Highs and Lows

Last Sunday I had the race of my life. Today, I spent Easter downing Advil and taking an ice bath.

A lot happened in between.

Let me back up. Last Sunday I had a goofy grin on my face for most of the day, feeling quite pleased with myself. After five months, I had conquered that nasty winter without the use of a treadmill, a left Achilles injury, a right hamstring injury, a nutrition makeover, and more mileage than I had ever run in my life.

Earlier that morning when I stepped to the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler starting line on a stunning spring day in Washington, DC, I had absolutely no idea what I could do. I just didn’t know where I stood.


Relaxed, calm, and totally controlled, I found out 1:12:57 later: a personal best time of almost 5 minutes. No worse for the ware, no “I’m going to die” moments, no twinges of pain, no post-race soreness—I had clearly made it to spring in the shape of my life.

No matter what you’ve put your time and effort toward, those are the days you dream of—when it all pays off and everything finally comes together better than you could’ve predicted. It’s like you’ve been working on one of those 10,000-piece puzzles for five months and then finally figure out how to finish it in five-minute’s time. And that was just how I wanted to feel heading into Boston just eight days from now.

With a plan to do some last sharpening workouts and head into a 10-day taper before the marathon, I was eager to take my rush of confidence and get back to business.
And then it snowed again. Seriously. After a couple of minutes filled with words I can’t type (my mom reads this blog, you know)…in a déjà-vu moment, my track workout was rescheduled for later in the week and I settled for doing a couple of easy runs in the winter gear I thought I was finished wearing for a while.

But not more than 24-hours after the last snowflake hit the ground, spring was back, it was 60 lovely degrees, and I was headed to the local high school track for one last chance to remind my legs that they can go fast. On deck, after a 20 minute warm-up: Just 5x1000 with 200 meter recovery between each, with permission to kill the last two faster than the previous three, if I had it in me.

I hit the first two right on target. I was feeling sluggish and my legs were kind of tight, but no acute pain, so I went for the third. As I rounded the curve a neared the 800-meter mark, I was abruptly stopped by that familiar searing, shooting pain in the hamstring. Sadly, it was not the previously troublesome right hamstring. No, apparently my left one also wanted to have its very own pity party.

First I denied it and tried to jog it out. That didn’t work. I stretched lightly. That didn’t work. Reluctantly, I headed home, trying to make the responsible decision in the final days before the marathon. Plus, I was convinced that it was nothing more than a little twinge that would go away in a day after some rest.

It’s been four days now and there’s still significant pain. A test run yesterday resulted in a 2-mile shuffle that hurt from start to finish. So I’m pulling out all the stops. Bring on the Advil. Bring on the ice baths. Bring on the miracle cure. I’ve got eight days to kick this thing and get myself to Hopkinton in one piece. Thankfully, though my tendons may have other plans, I am still confident that it’ll all come together just as it should. I refuse to believe the ending to this story is anything but happy.

But after I cross the finish line in Boston, I’m totally shopping for new hamstrings.

Highs and Lows

Heal Thyself, Part II

I love coffee. I love it so much that I can’t remember the last time I went for 24 hours without it. The best part about my love of coffee is that although I need it every day, I don’t desire that much of it. Just a cup or two in the morning and my fix is done.

Coffee isn’t so bad for you, as it turns out. And some studies have shown that it may have some health benefits as well. However, when you drink it at the same time you’re eating nutritious breakfast and taking your multivitamin, it manages to suck the life out of all the good nutrients you’re trying to intake to jumpstart the day. It messes with iron absorption—something that female distance runners already have enough problems with—and is a diuretic. In short, it flushes all the good stuff out of your system.

As I mentioned, my friend Christine—holistic health counselor extraordinaire, triathlete, and all-around amazing woman—has come to my nutritional rescue many times in the past couple of years. The best part about Chris is that she delivers advice and suggestions without any sense of judgment about bad habits—and almost always makes me laugh in the process. She’s managed to remove 95 percent of any refined sugar, white flour, and a lot of gluten from my diet, without me missing any of it.

Naturally, as I thought about my eating habits and what they meant in terms of aiding my body’s recovery from the marathon-training beating I was giving it, I knew Christine would have some wise words.

“I would never tell you to stop drinking coffee—I drink it too,” she said. “But here’s the trick—drink it separate from your meals. Timing is key here—try to space it an hour or so before or after eating.”

Sounded easy enough, and it has been for the most part. But speaking of all those nutrients, I really wanted to know what kinds I should be focusing on. Obviously my tendonitis was a signal of a lot of inflammation. I thought that eating the right food was a better answer in the long-term than popping Advil every four-to-six hours for six weeks. For starters, I needed to be more diligent about taking in the necessary carbs and protein within 30 minutes of completing runs of more than 6 miles. That alone would start to improve my recovery time.

Aside from that, I do most of my own cooking at home, so changing things up with different ingredients and recipes wouldn’t be difficult.

Christine suggested that I add some healthy fats to lubricate joints and muscles, including fish, avocados, olive oil, and nuts. To reduce inflammation and promote healing, antioxidants are key. I can officially proclaim to be a new fan of pomegranate and acai juice, on top of the blueberry obsession I’ve always had.

“These are the colors in your fruits and veggies—make sure you’re eating a rainbow of these foods every day,” she said. “Mostly try to add citrus, leafy greens, and orange and yellow veggies.”

Do you know what else has antioxidants? Dark chocolate. So the day that I decided to make whole wheat banana bread (with flax seeds, for good measure), I also tossed in some dark chocolate chips to the recipe. Mmmm…I was going to freeze half of it, but I confess I ate almost the entire loaf myself. Yikes.

So, six weeks later, I’ve stuck to all the advice that the Holistic Guru has offered. I have followed the training schedule that Mike has diligently and patiently written, altered, and written again (and again) depending on how I’m feeling on any given day. I’ve taken his words of encouragement to heart and kept that ever-important positive attitude. I have spent a lot of time icing my leg and getting to bed early, even when I wanted to do neither of those things.

I’ve done all that I can do. And I am happy to say that it has all worked. The shooting pains in my right leg are gone, my energy level is increasing. The normal marathon-training soreness persists and some days are better than others, but in two weeks when I’m at the starting line in Boston, I’ll find peace in knowing that, without a doubt, I did everything in my power to prepare.

And no matter what the outcome, I’m eternally grateful for the unyielding support along the way.

Heal Thyself, Part II

Heal Thyself, Part I

It was the week I got back from my California adventure, running an easy eight miles on the rolling hills surrounding the lake, when it happened. A dull ache in my right hamstring that had been nagging for a few days suddenly turned into a sharp, searing pain shooting through the back of my knee. In one random stride, I was stopped in my tracks.

I’ve been injured before and have made all those mistakes we know not to make, but do anyway—like stubbornly running through the pain in some lame attempt to stick to a training schedule. When you give so much time and energy in pursuit of a goal, it sometimes takes even more discipline to give it a rest and realize that the time-out contributes just as much to achieving those goals. Luckily, I have people.

After a phone call with Mike, which ended with a mandate to skip the next day’s speed workout and a few pleas to keep smiling, I decided to wipe the worried look off my face and think about ways to speed the healing process. Yes, I know—classic control-freak tendencies coming out. I couldn’t help but wonder what I could do to feel as though I had some power over my own recovery.

First of all, Mike encouraged me to think about what might have led me to this place. What had I done in the days or weeks prior that may have contributed to the breakdown?

“Often it’s what we do outside of training that sabotages our running—it’s not the running itself that leads to injury or illness,” he has reminded me, several times.

That was no mystery to me. After I had returned from California, I had an unusually heavy workload. Good news for my bank account, but it wreaked a little havoc on my sleep. Between the work and the sleep deprivation, I didn’t pay much attention to what I was eating—which is to say, that I was not eating enough of anything, or at the right time.

It was a perfect recipe for disaster during the time that we were also holding weekly mileage at up to 65 miles per week. Training at that intensity means that the body needs adequate sleep and the right nutrients to constantly repair itself. If it doesn’t have the resources it needs to properly recover, it will simply stop working.

The lesson in this? There are many, but a key point is that when life becomes hectic outside of training (and, unless you’re a professional athlete, whose doesn’t?!), I’m better served by tweaking the training schedule, in order to remain healthy. Sacrificing some miles is a better answer than forcing them in just to feed my ego. I’d rather be running less than sitting on the couch covered in ice packs.

With this part figured out, I still had a fantastic case of tendonitis to deal with and just six weeks left until the Boston Marathon. My OCD wasn’t done with me yet. So, I fired off an e-mail to my good friend Christine—a.k.a. the Holistic Guru—to find out what I should be eating in order to promote healing.

As usual, she had some sage advice.

To be continued…

Heal Thyself, Part I

Running=Play=Joy

I’ve been in a funk. I confess that I used to think that Seasonal Affective Disorder was a load of crap. People honestly want to blame the weather for their woes? Really? Well, let me tell you. Spend one harsh winter training for a marathon by yourself in the Pocono Mountains and you, too, will become a believer.

Fortunately, I’m not one to wallow. The endless inches of ice and snow, the gray skies, the wind-chill factor, and the general feeling of isolation were starting to bring me down. I was struggling with the simplest work assignments. And Mother Nature had interfered with one too many of my workouts. So, two e-mails and a plane ticket later, I was on my way to visit friends in Southern California; a bag of running gear and my laptop in tow.

My California adventure began in “the O.C.” with the O’Briens—friends who I love dearly and can never get enough of. With a new house I hadn’t yet seen and a new son I hadn’t yet met, it was the perfect opportunity to visit. And thankfully they didn’t seem to mind that I invited myself. Yes, I have good friends.

I could write a lot about how nice it felt to head outside in shorts and a tank top, instead of the usual three layers of winter gear. I could talk about how I couldn’t help but feel unadulterated bliss in the California sun on that first morning, looping around suburbia for six easy miles. I could recount the 16-mile, hamstring-burning adventure on the fire roads that twisted up and down and up and down the canyon hills.

But what I really cherished were my afternoon runs with Finn.

Finn is all of 22 months old. Did you know that kids don’t even have patellas at that age? No joke. He’s got no knee caps yet--well, technically they’re there, they just haven’t ossified yet. But, I’m telling you that the boy can run. And he loves it.

Finn, who hasn’t been slowed down in the wake of taking on “big brother” status, lives the life of an elite, professional runner. He wakes up early, has a healthy breakfast of plain yogurt, cheerios, and “nanas!” before he hits the playroom for his morning session of tricycle riding, sprinting around the playground, and climbing on the jungle-gym play set. After a few hours, he heads in for lunch, downs some milk, water, and almond-butter sandwich on whole wheat bread, and takes a nap.

And then the afternoon running session begins. Finn was kind enough to invite me to join him, preventing me from becoming too lazy after my own training was long over for the day. Once sprung from his stroller, Finn takes my hand and takes off, squealing with joy, pulling me along for the journey.

His face? Glowing with an enormous smile. There is nothing in the world the boy would rather be doing than moving forward as fast as he’s able. He views running as freedom and fun. He doesn’t worry about pace, time, mileage, form. He stops for water when he’s thirsty. He looks at the scenery along the way, especially enamored with anything resembling the shape of a circle (“Kirkle!” ). He says hi to other people passing by. He doesn’t know what tired is or that what he’s doing is hard work. When he meets a hill, he charges at it, screaming, “Up, up, up, up, up!!!!!”

Running in Finn’s world is simply play. And after more than a mile of running hand-in-hand in his world, I started to think of it that way too. What can I say? It was infectious. And I suspect that on April 20th in Boston, I will hear that enthusiastic little voice in my head as I tackle Heartbreak Hill: Up, up, up, up, up!!!!

Yes, thanks to the little guy, it wasn’t just the California weather that started reinvigorating my attitude and perspective.

Running=Play=Joy

Let's Talk About the Weather

The snow is falling. Again. It will be followed by a coating of a quarter-inch of ice. Again. And the temperature on a good day this week will hit a high of 25 degrees.

I'm not sure that this winter could be any crueler.

The other day I delighted in an afternoon that brought just enough sun that I could run in only one pair of tights, instead of two. I shed my usual third top layer and traded in my fleece hat for a head band to keep my ears covered. There was nothing frozen falling from the sky. It was liberating. It was also short-lived.

I don't mean to whine or complain--there is nothing anybody can do about the weather and nobody is forcing me to train for the Boston Marathon--but I think my core body temperature has been hovering somewhere around "really cold" since early November. 

The view from my window

I was thinking about all of this the other day during an easy run. I planned a nice little out-and-back jaunt on a course I use on days I don't feel like dealing with a lot of hills. As I plodded along, trying to share a road narrowed by ice and snow accumulation with a plethora of school buses, I started convincing myself that I was getting acclimated to the difficulty of it all: the constant shivering, the loss of motivation, the ability to cut myself some slack when conditions are unsafe to get out there. Oh, and the addition of shoveling as cross-training.

"I'm getting tough," I thought. Well, I've always been on the tough side. Tougher, perhaps?

After a few miles, it was time to turn around. So I did. And it hit me like a slap in the face: a headwind that just ripped right through all those layers like I hadn't taken the additional 30 minutes out of my morning to put them all on.   

My tougher self trudged on, realizing that the remaining miles would be anything but easy. While I've developed a "suck-it-up-and-deal" training (and life) philosophy, it didn't stop me from noticing that I hadn't even felt the tailwind for the first half of the run. No doubt it was there, easing my effort. 

So, I made a silent promise to myself to take note and savor those times in my life when the wind is at my back, helping me along, allowing me time to gather strength. It's when things seem well that I can let my gratitude wane, perhaps taking the good times a little too much for granted.

Because, let's face it: These days you just never know when you're going to turn around and be forced to fight a nasty headwind.

Let's Talk About the Weather

Wishes, Predictions, and Resolutions

There have been few New Years in recent history that I haven't at least partially rung in with my BFF Aimee. Aimee has a magnificent way of creating and perpetuating traditions like no other, which only fractionally explains why she has approximately 10 bazillion friends and is one of the best moms in the world, too.

One such ritual Aimee has upheld for herself and the lucky few who find themselves snuggled up on her couch watching football on any given New Year's Day, is to take a few minutes to write down one wish, one prediction, and one resolution for the year ahead. She hands out envelopes, and after you seal up your thoughts, she files them away until the following year. No sharing required--just a little letter to yourself. Inevitably I always forget about it, but then that plain white, self-addressed envelope, with the words "Do not open until December 31st" written on the back mysteriously appears like clockwork amid the rush of holiday greetings. 

I confess, I couldn't wait until December 31st this year to rip mine open. I could hardly contain my curiosity about where my mind was at this time last year. I knew I was not feeling much like my sunny disposition self--all sorts of things had just gotten way out of hand in 2007 and I was ready to make some drastic changes, though even without opening the envelope, I was 100 percent sure I hadn't predicted that I'd take up residence in Nowhere, PA, no matter how out of whack life had become.

My prediction? That I'd register for Ironman Lake Placid. The reality? I focused solely on running all year and couldn't be happier with the way that decision panned out. My wish? Well, honestly, who doesn't wish for happiness and health for yourself, friends, and family? The funny thing about wishes is that I can keep wishing them over and over again with the same amount of hope that they'll come true. My resolution? To dial down my OCD tendencies in just about every aspect of life--work, volunteering, training--and to spend more time with my friends and family. Mission accomplished. Except in training...I've made peace with the fact that I'll always be kind of compulsive about that.

I suppose it is fitting then that on this December 31st, I ended the year with a 5K run in Bethlehem, PA, with my good friends Michelle and Suzanne. I had a grand total of 8 miles on tap for the day and thought it would be fun to throw the 5K race in the middle of it. We braved the 10-degree temperatures, 30-MPH wind gusts, and swirling snow squalls and were each rewarded with our own box of Peeps for registering (yes, those marshmallow chicks coated in yellow sugar, commonly found in grocery stores around Easter time--bet you didn't know those are made in Bethlehem!). When I got back from tacking on two miles after the race, we discovered that somehow I managed to win my age group, and hence I was given a medal from a human-sized Peep. I could only surmise that most women aged 30 to 39 have the brain cells that I lack, and alas had good sense to stay home that day.

Later, we met up with with Aimee and her family in an absolutely frigid downtown Bethlehem to see the insanity that is the Peep being dropped at midnight. We didn't stick around until midnight, but we did see the plastic Peep suspended from a crane near City Hall. We were underwhelmed. It was plastic, about 25 lbs., and best described as a glorified rubber ducky. We retreated to a local bar within 30 minutes.

In the midst of such hype, we didn't have the time--or maybe it was a lack of inclination--this year to record our wishes, predictions, or resolutions for 2009. Perhaps we all just needed a break from forecasting what our lives might be, in favor of simply leading the lives we have as well as we can for each of the next 365 days ahead. 

Truth be told, I feel a bit like Alice in Wonderland this year anyway--the part where she reaches a fork in the road and asks the Cheshire Cat which way she should go.

"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," the cat says.

"I don't much care where," Alice responds.

"Then," the Cheshire Cat says, "it doesn't matter which way you go."

"As long as I get somewhere, " Alice adds.

"Oh, you're sure to do that," the cat says, "if you only walk long enough."

Happy, healthy new year to you--may it be just what you've imagined and a little bit of what you never could have.

Wishes, Predictions, and Resolutions

Problems or Opportunities?

From the age of about 8 through 18, my summer always kicked off the same way. My swim teammates and I piled into our parents' station wagons and left for two weeks of swim camp at Mercersburg Academy. The next 14 days were spent mostly in the pool, or thinking about the next swim practice that day, or attending dry-land strength training sessions, or hearing coaches critique our technique from daily video tape sessions, or staying up as late as we could keep our eyes open talking about the cute boys in our lane, or eating (and eating and eating and eating some more).

In retrospect, the schedule seems grueling. I couldn't even guess how much yardage we logged in a week, but in reality, most of us couldn't get enough. The camp was founded and directed by John Trembley, the head swim coach at the University of Tennessee and one of the most generous, kind, positive (he named his dog Happy, for crying out loud), amazing coaches I've ever encountered. No matter what a camper's ability level--and trust me when I say I was never swimming in the fastest lane--JT seemed to give everybody the same time and attention, and evoke a plethora of laughter in the process.

It was rare that JT ever got angry, but that's not to say that we didn't fully realize that he meant business. After all, he has coached many Olympians, some of whom would randomly meander onto the pool deck in the middle of practice or drop by the dining hall for lunch.

There weren't many rules at camp besides the obvious, like boys and girls stay in their respective dorms, etc. However, of those rules that were strictly enforced were the following:

1. Every morning, when loudly and obnoxiously awoken by a coach pounding on your door at some ridiculously early hour, everybody began the day by saying (or muttering, which is usually all we could muster): "It's a beautiful day and it's great to be alive!"

2. Abide by the philosophy that there are no problems, only opportunities. As soon as camp began, nobody was allowed to utter the word "problem" without buying a lot of very public grief from JT and some extra sets at practice for yourself and your lane mates.

At the time, we didn't appreciate it. When a weird bug flew in my ear on the way to an afternoon practice and was buzzing around in there, I couldn't help but think, "This is a problem." So I went to one of the coaches and started by saying, "I have a prob...." before I was abruptly cut off. At that point it felt like a bat was flying around in my head and I was convinced that my circumstance couldn't possibly have an upside. But I did my best to rally.

"There is a bug flying around in my ear," I said flatly, careful not to revert to the "p" word.

Off I went to the infirmary, escorted there by the cutest coach in the bunch. And so at the awkward age of 14, I began a lifetime of finding opportunities in life's challenges.

It's not terribly easy to find those opportunities. Lord knows that there are plenty of things to be worried about these days. This struck me recently, because a lot of my friends are dealing with legitimate life issues right now: unemployment, seriously ill children, personal health matters. Lately it seems like so many e-mails or phone calls come with bad news. What is the opportunity in having a helpless child face the possibility of a heart transplant? That, I don't know, but it is because of JT that I spend a lot of time trying to figure it out myself.

So, as the holiday season is in full swing and a new year is about to begin, I pass on the gift that JT gave to me so many years ago. Even the most cynical among us can benefit, if you give it your best shot--believe me, I know. Do yourself a favor and honestly find the opportunities in your problems--see what happens when you eliminate the word entirely from your vocabulary. And don't forget that each morning that you open your eyes, it's a beautiful day and it's great to be alive.

Problems or Opportunities?