GOING THE DISTANCE

GOING THE DISTANCE (CLICK ME!)  
I've posted this photo so you can see I am a REAL woman, not skinny, not perfect, not quite fit (yet) but I did it and so can you!


Hello Gentle Readers,


It has been some time since I last wrote.  This is mainly due to being gainfully employed, which I find has definitely interfered with my family life, my social life and my farting around on the internet life.  Alas, as promised, I am here to report the details of my big race on 9/10.  


For those of you who are new to the blog or didn't hear, I ran my first 5K on 9/10.  This may sound like no big whoop, but for me, a former slug and celebrated potato, it is a huge deal.  I began the Couch to 5K program around the beginning of July.  I was hardly able to run the 60 second intervals during week 1, but amazingly, by the end of week 10, I was able to run a full 35 minutes without stopping.


About 5 weeks into the program, I decided to sign up for a 5K, which would not only make it more real, it would, in the words of a wise friend, make me look like a "big fat liar" if I didn't follow through.  To be sure, I was very nervous because I was barely halfway through the program and was nowhere near 5K status.


Despite these fears, which haunted me right up until the week of the race, it was time to do it.  My best prior to the race was 2.6 miles in 35 minutes.  SLOW.  Slow but respectable considering I am pretty hefty to begin with, have never exercised consistently and just had a baby in February.  I had serious reservations about whether I would be able to finish because I'd only made the aforementioned time and distance, a full .5 below 5K.


RACE DAY!  Overcast (thank you LORD!) and sort of low to mid-70's, it was really about as good as it gets for running weather in early September.  I met with my friend Heather and her sister Leanne, who were also running the race.  They are both younger, more fit and slimmer than I, so I knew that they'd get ahead of me and we'd planned to just meet up at the end, come what may.  My mom, husband and the two little ones were there too - my own suburban entourage.


We were corralled by a buoyant arc of white, green and teal balloons, which was a starting gate of sorts. At the signal of the horn, we burst through the arc onto a beautiful path winding around the Memorial Hall building in Philadelphia.  It was immediately evident to me that most of the others in the race were "real runners", because I soon found myself near the absolute end of the runner group, trailed by a woman with a jogging stroller and a few little kids in tow and a couple who consisted of a "real runner" and his lady friend, who seemed to be a beginner like me.


I was slightly disheartened by this because I had assumed that I would not be first in the race, but I didn't imagine being almost dead last either.  Realizing that I needed to quickly dismiss this psychological hindrance, I told myself that it was much easier to run in the open without a lot of sweaty people surrounding me on all sides.  Yeah, that was the ticket!


As I continued along the winding race trail, I forgot about the others and began to enjoy the feeling of - GASP - running a 5K race.  I was running a 5K race!  For real - with a balloon arc and a number pinned to my chest!  I was a runner!  Not one footfall of that race was walked.  Not one.


With every epic journey, there are epic obstacles to accompany it.  The main ones I encountered include:


*dodging muddy patches of muck left over from the flooding of Hurricane Irene (remember I am a faller)


*leaping (well, relatively) over bramble and branches littering the trail from the storm (remember I am a faller)


*a short, compact woman who kept running, then walking, then running again when she would see me out of the corner of her eye (as if to say - I'm not letting HER ahead of me)


*the mortification of having to ask the 1.5 mile walk participants which direction the runners had taken because I was THAT far behind them all


Despite these impediments, I finally spied that latex beacon ahead of me - the balloon arc!  This was it!  I was going to finish this thing.  Pressing on with resolve, I slowed up as I triumphantly raised my arms and passed under the balloons.  Unfortunately, I was greeted by my family and friends shouting and waving that I had to run another 75 yards or so ahead to the clock, which would record my time.  


With a shout of "Oh crap!" I soldiered on, noting the time was at 33 minutes and some odd seconds.  With that, I sprinted (as best as I could after all that running) ahead to the clock, determined to make it through in under 34 minutes.  I sailed through at 33:50 - a personal best.  I'd run .5 mile more than ever before in more than a minute less than my best time and distance. 


Satisfied, sweaty, and slightly nauseous, I returned to my family for pictures and hearty congratulations and high fives.  Since I was so near the end, they had run out of water, so we headed to the car and my dear husband set the course for my reward.  About 25 minutes later, I was chowing down on a Pat's Cheesesteak from 9th and Passyunk.  As everyone knows, this is fuel for bodies of all types.  As I took a swig of my birch beer, I resolved to run it again next year.


Goal? Under 30 minutes next time.  I am a work in progress after all.

READY OR NOT, HERE IT CAME!

It turns out I CAN do all things (at once) through Christ who gives me strength.  All praise and glory to Him who kept me glued together this week when my world was in a state of frantic change.

Like it or not, there were many changes that converged upon my life this past week (or 10 days).  All of it was good, though much of it was difficult, stressful and bittersweet.  You know how there's nothing, nothing, nothing going on, then suddenly EVERYTHING is going on at once?  That was my week.

MOM FLIES THE NEST
I returned to work on 9/1, after being on maternity leave for 7 months.  I hated to go and leave my beautiful babies, but my bank account insisted.  No complaints, as it was by the provision and grace of God I stayed out that long.  Lucky for me there are children at work to love and nurture too.  I know it is my calling, so being there is really fine, though every day is a conscious effort to walk in love and speak in love.  There is so much to be overwhelmed, frustrated, annoyed and offended by at school, but one of the aspects of my change-filled year is to decide to be happy.  Ironically, one of the school psychologists has launched an "I Choose Happy" campaign.  A lot of people think it is corny or some Pollyanna rhetoric, but it  is working for me.  I have peace in chaos and happiness in less-than-ideal situations these days.

CHICK FLIES THE NEST
We moved Em back to college for year 2 on 9/3/11.  It was much smoother a process this time, both logistically and emotionally.  I was teary in the car, but way less worried because Em has friends now and was so excited to be back at MSU.  We moved her in quickly, enjoyed lunch with old friends and watched our just-about-grown baby settle into her new life.  Ask me where the time went all you like, but I will have no reply.  She's my little kindergartener in the pansy-print dress who happens to be a sophomore in college at the same time.  I miss her very much, but she is growing and learning at a new level that wouldn't happen if she stayed here.

KINDERGARTEN CHICK
Sigh.  It's not fair that in addition to going back to work and taking one baby to college I had to see my most spirited redhead off to kindergarten this week.  She set off bravely, down a tooth I might add.  She has that wide-eyed wonder when regaling us with stories about school at the dinner table.  What a blessing!  I hope her eagerness and passion for learning continues her whole life.  No calls from the principal yet, so that's a plus too.  My feisty little Lilybug makes me proud, vowing to intervene when she sees bullying and to help the teacher when she can.  Love that kid.

EGGTOOTH
Would you believe in the midst of all this ballyhoo my sweet baby boy has gotten his first 2 teeth?    He got the first in the spot where Lily lost her first a couple of weeks ago (SPOOKY!), followed by its next door neighbor a couple of days later.  He is also wildly more active, wiggling and rolling his way wherever he wants to go.   He is enjoying being spoiled at Grandma's during the day and has adjusted beautifully.  What a sweet love he is, smiling and laughing 90% of his waking hours.

CHICKEN RUN
Today, after 11 weeks of training, I ran my first 5K.  This event was so momentous and important that I will chronicle it under separate cover in another post.  In short, I pulled off something today that NEVER would have been a desire of mine, let alone a possibility.

So what a week it has been!  Changes nearly every day.  Yet I feel strangely peaceful and fulfilled, despite the overwhelming nature of the week's events.  I attribute this to the Peace that Passes Understanding, which is, I assure you, very real and very wonderful.  Thank you Lord for being my Peace, my Strength, my Shield and my Redeemer.

SHAKE RATTLE AND ROLL

Shake Rattle and Roll (CLICK ME)

I've noticed a few things lately, namely less shake, rattle and roll.  I mean the shaking of flab, the rattling of my old bones cracking and creaking every time I move or get up.  And the rolls...oh the rolls - they are slowing shrinking...slowly.

Yeah, that was me, nonchalantly feeling my own butt cheek last week when I was doing my cool down walk in week 8 of C25K.  Why you ask?  Because I noticed as I was walking that it (my junk in the trunk) didn't seem to be shaking and wobbling with the same gelatinous fervor as before.  It was the first time I'd realized this since having my son.  I felt a little firm and toned even.  Now I wouldn't say you could bounce a quarter off of any part of my body just yet, but my calves and quads have also definitely gained some firmness.  My rolls are melting gradually, sort of like a great glacier of flab that erodes over time.  I just hope it doesn't take a million years.

My new idea, still in the conceptual phase, is to do some form of arm and ab work on my non-running days.  This is a fancy way of saying that I just didn't start yet, for no reason other than I am dreading and avoiding it.  However, just like with running, it is something I may find pleasantly useful and productive once I begin.  I am not a gym person, nor will I ever be, so I intend to milk the most out of my Comcast fees and use the Exercise TV Yoga, etc. I located on there some months ago.

It is surreal to see physical change begin to mirror the changes you experience on the inside.  I feel better and more confident, and I am, albeit slowly, beginning to look different too.  Now if I could just tame my inner carboholic, I would really be in business.

Stay sweaty my friends.

BECOMING

"See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland." Isaiah 43:19


SATURDAY - 8/13/11


Fear, doubt, frustration.  Today they were hounding me.  I am still on my personal mission to change several key areas of my life including my diet, fitness, housekeeping habits/organization and spiritual development.  I like to keep my posts positive, but I am sharing my reality, which has been one of unrest and intermittent pessimism in the past week or so.

I woke up today knowing I was supposed to do my run.  I could have done it yesterday but my sore knee has been a bit annoying.  For those who aren't aware, I bit the pavement pretty hard on 8/3 while on vacation.  For those of you who live under a rock, I am a celebrated faller.  I was in National Harbor, MD and was doing week 7, day 3 of C25K when I stumbled on some shallow stairs down by the waterfront.  My left knee slammed down on a metal grate surrounding a tree and looked like someone put a panini press to it.  It was a series of scabby stripes for at least a week.  That put me behind in my training for the 5K I am doing on 9/10.  It is also when I started allowing fear, doubt and frustration to start nipping at my heels.

I did NOT want to go this morning.  I was tired, feeling generally slow, heavy, incapable and ridiculous. I went, and struggled hard for the last 10 minutes or so of the 28 minute run interval today.  I ran past a lady in a wheelchair and another shuffling along Bank Avenue with her walker, which made me feel both pathetic and inspired at the same time.  I mean, if women with ambulatory issues who are almost 3 times my age get get out and about, surely my pitiful behind could do the session today right?  I just felt fat, foolish and defeated today.  It wasn't fun.  It also isn't the only area I've been having concern with lately.

I return to work full time on 9/1 and have had mounting worries that I won't be able to maintain or finish anything I've started.  Here's my list of things I am currently fretting over:

*  Leaving my beautiful babies and going back to the job.

*  Finishing the C25K program with enough endurance to run and complete my race on 9/10

*  Finishing the cleaning/organizing of my house before 9/1 so that I am not living like a slob and being overwhelmed the whole school year with my own inability to keep things neat and organized.

*  Not losing all the weight I'd like, getting down to an ideal/healthy weight and size.

*  Slipping out of the habit of doing my devotions and bible study due to a lack of discipline and hectic schedule once back to work.

*  Not having enough time and energy to give my kids and husband all the attention they deserve when working again full time.

I am usually not a person who suffers from a case of "I Can't".  I get excited and optimistic when doing something new and look forward to becoming better and achieving something.  Imagine - my Teacher Nightmares haven't even started yet (typically late August they begin - and yes - I mean real nightmares of all the mishaps and problems a teacher can encounter).  Here I am with 2 whole weeks left of summer and I'm worrying myself silly.

All this to say that I got to thinking about the concept of "becoming" and how it is a process.  My house is neater than it was 6 months ago.  My fitness level is much better too than it was only 8 weeks ago.  My spiritual life is much better due to almost daily quiet time in the Word (striving for daily).  I am getting to spend time with my children and just be their mom and have fun.  All these are good things - me becoming better than I was before.


It is true what they say - there's always room for improvement.  As long as I continue the process of becoming, I will vow to feel good about any small step in the right direction.

LITERALLY AND FIGURATIVELY

This whole change thing is an uphill battle.  I know that's cliche' but it is - literally and figuratively.  There's a hill that rises at the end of Bank Avenue along the Delaware River that I had avoided at all costs until about 2 weeks ago.  I had memories of my childhood, trying to pedal my bicycle up that hill and remember feeling spent and nearly-defeated each time I tried it.  Besides, why would I run up a hill when there are plenty of other perfectly good streets that are level?

On the day I first went up the hill on the C25K program, I had been fantasizing about being able to wear a sports bra or sport tank and running shorts to go out on my training days.  At present, this is quite impossible for aesthetic and practical reasons.  Firstly, though I don't care much what people think, it just isn't right for a woman of my particular girth to trot around in a sports bra.  Really - like not right at all.  I wistfully hope that someday I will be able to do so, but it isn't time yet.  Secondly, running shorts (or any shorts) are too short and result in what I can only describe as a dreadful bunching up of fabric that results in chub rub.   I would love to wear shorts to run because of the heat, but yoga-pant capris are most practical, yielding the least friction.  (See my previous post from 7/14 for the details on what chub rub is and why it is a problem.)

So in the middle of my fantasy about the Future Me in the running outfit that would make me look and feel like a real runner, I see The Hill.  Just up yonder, it gently slopes upward, taunting me and challenging me to take it on.  I was in the midst of a "run" interval when this happened.  Unswervingly, I began my ascent.  Go big or go home right.  I wasn't going to walk it.

At that very moment of decision, like a beacon of bronzed fruition, I spied her at the top of the hill about to run down.  It was her!  Future Me.  Descending the hill easily in the very outfit of my aforementioned fantasy, she positively glowed, pounding the pavement with finesse and confidence.  WOW.  It was a cosmic moment - the Future Me passing by the Current Me.  As I puffed up the hill past her, I thought to myself "someday that will be me".  I didn't feel bad about myself at all at that moment.  I felt excited, energized, hopeful.  That in and of itself is a HUGE change for me.  I used to look at girls like that and feel inferior, jealous and hopelessly stuck in a zaftig body.  Oddly, it was an unexpected change, not one I'd planned or sought.  Perhaps the best kind of change.

And as she gracefully bounded by me, I had a new fantasy.  Perhaps as she passed me, she felt good about herself and thought "that used to be me".  Maybe she remembered her first days and weeks of healthful exercise and was proud of just how far she'd come.

THE BEAUTY OF PERSPECTIVE

Boy have I gotten some new perspective these last few months.  It has come to school me and reshape my thinking on things both big and small.  This shift in perspective has come mainly because I was open to it, expecting it due to the choices I have made recently.  As you may already know, these choices have been physical, intellectual and spiritual.


I've found myself thinking a lot lately about things related to exercise.  Mainly this is due to the fact that I have actually been exercising lately.  THIS JUST IN: I've decided I need to buy an armband for my iPod.  I formerly thought this was sporty flamboyance when I saw people with those contraptions strapped about their arms. However, I've discovered when you actually sweat vis-à-vis exercise, your hands get too sweaty to hold an iPod.  Similarly, between your collarbone and bra strap is no good either.  Let's not mention any other crevices in that area that could seriously short circuit your electronics if you sweat profusely enough.  


Another formerly ridiculous notion is that of getting some type of treadmill or exercise device.  I was thinking of putting it in the attic.  You know, for the winter months when it is too inclement to exercise outside.  Yes Gentle Reader, I have now come to realize that you probably can actually exert yourself in the wintertime rather than lumbering about in fleecy nightclothes eating as though hibernation was nigh.  Should my ship fail to come in and prohibit such a purchase, I will make do, but still exercise throughout the cold season.


On to things less carnal now.  I recently finished reading Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah.  See the link for in-depth details.  However, the book chronicles the journey of a young Sierra Leonean boy as he goes from a 12-year-old trying to outrun the war, to a boy soldier (under duress), to a rehabilitated young adult.  It is a choice book for the 10th grade summer reading so I had to read it to prepare for the fall.  As I read it, I came to tears and winced more than once and felt strongly that EVERY American should read this book.  The luxury of boredom, the apathy regarding our freedom and the general lack of gratitude for the goodness of living in America are my reasons for saying so.  The unimaginable horrors Beah experienced, and the simple, eloquently heartbreaking way in which he conveys his story truly moved me.  It shifted my own perspective about how grateful I should be to live in a place where I only have to read about someone else's account of such misery.  I really have so very much more to be grateful for than I had previously been conscious of.


This naturally brings me to my final area of perspective, the spiritual.  I have been faithfully (no pun intended) taking time to read from devotionals and the Bible at least 5-6 days a week in order to get a deeper understanding of who God is and in turn, who I am in Christ Jesus.  I read a chapter from Psalms and Proverbs a day, along with working on the book of Acts at present.  I find that my spirit and attitude is more reflective and grateful, and my interactions with those around me more pleasant and understanding as a result.  When I was simply attending church services and then leaving God in his little Sunday/Wednesday box, I was limiting the transformative power He so freely gives if we only seek Him.  I want to get to 7 days a week without fail, though life and responsibilities sometimes cause the day to run away from me.  I'm still working on that.


This habit, as well as those of good eating, exercise and reading vs. television are ones I desperately desire to maintain once I return to the full time grind in September.  With great excitement and interest I look forward to how these habits will impact my effectiveness on the job and at home.  Here's hoping all of these habits together will give me enough of a shift in perspective to overlook or laugh off the inevitable frustrations and challenges of working full time and being a mom.  I am savoring these last weeks of "freedom" and am so very grateful to God that my circumstances allow me the time and luxury of self-development and improvement.


Perspective is indeed, a beautiful thing.

TIMING IS EVERYTHING

As a recovering Queen of I'm Gonna, I registered for my first 5K today.  I was toying with the idea of doing one when my C25K training ends at the end of August.  Toying = fearfully considering!  I mean - just because I did the training somewhat anonymously on the streets of my little town doesn't mean I am ready to do a real 5K with real runners and a painfully real audience.  That's a big whoop you know.


But as God's timing would have it, I happened by a digital billboard on Friday night on I95 South in Philadelphia.  It is one of the ones that flashes alternating advertisements for sporting events, liquor, Tastykakes and the like.  It just so happened that I saw it when the NOCC (National Ovarian Cancer Coalition) had an advertisement for a 5K on 9/10/11.  I knew when I saw this I absolutely had to do it, despite my fear.  I also feel it is no accident that my training in the 10 week program will have just ended about 2 weeks prior to this race.  Convenient timing right?


Then there's the meaningfulness of the whole ordeal.  My dear friend at work lost her mom to Ovarian Cancer several years back.   I realized that if I endeavored to follow through with, it had to be for a personal cause like that.  I told my friend yesterday that I planned to do it, which "makes it real" according to another wise friend of mine.  Once you let the cat out of the bag and blab around what you are planning, everyone is hopelessly covered in cat hair, so to speak.  Another friend similarly advised me that if you make a fanfare about the fact that you are doing a race, it makes you more likely to follow through lest you appear a big fat liar.  Being big and fat is one thing, but a liar - that's just not OK.


Having the expectations of other people pressing on you is sometimes very helpful, and very necessary to complete a task that we would otherwise hem and haw over.  When we privately make promises to ourselves, they often go unfulfilled because of our own lack of discipline, paralyzing fear or sheer laziness.  In this case, I need the people around me to be expecting something to happen so that I am more likely to muster the moxie to do it.


For the record, I ordered an XL T-shirt for the race (snugly my current size), which is about 6 weeks away.  I am hoping to be swimming in it when I run in September. My wish is for the spectators to question the floppy sloppy sack of a shirt that this accidental athlete dons when she passes by, not quite fleet of foot, but not quite a bumbling disaster either.


Alas, I continue to stumble forward into my awkwardly beautiful season of change.  :-)