Celebrating the Finish Line

The last few weeks have been absolutely crazy.  Working lots of hours, coordinating a challenge for my business, and this past weekend coordinating a large team to run a half marathon on Saturday, with a fund raiser for my foundation on Sunday, followed by leaving said fund raiser and driving directly out of town, only to be gone for work for three days.  All in, I believe I have been on this kind of roller coaster for about six weeks.  Saturday morning I would coordinate the teams, take all the obligatory social media pre-race pics, locate the corals, adjust all my race gear, and suddenly the gun would go off and I would find myself running down the rail trail with a sea of other half marathoners on a beautiful spring day.

I don't know where I'm goin'

But I sure know where I've been

Hanging on the promises in songs of yesterday

An' I've made up my mind, I ain't wasting no more time

Here I go again, here I go again

Ah yes.  Whitesnake, the consummate 80's hair band.  Reminds me of my college days with my gigantic hair supported with the superhuman hairspray, better known as Aquanet, that my sorority sisters and I consumed so much of. I am still quite certain there is a large hole in the ozone over 200 South Summit in Iowa City. As I chuckle about that it dawns on me I am alone.  Jogging along in a sea of humanity alone in my own thoughts and music for the first time in a while, as life's busy has consumed me for some time.  I would see the sun starting to poke through the clouds, enjoy the newness of a beautiful 13 mile downhill rail trail and revel in how strong I was feeling in those early moments.  Check the pace.... first mile 10:02.  Well shit.  My half pace is really more of 11:30, but this was down hill I was good.  I was ready to roll.

Tho' I keep searching for an answer

I never seem to find what I'm looking for

Oh Lord, I pray you give me strength to carry on

'

That is, I was fine til I wasn't.  My strength began to waver, my hips and quads began to hurt.  As it turns out, a 13.1 mile downhill course was not easier, it was different.  Coming out of the gate too quick, new muscles activated, running alone, as my last half was in Disney and run with my son, suddenly everything was a whole lot harder.  I started walking at intervals at mile 9, and I really did hope I had the strength to carry on. In the end, my splits would get progressively slower and I would finish a painful 2 minutes behind my half that I did in October and nine minutes shy of my goal.  I would spend the next few days analyzing what I did.  I should have come out slower.  I should have had more even splits.  I should have trained longer distances.  If only I did....  I should have.... Days of this self questioning.

Then it would happen.  A seasoned distance runner in my motivational group would post a simple meme,"celebrate the finish line, not the finish time."  I was so busy being disappointed in my lack of PR, or my slower time from October I had missed it. 

And here I go again on my own

Goin' down the only road I've ever known

Like a drifter I was born to walk alone 

As it turns out, going out on my own, lost in my own personal race critique, I had missed a lot of things that happened in that race far beyond the timer.  There was the amazing scenery of the newly opened rail trail in Upstate New York, complete with rolling streams, and the sun shining through the trees on a beautiful spring day.  Not to mention being part of an inaugural half on this very trail.  There were the thousands of well wishers who gave high fives as I passed by and rang cow bells.  There was being passed by one of my trainers as he patted my arm and told me to keep going.  I would later be passed by two of the most seasoned distance runners I am blessed to call friends, one at mile 3, one at mile 4, who would both ask if I was OK and to tell me,"you got this," reminding me of the amazing people in my life committed to my success.  I would be completely struggling at mile ten, only to hear,"Sweet Caroline" which was my mom's favorite song, to remind me once again, even though she is not physically here anymore, she can still find ways to show me she is always in my corner, which admittedly brought some tears through the physical pain I was in at that moment.  Ultimately, I would hit the finish and be met by a few of my faster teammates who cheered for me like any solid teammate would.  Later, I would see an epic finish by a previously injured teammate, a smile that could only be characterized by freedom across the face of another who has lost over 100 pounds as she finished, and the finishes of two others who had taken on their epic first half marathon.  

I now begin to wonder, how many times do we go out again on our own, working on getting our own pace right, trying to power through the tough stuff, yet drowning in our own disappointment when we miss the mark we have set for ourselves, and later obsessively trying to figure out how to do it better.  Probably, the better focus is in on the achievement itself, taking advantage of the amazing people and stops along the way that got us there regardless of timing. 

 In the end, we did celebrate at the finish.  We raised our individual bottles of prosecco, as is our 1DOS tradition, had a lot of laughs, took turns at the massage tables, and took the most epic after shots to date.  For me, maybe the walk alone thing as Whitesnake suggests is not quite the right choice but, there is something this song gets right on the money.

An' I've made up my mind, I ain't wasting no more time

It's time for me to continue to invest in solid training, stop worrying about the PR, begin to revel in the fact that I have the most amazing half sisters (13.1), embracing that the journey to the goal will always teach me more than any PR, and most importantly stand firm in the knowledge that the best is yet to come.

Closer to Free

About four months ago, I took a traveling nurse practitioner job covering the eastern side of New York.  Consequently, I find myself on the road a lot and am learning how to occupy my time traveling from site to site.  I have discovered the beauty of audio books, and the rediscovery of music from days gone by.  Earlier this week, I found myself making the trek from Utica to Oneonta.  It's a straight shot south through the hills of central New York on country highways.  Sounds great right?

Well, not really, there was something oddly familiar about this drive.  Up, down, around, 55mph, 30 mph, small town cop on the side of the road....  yes.  I know all about this.  About ten years ago this city girl from Chicago was dropped into southern West Virginia for five years.  Chicago is one thing.  It's a logical grid.  The streets steadily increase in number from the center of the city in three directions, north, south and west.  East simply lands you in Lake Michigan.  You can't really get lost in Chicago, you simply go to the nearest corner and look up and read the street sign  1400 North is 14 blocks north of the loop.  Easy.

West Virginia brought with it a learning curve of sorts though.  First, I had to augment my practice of medicine with adding a good understanding of the role topical vegetables and black salve played in the treatment of infection.  I would later become proficient at administering antivenom on the occasional Sunday when the snake handling church goer was bitten by the copperhead also present at said service. Mostly though, I had to learn to understand local sayings, my drive through central New York this week reminded me of one such saying,"as the crow flies."  When you live in hill country this is indicative of how far away a place is from an aerial perspective, rather than a road perspective.

Living on the top of a hill there, just about everything was located on some other hill.  To get anywhere it took trekking down the mile long hill from my subdivision that looped around once to get down.  It was steep and slick in the winter and, if I was really lucky, I would have to wait for the gaggle of wild turkeys to clear to even hit the bottom to begin to take off to someplace else.  The bottom may hold some piece of farm equipment like I encountered this week on my New York drive slowing me to 15 miles an hour in a 55 mph zone, and then at some point I would have to cross the river that ran through the town at the bottom of my hill, and begin to ascend someplace else depending on where I was going.  Some of those hills had gravel and mud, others difficult to pass with two vehicles, causing me to have to pull off on a narrow shoulder to allow someone to pass, where I only hoped the guard rail, inches from the passenger door, would hold if disaster struck. Yes, my New York drive was exactly like West Virginia driving.  Through my frustration of the drive, the Bo Deans attempted to distract me from the annoyance of it all.

Everbody wants to live, like they want to live

And everybody wants to love, like they want to love

And everybody wants to be closer to free 

Yeah, I wanted to be free.  Free of the freaking tractor in front of me.  It's 55, he's going 10 without a care in the world.  I needed to get to work. Why am I winding around seemingly in circles through an endless sea of country roads that seem to lead to noplace?

And everybody needs a chance once in a while

Everybody wants to be, closer to free

Yeah, I would have loved to have had the chance to be free on that drive.  You know, like the crow. I would simply take off flying, avoid the spaghetti bowl of country roads and be earlier to work. I was becoming extremely impatient until I suddenly found myself emerging in Cooperstown. The Baseball Hall of Fame on my right.  Being a catcher for 12 years of my childhood coupled by my love of the Cubs, suddenly the bright green of the fields and the building itself began to lift the frustration I was feeling at the time.  

And everybody wants a good, good friend

Everybody wants to be, closer to free

I found myself excitedly using voice text to share where I was in a group chat with my business partner and finance guy, both huge baseball fans, albeit for the wrong teams....(go Cubs).  I may have enjoyed their jealousy a little too much in that moment.  Nonetheless, in those moments I began to wonder how often we look at what exists on the next mountain and dream about the day we can just be the crow and fly over with ease.  I maintain this is what keeps us wanting to be free but never quite getting there.  Perhaps the better thing to do is to start the trek down the slippery hill finding new ways to gain traction.  Try to learn the lesson from the ballsy gaggle of turkeys that  proudly occupies the road and stands between us and forward progress.  Even the beloved farmer in his excruciatingly slow farm equipment at the bottom of the hill, can help us to learn that moving slow is still forward, and there is something to be said for patience.  As we cross the river, leave the hill behind and begin to ascend to what exists on the next hill, we should take the time on the single lane road to pull aside for someone else and trust our supporters  to fully embrace our location in the climb and to serve as our proverbial firmly grounded guardrail, not allowing us to fall off the mountain.

Everybody one, everybody two, everybody free

So, maybe in thinking about it, it really isn't the crow who is free.  He will never learn the lessons along the way that go with the fight in getting from hill to hill.  He will never know the satisfaction of getting what he always dreamed of and knowing it was because he dared to brave a difficult journey.  Maybe the trick to being truly free is to select the hill, take off down the mountain, and not be afraid to press on no matter what may stand in our way.  As for me?  I seem to be settling into travel life and learning to see not so subtle reminders on my journeys, like this rainbow from my commute Sunday morning, that the best is yet to come.

Channeling the Hulk Within

When I was a kid, there, was the original Lou Ferrigno version of The Incredible Hulk.  A gigantic green guy that busted out of a much smaller and mild mannered Bruce Banner when his emotions ran high.  Tore right out of his shirt and exploded on the scene with yellow eyes an immediate threat to those around him.  For some reason, I loved this show.  The effects were terrible, it was the 70's after all, and even the make up was a little iffy.  Nonetheless, I loved it anyway.  I suppose it has something to do with my inane ability to keep all the plates spinning from a young age while letting very little escape.  Setting loose fiery unabashed emotion in this way probably fed my quiet childhood reserved psyche.

Nonetheless, I had a hard time not thinking about the beloved Hulk recently.  Two weeks ago, I ratted myself out in this very venue.  I admitted to the complacency that had set in in my own training and lifestyle, thus giving my trainer the green light to guide me in any way he felt best.  His advice?  A simple two word answer.  Get strong.  I had to really get my head around this.  He proposed I lift heavy, get fatigued, then move to cardio last when I was already spent.  He threw down a two week challenge of the complete opposite of what I have done for four years.  He must have read my mind, because my own vision of me suddenly turning green, busting out of my workout gear and lighting up the joint was a bit terrifying.  "Don't worry, you wont get huge".  With that, I put my trust in the pro. 

Sometimes, I feel the fear of uncertainty stinging clear,

And I can't help but ask myself how much I'll let the fear

Take the wheel and steer

This morning, I was in my car, post two hour workout, with four miles of running on steep inclines, which came right on the heels of the heaviest deadlifts I have ever done. Most of my major muscle groups were shaking, and I was trying to cool down with a little Incubus pushing into my post gym haze.  In that moment, I had to take the time to ask myself why it was I did not do this before?  Why did I not lift any heavier, when clearly I was capable, or push to exhaustion?  I suppose I had let fear take the wheel for a long time.  My previous injury, my fear of future injury, maybe even a little intimidation by the work it would take to be strong, had kept me exactly where I was.  I put a spin on the notion of the never running on the hills, choosing instead to power walk, as an "active recovery day", or an "attempt to work different muscle groups."  There really isn't anything wrong with power walking per se, but let me give myself a reality check.  I didn't WANT to run on the hills.  I just didn't want to do it.  It was hard.  Why didn't I lift heavier?  Same.  It was hard and it hurt a little.  In four years of training was I fit? Maybe.  Strong?  No, not really.  

So, if I decided to waiver my chance,

To be one of the hive,

Will I choose water over wine,

And hold my own and drive?

So far, I have made the choice to drive.  I have embraced said two week challenge and am learning all new lessons along the way. Slow, heavy reps, focusing in on controlling every fiber of the muscle as it is pushed to its limit. As it turns out, strength training is nothing like I thought it was.  It is not just lifting heavy shit and putting it down.  It was focus, control, effort, and technique and frankly much more mental than I imagined. I have gone on to experience total body exhaustion from putting every ounce of gas I had in me right out there on the floor.  These things have given me a whole new sense of satisfaction and a release I have not experienced.  It makes me wonder how often in life we shy away from the proverbial heavy lifting because the weight of the process just seems too heavy, and the hills just too steep.  

It's driven me before
And it seems to be the way that everyone else gets around
But lately I am beginning to find 
That when I drive myself my light is found

Maybe the trick is to instead show up for yourself, stop letting fear take the wheel, do the heavy lifting and see what happens.  For me?  I can say I am truly getting stronger and am finding a certain degree of satisfaction in the laser like focus I now have in the tasks I tried so hard to avoid. Things that are easily translating to my day to day life.
 

Whatever tomorrow brings,

I'll be there with open arms and open eyes

Whatever tomorrow brings

I'll be there, I'll be there

I suppose you could assume then that my earlier analogy of the 1970's Hulk and building strength  was incorrect.  Strength was not a total beast like loss of control.  It was something different entirely.  It was really more Bruce Banner.  The reality is Bruce spent his life controlling the beast within to channel the strength in positive ways ultimately turning the Hulk into a hero.  In that sense, that is exactly what we need to do.  We need to use our focus, control, effort and technique in heavy lifting situations to channel the Hulk that lives inside.  So, whatever tomorrow brings, I will show up for myself, eyes open, be stronger, and know with absolute certainty the best is yet to come.

I Don’t Wanna Be

As I drove my son to school today, he was making arrangements for his car to be picked up.  The "appointment" was set for Thursday between 8 and 5.  Yes, a full nine hour window.  Just like the cable guy or any sort of service person for the house.  He then immediately became stressed with his already busy Thurs.  How was he going to pull it all off never knowing when these people will actually show up.  I kinda chuckled at him and explained this was one of the finer points in modern day "adulting."  Somehow, his disdain for it out of the gate tells me there is a whole lot more "adulting" realities he has yet to learn, much worse than waiting for a service person to show up.

After dropping him off, I had time to reflect on what came before this car ride.  It was a particularly impressive output at the gym.  I had my highest calorie burn to date in several years.  I had decided last week that my days of Dopey prep by keeping my paces low and working for endurance needed to end.  It was time to Spartan prep.  Yep, time to push.  Oh yes.  I had this all well under control.  Controlled output before a huge endurance run, beast mode for Spartan training.  This is me, exercise guru, motivating the masses, leading by example, watch me go..... had it all Gavin DeGraw style as my current musical selection would indicate.

I don't want to be anything 
Other than what I've been trying to be lately 
All I have to do is think of me and I have peace of mind

There is only one huge flaw in that.  Did I really have peace of mind though?  I had a good discussion with my trainer today with one very pointed question.  Why?  Why did I slow down before Dopey?  Well to control the pace, go slower to go longer, seemed logical to me.  He asked if I was sure of that answer or if it was mental?  Was it fear?  Didn't I know the harder I trained the easier it was going to be outside of the gym?  I had it backwards.  I have spent the day mulling this over.  He was correct.  I was not in control, far from it.  Like the cable guy I kinda promised myself I would show up, bring the tools and get to work, yet figured out I was still waiting in the proverbial 8-5 window for months and calling it "controlled endurance training." Here's the reality.  I became complacent.   Four years in, and here I was sporting the brand of complacency that kept me unhealthy for decades.  Yes, I trained.  Yes, I ate reasonably, but did I really push, or just use Dopey as a convenient excuse to pull back as I had pulled back many other times in my life?  Every damn time I think I have me figured out and have left the bad habits behind, they appear in front of me like an unwanted house guest.  I now found myself grieving the physical gains I could have made by now if I had not done that.

I'm surrounded by identity crisis everywhere I turn,

am I the only one to notice,

I can't be the only one who's learned

Identity crisis.  That is exactly it.  Four years of life changes to learn to be the best version of myself and yet its days like today when I realize I have a lot to learn, and where I came from will never be totally gone. As the song goes, I would suspect I am not the only one with this struggle.  I suppose there is a certain amount of comfort in that notion.  Finally the grief begins to subside as I cannot have those training days back. Instead, I was  left with the bright sunshine on a snowy day and the realization that I really do not have to be stuck anymore, and pushing myself physically to my limits is going to bring about whole new discoveries that will likely raise my proverbial bar even higher.  That is a truly awesome thought.  So maybe Gavin has it right.

I don't want to be anything 
Other than what I've been trying to be lately 
All I have to do is think of me and I have peace of mind 
I'm tired of looking around rooms wondering what I gotta do
Or who I'm supposed to be I don't want to be anything other than me 

So, here I sit ratting myself out to the masses, grateful to the trainer that called me out so that once again I could surpass my own line of crap and show up for myself, as I have for the last week, closing the proverbial service window I have left open for months.  Time to stop wandering and get busy being me because the best is yet to come.

Stepping off the Struggle Bus

My 13 year old son is going to Montreal on a field trip.  Today, as we discussed renewing his passport, as his is expired, he talked excitedly about the coach style bus they would be traveling in.  Cushy seats, TV screens and even a bathroom.  I remember it well.  The giant field trip of the 80's where we got to graduate to the luxury bus.  We could bring our favorite snacks, our gigantic Walkman with a back pack full of 80's mix tapes and we even got to sit near who we wanted to.  This was a far cry from the drab junior high bus of day to day life.

No sir.  That junior high bus was not cool.  I was always one of the last ones picked up, the bus was full and I had to squeeze in, a third person in a two person seat.  There were multiple issues here.  I was obese.  People were not exactly excited to squeeze in to let me sit.  The bus was hot, I was sweating the entire trip.  There was the random pubescent boy I would always seem to end up next to, who had yet to discover deodorant and was not capable of much interaction with a junior high girl other than awkward conversation about science fiction that made no sense to me.  Surely, anything was better than that brand of daily torture. 

I suppose you could say I have been thinking a lot about buses lately.  It probably is a function of it being close to the end of February. Shiny New Year's resolutions far in the rear view, spring way out front and I am now routinely getting messages from clients who are riding the "struggle bus."  That proverbial time when goals seem amazing, but the journey from here to there seems impossible.  Missed workouts, bad meals, feelings of failure, I suppose this would be the fitness version of Seasonal Affective Disorder.


Where was our coach bus and backpack full of mix tapes that would somehow make getting from here to there easier?  I maintain my friends, that coach actually IS the struggle bus.  We struggle by surrounding ourselves with comfort.  Comfy couch, comfy snacks, comfy company and yes, even our favorite 80's jam.  When we hit the realization that we are here, we find ourselves suddenly disembarking in the middle of nowhere far off course and angry at our own failings.

"Oh, we're not gonna take it,

No, we ain't gonna take it

Oh we're not gonna take it anymore 

As we look around this wasteland of broken promises to ourselves, I think the better answer is this.  It's time to toss the iconic mix tapes and trade them in for something a little grittier, like Twisted Sister to yank us out of our self created comfort zone.

"We've got the right to choose it,

There ain't no way we'll lose it,

This is our life, this is our song"

We need to take a minute to sit down in the virtual nowhere we find ourselves in after exiting the struggle bus to find out where we truly are and where it is we want to go.  It is time to remind ourselves our stumblings are not fatal and we have the right to change direction.  It's once again time to put pen to paper and choose the goals that matter.  Only then can we find the right vehicle to get there.  

"Oh you're so condescending,

Your gall is never ending,

We don't want nothin', not a thing from you

Your life is trite and jaded,

Boring and confiscated,

If that's your best, your best won't do"

As we redefine our goals, we are also forced to look at the negativity that resides in the comments that we make to ourselves throughout our journey on the struggle bus, and realize this form of self defeat is only keeping us further and further away from where we want to be.  As we sit in this place sifting through it all, I think we need to take another look at the boring smelly school bus we rode every single day that we labeled as "torture." 

 Maybe this is exactly where we belong.  Maybe the place we need to be is actually quite uncomfortable and sweaty because after all, it isn't the proverbial field trips that will get us there.  It's the hard work in a place we don't always want to be, next to the sweaty guy on the next tread trying awkwardly to make conversation.  So, to my fellowship of fitness seasonal affective disorder sufferers I offer the following challenge.  Head out and find the smelliest most challenging virtual junior high school bus you can and climb aboard.  Do not apologize for your sweat or making the someone else uncomfortable.  Find that awkward person on the tread next to you and make conversation just a little easier as they may be fresh off the struggle bus just as you are.  Besides, adding another person to our mutual support system is never a bad idea.  One thing building a community to support us all has taught us:

"We're right,

We're free,

We'll fight,

You'll see"

Don't ever forget, anything worth having is worth working for, no matter how many times we stumble.  We always have the right to decide we're not going to take it anymore and fight for our goals even if the vehicle to reaching them is not glamorous.  When we do that we absolutely know, the best is yet to come.  

Pain, It makes Me a Believer

Yesterday, as I was getting ready for the gym, I found myself instantly annoyed.  Shorts, sweats, uggs, tank top, sweatshirt, North Face.  Did I have my shoes?  How about my heart rate monitor?  So many layers and extra steps just to go do the least glamorous thing, train.  Nobody tells you really that behind those shiny medals you get when you cross the finish, there are a million mundane days of training just like this one that was made infinitely more difficult because it was February in upstate NY. February.  That's a whole other thing.  As I got in the car, the only thing to get me to the gym was loud, reasonably angry music.

First things first,

I'ma say all the words inside my head,

I'm fired up and tired of the way that things have been

Imagine Dragons, echoing my sentiment about the cold multi layer requiring winter, but honesty it was more than that.  February is supposed to be this love infused month of hearts and flowers, at least that is what Hallmark would lead you to believe.  In my world, it is something different entirely.  Three years ago this week, I laid in a hospital bed with a fresh batch of shiny titanium installed in my left hip.  I had stubbornly let progressive worsening hip pain go for months and continued to push until three days before Christmas I slipped and had the worst pain I have ever had in my life.  Still refusing to believe anything was seriously wrong, I spent the six weeks that followed trying to walk, stretching and even ride an exercise bike,only to find no relief of the pain.  I finally caved on an unusually slow work day and asked my x-ray tech to take a picture.  Staring at the images of my intertrochanteric displaced femoral neck fracture in disbelief I had the defining moment of realizing my stubborn unwavering devotion to my new found fitness at the time, had pushed my body until I broke the biggest bone in it. A staggering thought, to this day I cannot fully get my head around it.

Second thing second,

Don't you tell me what you think that I could be,

I'm the one at the sail,

I'm the master of my sea

 I would say, staring at the x-rays and the blatant ugly meltdown that followed after a call to the orthopedist during my shift, I was seriously questioning my ability to master my own sea.  Besides, I can honestly say that statistically speaking I knew the cards were stacked against me in regaining any sort of activity level.  The six weeks of crutches that followed my February surgery in ice and snow brought with it a lasting fear of water on the kitchen floor and ice on the driveway.  My hip would never be the same, and my pity parties were epic at that point.  Since that time, I have been more tentative mastering my fitness sea. The comeback has been slow, and despite the physical gains since then, the mental scars left behind have been a bit more challenging.

Third things third,

Send a prayer to the ones up above, 

All the hate that you've heard has turned your spirit to a dove

The ones above. Yes.  That's the other issue with February.  This year makes 12 years since my best friend and sister-in-law died for no good reason.  It marks the birthdays of my own mom and my mother-in-law, who also were strong women in my life, both of whom passed suddenly. My mom a year and a half ago, and my mother-in-law 13 years ago.  Perhaps this truly was not the tune to listen to on the way to a workout I didn't really want to do.

I was chokin' in the crowd,

Building my rain up in the cloud,

Falling like ashes to the ground,

Hoping my feelings, they would drown

I would arrive anyway and do my best to put on my best Mama Shark game face.  After all, this was a fundraising class and I had made a promise to my friends.  What met me when I got there was 11 members of my Shark Shiver, laughing and singing along for the full hour.  Hell, there was even some pretty funny dance moves in the transitions.  I couldn't help but shake the funk that arose on the drive over. I would come  to realize in this class that I may want to consider laying off  my annual, oh my God I broke my hip and it was my fault pity party, and instead embrace the laughter of the moment and enjoy the gains I have made despite the odds not being in my favor with this type of injury.

 Back in my car I would go headed to a local eatery to meet these amazing women in my life now.  The music would pick up right where it left off.

Pain!!! You made me a believer,

Pain!!  You break me down and build me up,

Oh, let the bullets fly, oh let them rain,

My life, my love, my drive, it came from....Pain

I had to stop driving to think about that for a minute.  Incomprehensible loss, devastating injury, the season of February hitting once again.  All of those things made me who I am.  My hip taught me I just might be a little tougher than I ever gave myself credit for, after all, I have done 9 Spartans, two Ragnars, a half marathon and the Dopey Challenge in the post op period.  So what if my gains were slow, I was still gaining after all.  I also learned a valuable lesson about balanced training.  As far as the hole in my life left by the women who left me that mattered most, it has allowed me to cultivate a new tribe of strong women who love and support me making this thing called life so much more full, even in the absence of family.  I would ultimately pull into the restaurant and spend the next hour and a half with 5 members of my tribe laughing and retelling stories of our previous times together helping me to see I have truly entered one of the greatest seasons of my adult life. 

Last things last,

By the grace of the fire and the flames,

You're the face of  the future,

the blood in my veins   

Maybe this was really what loss and hard times was about.  If we look hard enough we find there is a greatness that can exist when our trajectory is unexpectedly forced in a new direction.  Pain can truly help us to see we all have a strength in us we know nothing about and a beauty we have yet to see that lives beyond difficult times. 

As we all got into our cars, my tribe and I, I took a good look around.  There were smiles and friendship and vows to get together soon.  Would I trade the things that happened that made past Februarys anything but flowers and hearts?  Well, I can't, but what I can do is focus on the beauty that has followed the pain and realize even more that the best is yet to come.  

Sweet Caroline, Reflections on the Dopey Challenge

My mom always wanted six children.  She attacked this goal immediately after marrying my dad.  Three kids in 28 months, she was well on her way, but that dream was not going to be a reality as a blood clot in her lung nearly took her life and mine when she was pregnant with me.  I am the youngest and the only girl.  Growing up with siblings essentially the same age meant we went through all stages of childhood at exactly the same time. Probably the most challenging being our teen years.  My oldest brother was a rock and roll guy and had a wide variety of Springsteen, Aerosmith and Grateful Dead albums.  My middle brother more into English music like The Beatles,  Elvis Costello and Peter Gabriel.  As for me, I was the stereotypical 80's pop fan, preferring my Madonna and Prince.  Nonetheless, when it came down to us getting to an age to start going to concerts my mom was adamant that we could not go on our own until we went to a concert with her. She was going to teach us the ropes of concert going.  To be fair, I think really the case was she wanted a night with her children that all seemed to be launching into their own independent lives at once.  Nonetheless, the three of us found ourselves on the slanted grass of the open air venue better known as Poplar Creek just outside of Chicago bracing ourselves for a full evening of Neil Diamond in the mid 80's.  Here was Mom, Maverick jeans and red bandana tied around her neck, bic lighter in hand prepared to sway to her favorite,"Sweet Caroline".  My brothers?  Well....  Think two teenage boys at Neil Diamond.  They occupied their time heckling the poor guy who apparently was not handling his alcohol well one blanket over.  This led to a phrase still used at family gatherings,"Hey buddy, how bout another Mister Salty?" as this poor guy with booze exiting where it shouldn't had a box of the fancy 80's brand of pretzel on the blanket next to him.  Then it would happen,"Sweet Caroline."  My mom sang her soprano best swaying side to side loving every minute of her time with her children. 

This past weekend it was my turn to join two other moms, and two other friends as we took our children to The Dopey Challenge.  Some moms take their kids to concerts, some of us take our kids running, or was it them taking us?  Regardless, here we were.  A year ago I blogged about this grand event.  A 5K, a 10k, a half marathon and a full marathon in four days.  It seemed like a crazy challenge to me by a good friend, and initially, a "Dopey" idea.  A little research into the actual character of Dopey taught me that Dopey actually was not dumb.  He was simply the youngest and had no need to speak as others spoke for him as he simply followed along the path the others laid in front of him.  I decided that my job in this challenge was to continue to forge my own path apart from the one so many others expected of me years ago, and to learn to develop my own voice.

I suppose in the greater scheme of things the 5k, the 10k and the half were easy.  I had done all of these distances before, and seemed to come through them just fine at the Dopey too.  I had my usual running team and we took off and did our thing like we always do.  Then it happened.  I found myself at 5:30 in the morning in the last corral slowly inching toward the start line of the marathon.  My 22 year old son and faithful sidekick at my side.  The rest of our team was spread out through other corrals, so this was different too.  I would find myself wrapped in mylar and suddenly break into a sweat in corral H, nerves or just a 49 year old garden variety hot flash? I couldn't be sure with my spinning mind.  I was in the last corral as I had not submitted my half marathon time in preparation to start any sooner.  The sixteen minute pacers for the race carrying their purple Mickey ear balloons about 30 yards behind me.  The balloon ladies.  Our team has more colorful names for these menacing women, who if they catch you will remove you from the course.  I did what I always do in times of stress, I reiterate the plan over and over to my son,"We come out at a 12:30 pace until we hit Magic Kingdom.  That's almost six miles in. We take a recovery walk there, enjoy the sites, and settle back in for another seven until we hit Animal Kingdom...." 

He knew all of this.  I had told him a hundred times.  He gave me the patronizing smile and said,"will you just relax?"  No.  No I couldn't.  The seeds of doubt were strong.  I was doing a distance I had never done on the heels of three previous days of running totaling 22.4 miles.  Nonetheless, Mickey would perform,"Don't Stop Believing" karaoke style, we'd have some brief fireworks and we were off.  Watch on. Pace Checking.  Playlist solid.  Trusty boy by my side.  As I mentally tried to settle in my son would tap me.  I suddenly became aware he had been trying to get my attention. 

"What?!"  It came out louder and more annoyed sounding than I anticipated.
"Listen!!!  Sweet Caroline."  There it was.  Mile one.  A high school marching band.  How does my son know this?  Well.... one off handed comment about being a Neil Diamond fan to my mother landed him floor seats at the United Center in Chicago at the age of 16, as my mother tried to convince security this was not her grandson, rather, she was a cougar.  This was her date. 

We would sing loudly,"bup ba da da da...."  I was ok.  A push from mom and I could push the nerves away and settle into the task at hand.  The rest of the course there were little things along the way that reminded me of where I came from and how it was I was here.  There was the guy at mile 2. An older guy, not altogether fit looking with a shirt that said,"Why am I doing this?  Because everyone said I couldn't"  somehow a not so gentle reminder of my bygone days of gym class bullying.

At mile 6 we would enter the Magic Kingdom just as the sun rose over the castle reminding me there just may be a wee bit of magic left in the world.  We would pass the tea cups and I was reminded of a time I previously blogged about where I sat on that very ride with my mom as she got to enjoy Disney through the eyes of her grandchildren.  We won't mention that her and I were both obese at the time, my son turned the wheel faster and faster til we were all dizzy, and her extrication from said tea cups became a wee bit more entertaining than we cared to admit.

At mile 8 we would catch up to Anita.  Anita is a special friend of mine.  She broke her ankle in November at her first Spartan Race.  She was doing this anyway.  She had started several corrals before me and was walking, but she was doing it.  She had found a walking partner named "Dory" who reminded us to "just keep swimming."

At mile 10 I would come up on a runner with the celtic rings that make up my logo on his shirt:  body, mind and spirit, reminding me how all of these things brought me to this place doing this thing and now I have a whole shiver of sharks behind me who I have the honor of helping get to their own amazing places.  Passing the halfway point at Animal Kingdom brought monkeys and roller coasters and a euphoria that wow.  I just may pull this off.

Then it happened.  ESPN Wide World of Sports happened.  We hit that venue at mile 17.  The sun was high in the sky and it was 80 degrees.  My legs hurt.  My back hurt.  I was drenched and every single fiber of my being wanted to be done.  Weaving in and out of ball fields and soccer fields.  Relentless sun.  I felt blisters on my feet.  I was walking and running now, well the running was not pretty, but I was doing some of that.  I heard the words coming during my longest walk this race yet,"I can't.  I just can't"  ESPN went on for 3.5 miles that seemed like 20.  Make it stop.  For the love of God get me out of this place. However, it was in this place we were rejoined by Anita.  How did she catch us?  That woman walks an astonishing 13 min mile.  We were at mile 20 and it was time to take my cue from this woman.  It was time to take past setbacks and cast them aside and persevere.  In that moment I decided to walk the rest with her.  I'd love to tell you that made it easier.  I'd love to tell you my legs weren't screaming and I wasn't ready to summon an uber, but those things would be a lie.  Anita and my son found themselves battling the voices usually only I can hear, but had somehow escaped out my mouth."I can't"  "I just don't think I can go on" "What made me think I could do this"....... The list was endless, but they were patient reminding me over and over I could.

Just about the time I was sure my legs would not go one more step, from a speaker on the course,"Where it began, I can't begin to knowing......"  Sweet Caroline.  My cue that even my little mama would not let me quit from heaven.  I burst into tears right there at mile 23.  I was overcome by a mixture of grief and encouragement.  Grief that the one person who would have given anything to be here was not, and encouraged that she found a way to root me on anyway.  With the big ugly cry out of the way we would hit the boardwalk, phone ahead to our team who was a half mile ahead, and prepare for our big finish.  Our team would hand us frozen margaritas and we would excitedly cross the finish 48.6 miles from where we started. Three moms, three twenty something children, and another amazing friend would link arms, shed a tear and be once again thankful to have found such an amazing tribe to conquer the impossible. 

"Sweet Caroline,

Good times never seemed so good"

As I sit here looking at my six medals from the races I reflect on what it was I set out to do.  Did I find my own voice on the course as I thought I would?  Quite the opposite actually.  With a little help from a my son and a good friend I found a silence.  A silence from the loud negative voices  that seem to have taken up residence in my brain for so many years.  Did I forge my own path?  Not really.  I, instead, got to follow in step with the absolute grit and grace of someone else who did not let her own setback hold her back, to get an insurmountable task done.  I also learned that no matter how much I miss talking to my mom, and how much I grieve that she is not present for my big accomplishments now, she is still here in spirit rooting me on in her proverbial maverick jeans and bic lighter, swaying side to side just like she always was.  Will I do this again?  oh yes.  Only next time I will do it better, because as always the best is yet to come.