Happy Happy Happy.

 

We slept through our long run training program today. K hadn’t felt well in the night and I could tell I just needed more sleep. So the dog was walked and fed and all three of us fell back into a deep slumber until 9:30 for me and the dog and 10:30 for K. Clearly we needed sleep. I awoke feeling rested and well. 

As I took the dog out for second walk around 10 the pangs of guilt started to creep in. I had already seen the mass of facebook feeds declaring great races, long runs, bike rides, and other various pursuits all before brunch starts at most places. My mind started to wonder if I would feel guilt all day for missing this week’s long run. I started making unrealistic plans about running mid-day or catching up tomorrow. What I really needed was grace.

Often I find myself extending grace to others, or at least, it is a personal goal to give this out freely. Allowing space for life to enter in the lives of others, allowing for imperfection, allowing others to need grace. But with myself, I often do not extend the same courtesy. I create unrealistic expectations or do not allow myself a “break” from guilt of expectations. This is a vicious cycle. 

So today I resolved to give myself grace. To drink the cup of coffee and enjoy the Tour de France without self-flagellation for missing one 14 mile run. To mess around with photobooth and a stuffed pony. Perhaps what my body needs more today is grace. And it is certainly what my mind needs more too.

Give yourself grace today, dear friends. As Marilla Cuthbert always said, “tomorrow is fresh, with no mistakes.”

**Cross Post with my Professional Blog-Teach2Connect.**

I am thrilled that for the first time in many years I will have the entire month of July off from school. When I’ve been asked “what are you doing this summer?” my response has been “read, sun, and pack. “We are moving a few miles away in August so that is why “pack” is an answer. We will lose our access to an outdoor pool when we move so that explains the “sun” element. And I think to goes without saying the “read” is the piece I will most relish. I’m never not reading but to have the time to read a lot and deeply is a very exciting prospect.

So what shall I read? Here is the “short” list.

Professional Reads

Mindset, Carol Dweck

I started it months ago and put it down for Lean In, but I am fascinated about how this book can help us re-think how we perceive ourselves, others, and our ability to learn.

Creating Innovators, Tony Wagner

The children I teach are no the same as the children my teachers taught (aka, me). It is time we start recognizing how the world has changed and Tony Wagner has a lot to say about this subject.

Now You See It, Cathy Davidson

After hearing Dr. Davidson speak at NAIS, I am enthralled with brain science and how we are/can completely transform the way we learn.

Reality is Broken, Jane McGonigal

I am not a gamer. I am not even a wannabe gamer. However, I find the concept of learning from games to be really fascinating. (Also on my summer list is learning to play Minecraft.)

How Children Succeed, Paul Tough

The “it” book from last fall, I’m excited to read the actual thing. I’ve read all the articles about it pertaining to grit, character, etc, but am looking forward to seeing Paul Tough’s take on it.

Rewired, Larry Rosen

The generation we teach is immersed in the digital world, for better or worse. I started this book last fall and am eager to return to it to hear Dr. Rosen’s thoughts on reaching our iKids.

Want some more ideas for professional reads? Check out my Summer Reads Wish List on Amazon. These were all books I suggested to our Admin for ideas for reading this summer.

Non Fiction

Unbroken

My book club read this a few months back and I missed it. As a runner, it seems like a truly compelling story. As a human, it seems amazing.

Why did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road?

Even though I can’t attend my book club at church, I want to read this “with” them. Brian McLaren is an amazing writer, provoking theological discussion in the spirit of love and truth.

Crazy Love

The controversial work of Francis Chan has been showing up a lot on my instagram feed lately. I thought I would add it to the stack.

Orange is the New Black

I am a huge fan of the memoir genre and this looks fascinating. How might imprisonment change a person for the good?

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

I have recently started watching back episodes of The Mindy Project and have fallen completely smitten for Mindy Kaling. She is hilarious and I can’t wait to read her book with her voice as narrator.

START: Punch Fear in the Face

Jon Acuff couldn’t have picked a better title for a book on leadership and LIVING life than this one. I bought it the day it came out and am ready to turn from Average to Awesome.

Wheat Belly

In the process of transforming my physical health, I have dabbled in grain/gluten free eating. I think after I finally read this book, I will be set up for good.

Fiction

Revenge Wears Prada

It has been ten years–what are Andi Sachs and Miranda Priestly up to these days?

Night

My chosen piece of real literature for the summer. I haven’t tackled it before now and it is time.

 

Kids Fiction

(I like to read what the kiddos read.)

One Crazy Summer

Set in Oakland, CA in 1968, this is the story of three girls and their search for their mother.

The One and Only Ivan

The hit book on the youth circuit this past year, I hope to enjoy this tale for kids.

What am I missing? What do you think I MUST read? Feel free to link up with me on Good Reads or contact me via Twitter.  Happy Reading!