Learning to Gain Traction in Slippery Mud

Anyone who knows me well understands that I am not someone who appreciates change all that much.  I am a planner.  I enjoy the quiet predictability in any situation to bring me to my comfort zone.  Changing course quickly generally does not go well for a period of time as I try to wrap my overthinking brain around circumstances I suddenly cannot control or make sense of.  I suppose that is why when I set out to run my seventh Spartan Race last Saturday, I was able enter it with a quiet confidence of an absolute known.  After all, I already knew I could do the monkey bars and the multi rig.  Grab hold, swing, swing, release on the back swing, patience, grab on the front swing, repeat, repeat, repeat....ring the bell.  I could do the spear, watch the rope, aim higher than the target, put some arc into it, step and throw.  I was working on the rope climb, j-hook, reach high, pull up... repeat, repeat, and maybe this time will ring the bell.   At the very least, I appeared to know what I was doing there.  I even learned the roll technique under the barbed wire was way easier than the crawl.  There really isn't an obstacle I have not seen before, and the ones I struggle with I have my core race team to pull me along.  As far as my running was concerned?  I had a full year of training under my belt since facing this same venue last year.

The venue itself was familiar too, as I had done it last year here.  It was a flat course, so no mountains to conquer.  Really, the only issue I had was worrying about that small stretch of mud we had last year.  It was probably a third of a mile of ankle deep mud where both of my calves cramped and I stood unable to move in sticky mud screaming as if my legs had been amputated. I think my business partner thought I had been shot at the time as he and my son struggled to limp me through that whole stretch while I struggled to keep my shoes on. Not this year though. I made sure to preemptively solve that problem, and drank some electrolyte water in the morning.  I left for the course with my biggest worry being supporting my team of newbie racers as they discover what they are made of. That was truly what Saturday was about and I was going to show them the way.

Then we arrived at the course.  It had rained all week in Chicago and getting off the bus to the venue we were met with mud.  Ankle deep mud.  Everywhere we turned there was mud.  As a rule, I never put my race shoes on until we get to the start line.  However, on Saturday, I lost a flip flop in the mud before I even reached check in and found myself walking to the start line barefoot not even sure how it was I was going to get my race socks and shoes on, as I already had mud well above my bare feet and ankles with no visible water source for a rinse off.  I finally decided that I would wipe my feet off with the outside of my long socks, figuring they would get muddy anyway.  It wasn't ideal, but my my shoes were at least on.  A group of sharks is also known as a shiver, and as we are the Team 1DOS Sharks, I lined up with my mighty shiver, the proud Mama Shark of a team of 7 experienced racers and 8 newbies.  We had the obligatory "I AM A SPARTAN, AROO, AROO, AROO" of the start line, we were off.  I should clarify we were off into ankle deep mud.  What began as a third of a mile of mud last year, had turned into a full 9.5 miles of ankle deep or more mud.  My worst thing.  My biggest challenge of last year was suddenly present the entire race.

I found myself slipping and sliding along with no opportunity to enjoy the quiet confidence I had awoken with that morning.  The things I knew how to do were suddenly all new and different, and my ability to conquer obstacles I had in the past was completely compromised.  I was not running how I had planned, as it was not possible with miles of sticky mud.  I was not in any kind of rhythm to focus on the quiet cadence I thought I had mastered at the monkey bars.  The first barbed wire crawl?  Inches of water overlying sticky mud making the rolling impossible and turned that more into a muddy slip and slide.  Nothing was going as planned.

I found I was frustrated with myself for a good bit of the race because all of the huge things I assumed I would adeptly demonstrate for my team of newbies had essentially fallen apart in front of me due to circumstances I didn't plan on.  I pondered all of this as I took a moment to pull ahead of my team for a minute to pull it together.  As I did that, I suddenly realized my timing chip was gone, lost in a sea of mud somewhere.  Now I would not even be able to analyze ranking later, or possibly would not even get credit for finishing the race.  Not one single thing was going according to the plan I had in my head for that day and I was well out of  the structured design I had come up with better known as my comfort zone.

It was in that moment I found myself climbing the castle stairs.  A wooden structure off the ground.  Firm footing, confident steps and solid ground.  Seven feet off the ground with my first confident steps an hour and a half into the race, I realized it was time to let loose of my preconceived notion of what a successful race looked like for me as the team captain and Mama Shark, and instead focus on firm footing, and leave the rest.  By the time I came down the back side of that I was ready to dig in and go again, only this time worrying about staying steady on my feet, encouraging my team, and finishing the race.  I paused and waited for my team to catch up and we did just that.  One step at a time, one obstacle at a time. Some we conquered, some we failed and had to do burpees, but in the end we came together to finish 5.5 hours later as one mighty shark shiver.

As I reflect on the events of Saturday, I think about how many times in life we as leaders enter into situations we feel are absolute knowns.  We set out to lead those around us through obstacles, assuming the best way to do that is to confidently show demonstrate our own prowess.  However, we seem to forget that sometimes, circumstances change on a dime.  What we feel is an absolute known can suddenly provide shaky footing and no longer resemble anything we thought we knew.  When the ground begins to shift we can suddenly feel our plans crumble as we slip and slide to gain traction yet still appear to lead.  Maybe the better answer is to stop sliding, toss out the preconceived notion of the experience, embrace the demonstration of vulnerability that goes with failure, and to learn to climb those unstable muddy hills arm in arm with teammates just as we did, drawing strength from the shiver, not personal position or past experience.  I am beginning to think that this is where leadership really exists.

I am grateful today to my 8 newbies who gave this course hell and held me up through my own stumblings.  I can't think of a more amazing team of gifted sharks each of whom taught me something different about myself.  I only hope you are starting to see as I have, that it really doesn't matter how many goals you reach or how many obstacles you conquer,  the best is truly yet to come. AROO!

Pushing Past the Finish Line Pull Back

The summer of 1987.  Yes, those were the days.  I had finished high school and had not yet started college.  Complete freedom with little in the way of responsibility.  My friends and I would wear kickin' Swatch Watches and slap bracelets.  We would discover the world of vampires with the ever amazing Kiefer Southerland and his other lost boys.  There were the nights of me putting my finest mix tapes of Prince, Madonna, Cindy Lauper and George Michael in the dash of my 1986 Nissan Sentra and cruise around town for no good reason.  I will say, I was the only one with a gigantic "Say Anything" boom box that had a dual cassette drive making me the mix tape queen.

This was also the summer one of my best friends and I decided it was time for us to get into shape.  I was on Weight Watchers for the third time in my young life and thought maybe getting moving would get me closer to the ever elusive goal weight I had chased for so long.  We would set out from the grade school we went to in our double knit polyester track suits, Kangaroos, and a Walkman that was so big, it required some sort of harness to stay in  place while we ran.  We were not great runners.  We walked a lot, I was still heavy and usually I was just grateful for my much thinner friend who would not leave me behind.  If memory serves, we had some idea of what we eventually wanted to be able to do from the beginning, in terms of running ability, but there was a problem.  This was hard.  Really hard. I wheezed when I ran, my body hurt, and those polyester track pants may have been fashion forward, but on obese touching thighs attempting to run, they lacked a bit in functionality.  Ultimately for me it was simply easier to let life take over, pull back from the routine, and then stop all together.  To be honest, this pattern would be the perfect metaphor for the attempts at being healthy that would consume the 25 years that followed. 

I was thinking about those early runs last week as I had a client struggling with believing she could run any distance on her own.  No amount of talking to her convinced her.  The "I can't" was way stronger than the "Yes you can."  I decided it was just time to take her running.  I wanted her to see if I could do it, she could too.  Besides, I train at Orangetheory with her all the time.  I knew what she was capable of.  It was her who didn't.  As I headed into that day, it dawned on me, besides an organized race, I had not run outside the gym with another human being, besides my son, since the summer of '87. My history of running with others prior to that was limited to gym class where the ridicule ran deep and my confidence level was a firm zero, making this run almost as terrifying for me as she was saying it was for her. 

Finally the day came for our run.  We would hit up Lock 7, only for me, I had traded in my Swatch watch, my polyester double knit track pants, my Walkman harness and my Kangaroos for my trusty Apple Watch, Nike Dri Fit running shorts, a dri fit tank with my logo, a sleek neoprene arm band to house my iphone 10, and custom fit Brooks.  Yes, I was ready and a far cry from 1987.  As a side note, I cannot promise my play list was all that different though.   My newbie settled into her pace quickly and I found I was running comfortably enough that I could still point out landmarks, help her to count steps and breathe, and essentially work the whole mental side of endurance running.  Yes, this was going well.  She did not even stop to walk.  I guess in the 30 years that have passed I have gotten better at this running thing, and honestly having someone along really was not all that bad.

  Pretty soon I would see the yellow pole.  I love that yellow pole.  It sticks straight up out of the concrete signifying a road to cross along the bike path.  A pole placed to signify caution, yet to me it was the glorious finish.  I would tell my newbie to look at it, there it is, a quarter mile in the distance.  But wait, she's not next to me, she's behind me.  Wait.  Did I leave her behind?  Shit, my high school friend never left me.  I need to focus.  As I check my pace, I realize I hadn't sped up, she had slowed down.  She slowed down with the finish line right in front of her.  I found myself saying out loud,"you're pulling back.  We are at the end and you are pulling back. Oh hell no.  Not today." 

She picked it up, and we would finish.  Two days later we went on to run her first running 5k together.  She pulled back once in the last mile, and again, I employed the "hell no" strategy, linking arms with her and pulling her back on pace where she would stay until we saw the finish.  We came to the straight away and there it was.  I could see the doubt in her eyes, until I told her to look at the clock.   35 minutes.  She had done her last one walking, 75 pounds heavier months ago at 54 mins.  I felt this would be the one thing keeping her from pulling back at the end. She would see she was so far ahead of where she was months ago, she would surely want to triumphantly sprint to the finish.  I would point to a tree about 30 yards from the finish and tell her when we got there she was to give it all she had. Oh yes.  We had this. 

To my surprise, this very quiet racer to this point would say,"I F#@*ing can't!"  I was shocked.  She'd already kept pace for three miles.  This was 30 yards, she was winning.  Beating the prior versions of herself.  No.  This was not happening.  This was the moment at the wholesome family oriented Heart Association 5k I found myself shouting at her. "You F#@*ing can!  Now do it!"  You know what?  She did.  Sprinted to the finish completing it in under 37 minutes, almost 18 minutes faster than her last one. 

Since our two runs together, my newbie and me, I have thought a lot about this notion of pulling back just yards before the finish.  As illogical as it seemed with a glorious finish in site, the urge to pull back was stronger than the urge to succeed.  This is a notion I know all too well, dieting to within ten pounds of my goal, only to pull back and gain it all back.  Start an exercise program with a goal in mind such as a race, but never registering and giving myself an out.  Thing after thing.  Time after time.  I would come so close and pull back at the moment of truth. 

In the three years since I have been on this journey, I have learned there is something scary about success.  It changes who you are.  Being complacent in the failure is somehow easier than living up to expectations that will surely come with doing things you have never done before.  However,  we miss so much avoiding the thing we say we want so badly.  As for my high school friend, she and I reconnected some years back, both of us on a fitness journey, her as a marathon runner and me as a badass Spartan.  She would come to climb walls and  jump fire with me, and recently I would get to embrace the slap bracelet again with her during the handoffs of the 12 man 200 mile relay of Cape Cod Ragnar. 

Through it all I have conquered my fear of heights, well mostly. I learned that I need to stop calling myself a non-runner, because running is less about the hard I originally thought it was, and more about control.  It is that confidence and control that has leaked into other parts of my life, making the outsider's heightened expectations of me a bit easier to handle. 

Mostly, though,  I have learned the value of taking on these huge challenges with epic people.  Beyond all of the finish lines I have crossed in the last couple years, I have found some of the best times of my adult life, and learned I am so much more capable than I ever imagined.  These are things I would have missed had I continued to pull back like I did for all of those years.  A week from Saturday, I will take on the Chicago Spartan Super for the second time with my son, my friends and a team of newbies.  I hope those newbies realize, they will not pull back at the finish.  Nope.  Not on our watch.  As they will soon see, there is a lot of value that lives in the space beyond jumping the fire and the finish line and the best is truly yet to come. 

Learning to Not Barter Away My Own Store

I have five children adopted from two different countries, three from Russia, two from Haiti.  It was my tradition, as the adoptions drew to a close, to purchase something local to have as a keepsake from the time they made the transition to life here in the States.  For Katya it was a set of Russian blue nesting dolls, Jack, nesting dolls of famous Russian leaders, Zachary, was a hand made Pinnochio puppet, Grace, a Haitian doll and Alex a hand painted tap tap (Haiti's version of a cab).  Of course all of these things hold a special place in my china cabinet until they are all old enough to put them in their own china cabinets.  I often think back to the common thread in buying this stuff.  All of it was purchased at a road side stand in the middle of nowhere far away from here.  Said stands were always run by hungry people bartering to get the most for their wares.  Bartering.  This is not a task I enjoy.  The desperation on the faces of these people as they try to get as much money as they can, as they live in some of the poorest places in the world.

A funny thing seems to happen when this is the case.  Suddenly, there is no ability to make change.  The price stands firm.  I say 12 dollars, they say 20.  When I say no they stand firm for a while.  Then, just as I am walking away, they suddenly start adding more things to make up the difference due to their lack of change.  Pretty soon there is a bracelet, a plaque, another statue...  desperate to get the full 20 even if it means giving away the store.  Suddenly, the vendor loses all control of the transaction just to get the 20 out of my hand.  The ugly side of bartering in a 3rd world country is that their next meal truly may ride on my transaction.  So, typically, I would simply relent, allow them to keep some of the ever growing pile of wares, and give them the money.  Yes, I realize, I am a terrible barterer.

I was thinking about this very thing today.  I had a long chat with one of my sharks about pushing past the comfort zone of the group exercise class. I had settled into this a couple years ago myself.  The comfort zone of the trainer pointing the way, and friends to cheer you through.  I had never been successful on my own before now, and learning to trust myself to do other things has been a huge challenge.  Today was no exception.  I set out for a run after the comfort of my 2.5 mile interval hill climb at Orangetheory.  Just me and the trail.  The bartering with myself, just like I had done with some hungry Haitians a few years ago, began.  I parked the car and as I stared down the entrance to the trail, my resolve to run 30 mins suddenly began to waver.  I started offering myself less, maybe 20 would be ok.  Maybe I could walk some.  OK, NO.  I hit the trail at my usual 10:40 pace, and much like the vendors, stood firm.

I should say, I stood firm until I hit the 15 min mark.  I turned around and headed back to the car.  Pretty soon I saw my usual landmarks.  There was the Ferry Road Bridge in the distance.  OK I can make it there and then walk.  As I got there, I had to ask myself why I would want to walk?  I was breathing OK, nothing hurt that much, I was OK...keep going.  I had the same chat with myself as I came up on the park bench, only the old man sleeping on it kept me from walking there.  Then
 it was the orange barrel, I could stop there.  OK, wait, why?  I'm ok...keep going, I would pass the steel post signifying the road to cross was coming, and crossing that meant the final stretch, well I made it this far, I might as well finish.  Besides, I was emerging from the trail and I could see the beautiful water, with the sunshine.  As I looked out over the water I was suddenly realizing not quitting was so much better than giving in to my own low ball bartering.  That satisfied moment and many moments like it in this location in recent weeks has me beginning to think that Lock 7 very well may just be my happy place.

In the glow of a successful run, I truly began to think about how many times I had allowed my own hunger for something different allow me to relent part way through the plan and give away my own store.  I repeatedly gave away my goals and stood in my own way because my desire for a moment of comfort far outweighed a successful run or a good diet day, only to find myself disappointed once again.

Although from a business perspective, I guess I would be considered a terrible barterer.  However,  I wonder if maybe I am not altogether awful.  Maybe our job is really to not allow others to barter away their own stores in a moment of comfort, rather, help them build a bigger and better store.  Friday, I have the extreme fortune to be taking said shark on a run to bust her out of the comfort zone of group exercise and learn to trust her own abilities just as I am slowly learning to do.  One thing is for sure, she will never look at Lock 7 the same again and hopefully she will see, as I have, the best is yet to come.

Smell the Lilacs, Tie the Shoe

Cape Cod Ragnar.  Three simple words that have caused me a ton of anxiety, palpitations at times and at others down right fear. Ragnar was brought to me two years ago, by our amazing team captain right after I broke my hip.  This 200 mile 12 man running relay seemed so insurmountable for me at that time.  I had two issues.  I was on crutches fresh off a hip repair, and oh wait....I had never run more than two miles in my entire life, and at the one time I did do that, I did it poorly.  In fact, I only reluctantly agreed this year because I had taken our captain to a Spartan Race, so fair is fair.  So, last Friday, as we of Van 1 of Team 1DOS hit the start line it seemed almost surreal.  The sun was shining over the bay, the music upbeat, and the announcer buzzing with excitement.  We would send our runner off with the cheers of our mighty shark shiver and then take off to meet her at the first check point.  Oh shit.  The first check point, five miles from the start, that's where the first hand off would be, as in when runner two would take their first leg.  Oh wait.  I was Runner 2.  I would be running the next 4.9 miles.  My first leg of a race two years in the making.

I would take the slap bracelet hand off, adjust the music and go.  At first, all of the technical things I had learned were running through my head.  Breathe.  Relax.  Check your pace, 10:40, yep, let's keep it here.  One foot in front of the other.  There was a hill with a curve on a busy street without a sidewalk.  What do I know about a hill?  Oh yeah.  Channel your trainer. She always says,"lean into the hill, pump your arms and breathe", thanks Katie, yep, still hovering at 10:40, but was breathing hard from the hill.  Recover.  Flat road.  Fifteen seconds.  A voice of another coach, "it takes fifteen seconds to settle in and recover",  12, 13, 14,  ok , I am ok.  Keep going.  One foot in front of the other.

Around mile two, I would find my intense focus on technique would suddenly be interrupted with the overwhelming scent of lilacs.  There it was, a six foot lilac bush in full bloom.  When I was growing up I spent a lot of time at my grandmother's house in Clinton, Iowa.  She had big bushes like this too.  As my brain was flooded with memories of her, Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" came on.  "My Mama told me when I was young, we're all born superstars...." as my mind shifted gears to memories of my mom I realized how much I would have loved to have both my mom and grandmother here to see me do just this.  Neither of them really got the chance to see me healthy. They had both, instead, had a front row seat to decades of obesity.  They had dried my tears and made me feel loved when I was not so sure some days.  Yes, it would be amazing to have them here.   However, with the thick scent of lilacs, a beautiful clear day, and the perfect lyrics, somehow I think they were watching.  I would finish that leg with "Paradise City" blasting in my ears, and my team rallying around me and the belief that my mom and grandmother were cheering just as loudly.

Leg two proved to be a bit more harrowing.   This was my night run.  Probably the time to truly grasp the reality that I had never run at night with a headlamp on uncommon ground, was not five minutes before I set out to do just that.  My teammate who does this routinely sent me off with the advice to "keep an eye on the three feet ahead of you."  The first few hundred yards were me trying to figure out how to focus the headlamp, watch the ground, and still look ahead to where I was going.  I kinda felt like a baby giraffe learning to walk.  I was downright anxious and all over the place, until halfway up a hill into the second mile I would cross an intersection.  Amanda Street.  I have a friend Amanda.  She always seems to be the voice of reason and encouragement for me.  She has a way of squashing my doubts and manages to keep me grounded a lot of the time.  OK Amanda.  I got this.  Lean into the hill.  Pump my arms.  Breathe.  Point the headlamp three feet ahead.  Check pace.  10:24.  Wait, what? That's quick for me, but I feel fine.  Keep going.  I finally passed the three mile mark onto another hill.  This one had a van parked on the side.  Two men were getting out and crossing the street to where I was running.  They seemed to want something.  Wait.  It's dark.  I looked around and realized, there were no other runners here.  In fact there was nobody here but these people and me and my headlamp.  Well, they looked like a Ragnar team.  I was suddenly wishing I had thought to bring pepper spray.  If these were not ax murderers and truly were the Ragnar folk they appeared to be, maybe I was lost.  Did I miss a sign?  Was I off course? Crap.  I am ahead of my  pace and doing fine.  Yet now I am lost.  I finally took my ear bud out as they were just 3 feet away,"am I ok?"  It was then the man would say, barely above a whisper,"great job runner."

I would later learn, Ragnar etiquette is to keep from disrupting the neighborhoods at night. So, honking and yelling to encourage runners was not really acceptable.  So, this creepy whispery form of odd encouragement was the trade off.  I would also later learn this encourager was famous for this sort of thing.  Later, this phrase would somehow take hold in our sleep deprived van causing us to insert it wherever appropriate into conversation many times over the days that followed, each time meeting with fits of laughter.  In fact, we now have developed a hash tag I can't look at without giggling (#greatjobrunner).  Nonetheless, I would finish that 3.2 mile leg, ironically again to "Paradise City", faster than even my team thought, as they casually stood at the hand off chatting, not even realizing I had finished,"HEY!"  I would shout.  They laughed,"oh sorry you got done quick!"  I would look at my watch and realize I really had.  Fast for even me.  Perhaps it was the fear of the dark or the desire to quickly put some distance between me and the "great job runner"guy.


Our van would finish all of our second legs at a cool 2:00 am, only to find a quick shower and a couple of fitful hours of rest on a cold gym floor before we would take on the third and final legs.  Grateful for my jet propelled Starbucks latte before I began mine on day two, I would start my final 4.6 miles on a cloudy, cold and even a bit rainy day. I gave myself all of my running instructions as I plodded along just as I had before.  Before long I would find myself four miles in, realizing I had done it.  Two years of fear.  Two years of training. Learning how to run with control and even conquer the hills without losing pace. I would cross the street and into the park where I knew the handoff was.  Yes I had this.  I was like a freaking superhero.....  until.,,  Wait.  Shit.  My left shoe feels lose.  No.  No!  The laces started smacking me in the ankle.  NO!  I am making a badass triumphant photo finish.  My shoe is untied.  I should say screw it and keep going.  Well, I had 2/10's of a mile to go.  Then again, I do not have a history of extreme grace.  I have a history of being clutzy.  Like when I broke my ankle rolling it on a Lego.  Hm.  There are other runners around.  I will look like an idiot stopping to tie my shoe so close to then.  I then had to think about what I would look like as my teammate said,"faceplanting four feet from the finish."

As I argued with myself, I began to think about how many times we set big goals and look so hard at the glory of the finish that we fail to see the things that can ultimately cause us to face plant before we get there.  There are the unexpected curve balls life throws at us like an illness or injury we didn't plan on, or a bad diet day and suddenly the super hero sensation of crossing the finish line goes away and we find ourselves face down and done.  Maybe instead the thing to do is face the obstacle. Stop.  Retie the shoe, take a deep breath and make the finish great.  As for me?  Yes.  I stopped and tied the shoe, and went on to dominate the finish line with my third round of "Paradise City", amazed that the shuffle feature on my itunes seemed to always come back to this.  I had hugs from my team and fresh tears, making that little pause well worth it as I remained firmly upright.

Since the race, I have had three more runs, only this time with double knotted shoes and now at that 10:24 pace.   I even sanctioned off a very special corner of my flower beds to plant my new lilac bush, proving to myself, I have amazing people in my life who's voices are slowly drowning out the voices of self doubt that used to play loudly in my head.  I also am beginning to see I am probably capable of more than I ever thought, and that even though my mom and grandmother are no longer here, their spirit is strong.  The best is truly yet to come.

Being More Like Marvin the Martian, Three Year Reflections

When I was a school aged child in the late 70's, I can remember how important Saturday morning was. It held two coveted things, no school and Saturday morning cartoons.  There was Hong Kong Phooey, Grape Ape, Roadrunner and even Marvin the Martian, one of my personal favorites.  He had that clever quiet sinister style to him which made outwitting his foes appear flawless.  Not to mention that he did it wearing a Roman style helmet and Chuck Taylors.  In my teen years I would go on to own Chucks in yellow, pink and even classic canvas.  Nonetheless, Marvin was cool and at that time pretty much all I knew about Mars. 

I would later come to learn that Mars was thought to have once been full of beautiful lakes and oceans, with many seasonal changes.  This week, I was reflecting the start of  my 85 pound weight loss journey that began with a single OrangeTheory workout exactly three years ago.   I Googled what else could be achieved in 3 years just for fun, and the answer was to travel to Mars and back.  How cool is that?   I can honestly say, in my 48 years I have never been able to stick with a weight loss plan or fitness schedule like I have this one.  I have lost the weight and begun to inspire others to do the same, and in the same amount of time I could have gone to find Marvin.  Seems like a stark raving success right?  Well maybe so, but by declaring that, we really have not really read the fine print of the full story.

First of all, to get to Mars and back is not really a three year journey.  It's six months there, wait two years for the Earth and Mars to be as close as they can be, then six months back.  So, essentially you have to camp out on Mars for a while.  To be honest, this is exactly how it felt.  The first six months, was the gung ho excitement of huge weight loss, big gains and trying new things.  However, once I hit six months,  I would find, just as scientists found on Mars, there are so many seasons on this journey, each one with new challenges of it's own. 

There was initially the notion that if gains came with working out, then clearly I needed to work out more.  If one hour of OTF a day was good, two were better.  My hip hurts?  No problem.  Keep going.  I slipped and can't walk?  Crutch it into the gym and try to bike anyway.  Push, push, push, six months into my journey until I woke up in a hospital bed on a dilaudid pump realizing overexercising had broken the largest bone in my body and I now was the proud owner of a hip full of titanium, and furthermore I was pretty sure my journey was over.

Fighting through  that crushing defeat, the rehab season followed.  I was smarter then.  One hour was enough, and stay true to eating clean.  There was yoga to ease the sore muscles and begin to tame the anxiety of working out less.  Later, there was the first Spartan Race at Fenway Park.  I would arrive there, and although I looked healthy, in my mind, I wondered what it was I was doing there among these people who appeared to be serious athletes.  I had essentially been the fat non athlete most of my life.  I would find myself self conscious at the start line, and nearly paralyzed with fear at the top of the 15 foot cargo net second guessing what it was I was doing.  I would go on to finish and stand on the first baseline of Fenway with my first medal around my neck crying my eyes out with my poor son trying to provide the comfort and support as he always has on my journey.  I would go on to race in five more races, even completing the trifecta of a Spartan Sprint, Super and Beast in 2017.  The insecurity seems to be becoming less each time.  I would love to say it has totally passed, but don't suppose it ever will.  In my last two races, I have had the honor of taking newbies to their first races and watch them learn as I have, that what we think we are capable of is probably not even close to reality.

In the last six months, I have taken on endurance running.  The anxiety producing task that brought back pace slowing memories of being ridiculed in gym class.  I long convinced myself I was not an endurance runner.  Yes, I ran Spartans, even a 20 mile beast, but Spartans were different.  There running was simply a way to get from one obstacle to the next, not sustained distance running.  However, I was roped into the skull crushing 12 man 200 mile relay known as Ragnar.  Fair is fair, I had taken the captain to her first Spartan Race, so I felt obligated to commit to this.  With the Cape Cod Ragnar only 7 days away at this point, and six months of training for it behind me, I have to say that running for endurance has taught me to exert energy with control and in doing it fairly well now, I have found it surprisingly empowering.  Me.  The non distance runner. Empowered by running, suddenly thinking the Disney Marathon in January is an excellent idea. 

Now that I have settled into running for endurance, though, it became simple to convince myself that running with speed was not a thing.  I blamed my hip.  My age.  My acid reflux.  No, its not those things either.  It's mental.  The notion that the fat girl has nothing.  The fat girl who needed a designated runner in softball because there was no way she was stealing bases, and was most certainly going to be last when it came to running the Cooper (1.5 miles) in junior high. So as I take this on as my next big thing, by applying an adage from a training friend,"some days you say fuck it.  You go hard and if you puke you puke."   Much to my surprise today, I did just that and found myself at a sprint of 6"56' pace for a short period of time suddenly realizing just maybe speed could be a thing.


When we look at the history of Mars, the current thought is that there once were rivers and lakes and life.  I think prior to the last three years, I settled for a life that I thought was just fine.  My own, what I felt were beautiful, lakes and rivers, but in reality, I think in a lot of ways I was simply drowning.  I was unable to believe I could no longer be morbidly obese,  and instead be healthy and, given enough time and training, could accomplish any physical challenge.  Considering motivating others to do the same was not even on the radar.  The reality is, though, at this point modern Mars is dry and uninhabitable.  I suppose that is what my three year journey has been about, six months in, start life on a planet I have no understanding of, with two years of various seasons of changes until the old life of doubt and "I can't" no longer threaten to pull me under.  I have come to learn that my old life was is simply no longer inhabitable, and it is time to go back and make things all new.  Only this time, realizing I have the power to make it any way I want to.   

So, here I go.  Setting out on year four of my health journey.  As I get busy with the scary task of goal setting, I think I will take a page out of Marvin's book.  Strap on the Chuck Taylors, show up with quiet confidence and outwit the competition, even if the competition is the old me. 

Conquering the Change Up Strike Out

I played a lot of ball growing up.  I was raised with brothers and a strong affinity for Cubs baseball.  I joined my first team at the age of 7 when I played on the ever famous Glen Ellyn Northerns T ball team in the western suburbs of Chicago.  I can remember the opposing coach bringing the infield in when I came up to bat, well at first anyway.  I was the chubby kid and I was a girl, in fact,the only girl on the team.  I think the perception carried further when they realized my dad was actually the coach.  In hindsight, it was the late70's, and I think they probably felt my dad coaching was the only way one of two girls in the league could play.   It took a couple of at bats for them to realize I could hit the ball like the boys and moving in was probably not necessary.  From there, I would go on to play softball for the next ten years.  Although my childhood obesity would keep me from being the stolen base queen, certainly learning to get my weight behind the ball would lead to the nickname my brothers gave me in junior high,"Big Tomahawk."  To this day, I can almost feel the aluminum bat in my hands as the bat meets the ball in the sweet spot with the perfect ping sending a line drive out to center field.  It was the perfect swing, with the perfect strike and the sweetest reward.

Over time, the pitches would get faster and faster, making that sweet reward a little tougher to come by, but oh when it did.....I suppose that begins to explain my desperation at times to toss my Dad's age old advice,"Amy, stop swinging for the fences."  He was forever telling me to slow down, swing clean, not jerky and take the ball for a ride.  It was this very struggle that often times in high school I would routinely find myself with an 0 and 2 count against one of our league's only 70 mile an hour pitcher.  In my desperation to hit the hardest pitcher in the league, I would find myself swinging for the fences as the ball came hurdling toward me two pitches in a row.  Not to worry.  I was ready for pitch 3.  Square up, elbow up, half swing and focus.  I would watch the pitchers arm fly around fast pitch style under hand, release, and swing.  Wait a minute.  Where was the ball?  It was not even half way to the plate yet.  What the hell just happened?  The change up.  That's what.  A seemingly lightning fast pitch watching the release, but in reality was all smoke and mirrors as the pitch actually was floating in at slow pitch speed perfectly placed over the plate for that third strike long after my swing was over.  It was in these moments where I found myself confused and frustrated with my inability to see it coming and knowing that if I had, and been a wee bit patient I could once again hit the sweet spot and taken that ball deep into the outfield.  Instead, I found myself slinking away from the plate with absolute defeat. 

I suppose as an adult this is what happens with the multifaceted trials of life.  We suddenly see life hurdling at us faster than it ever has before and we spend our time  swinging at it with such ineffective vengeance that we find ourselves on the verge of complete strike out.  Just as we reach that point, another wrinkle, another change, something we were completely unprepared for.  Admittedly, the last 10 months have been like that for me, between the sudden death of my mother and unexpected serious illnesses among the people I love.  Not to mention, I was branching out from Spartan Racing to other actual flat out distance running events this year and somehow could not seem to master endurance running with any sort of proficiency.  I was out of gas quickly, and could not run the speed I thought I should be able to no matter how hard I tried.

With so many challenges all at once, I began to realize that really I spent a lot of time desperately swinging for the fences when the challenges, despite their volume, were no hurdling fast pitches, they were really one large change up that really required something different entirely.  They required extended quiet reflection and patience as I allowed them to change the way I look at things and develop a new normal. 

As I slowed my mind and tried to deal with the issues at hand, I was also advised by a trainer to slow my running paces down.  Although it seemed like such a step backwards, I did it anyway because clearly what I was doing was getting me exactly nowhere.  Plus she is a distance runner and seemed to be reasonably sure I could be one too, at that point in December I was just glad someone was.  Since that time, I have slowly learned how to maneuver my life again and yes, even the running has gotten so much better.  Today, I found myself doing three separate distance challenges.  A ten minute, a five minute and a 2.5 minute.  I found myself calculating from the minute the 3,2,1 countdown began for the first one.  What pace I would start at, when I would increase and what I would end up at.  Little by little I chipped away at each distance.  I did not have any of my usual workout crew there, so I had no need to worry about anyone else.  Just me versus me.

When I finished I realized something.  I had run with patience and control and conquered so much distance at speeds that even surprised me.  I didn't cough or wheeze like I did when I was in junior high as the hecklers laughed.  I didn't walk because I had tried to reach the speed my pride felt I should be at and gone too hard out of the gate. 

I had finally seen the change up life had lobbed at me for what it was, a long trial initially disguised as a 70 mph fast ball, that did not require a swing for the fences hack, instead a simple quiet focus so that I could finally hit the sweet spot, hear the ping and send it for a ride.  Today was finally the day I got to set aside my insecurities about childhood gym class bullying, or my adult insecurities about not being the fastest, and take my 2.2 mile run in those blocks and wear it with pride as it was done with  patience and control, two things I had lost while I was busy swinging for the fences.  I suppose now I better stop referring to myself as a "Spartan Racing Non Distance Runner" and revel in the things I am learning as I progress in endurance running.

I must say, at 85 years old, my dad is still my dad, full of the wisdom only dads have,  and I am thankful for the lessons he has taught me even if sometimes I need a little reminder.  Thanks Dad for always being there to remind me that no matter what life tosses at me, the best is yet to come.

Fighting off Fake Spring, Tulip Style

Well, it is official.  I have been home from vacation for one week today.  Some people like to say,"back to reality."  The truth is,  life's trials did not go away in Florida, they somehow just seemed better under the shade of the palm trees in my favorite pair of flip flops.  I suppose my return to upstate NY was made that much worse when nobody informed the weather that it was, in fact, spring.  In the seven days since I have been home, the kids have needed snow boots, hats and scarves and I don't think the sun actually shines in this area anymore.  Most nights have called for a fire in the fireplace and a pair of Ugg mocassins.  Add in some late shifts, lack of sleep and now I feel reasonably certain any amount of rest I got last week has completely worn off.

I trudged through last week, annoyed every day that I woke up and was no longer at the beach.  Morning after morning I found myself bundling up kids in their winter best much like the scene in "A Christmas Story" where in fact, they may not have been able to totally put their arms down.  All this,  just to get them down the driveway to the bus.  Around the second day of this, I found myself standing at the end of my breezeway looking at the front flower bed waiting for the bus with my 8 year old, when suddenly she said  "Look Mommy.  What is that?"   

There it was.  Thick green leaves poking through the spotty snow.  My tulips.  Here's the thing about me and gardening.  I am not a gardener.  I don't seem to have time to plant, prune, weed or fertilize, and I admittedly know very little about decorative plants.  So, years ago I developed an affinity for bulbs.  Year after year, with my absolute neglect, they rise and look beautiful anyway.  Not this year though.  Looks like our "spring"  may threaten even my low maintenance flower bed plan.  Freaking fantastic.   Yes, this was life away from the beach.  

Since the day I noticed the tulips coming, I have been waiting for them to appear dead.  Punishing snow, wind, freezing temperatures, yet every day they are a little bit bigger.  It is as if the tulip had decided it really didn't matter what was going on around it that should have made it nearly impossible to thrive, it was going to stand tall, show spring who is boss, and not take any crap from mother nature.

It makes me think of how many times we halt our own growth due to things completely out of our control, allowing the chaos of the trials of life to completely stand in our way.  We tend to wait for circumstances to change or for other people to prune us, pick the weeds around us, and spread the proverbial manure in the hopes that these will be the things that make us strong and propel us forward.  The reality is, by immersing ourselves in the chaos, we miss out on the fact that the ability to thrive truly comes from within. By missing this, we miss the amazing opportunity to learn what our potential actually is.  We always have the ability to grow more, be more beautiful and thrive despite what life may throw at us.  We just may forget this from time to time.

Today, it was pouring rain.  I am not at the beach.  I have traded in my flip flops for a down North Face, but every day I can see my emerging tulips not giving up their fight against fake spring and realize sometimes we just need to stop allowing the trials of life's crap to hold us back, and stand tall and grow, because, eventually the pay off will be the beautiful colorful bloom that will accent the entire yard.  Oh, and of further note, as of today, it would appear that the lilies in the other flower bed appear to be just as badass as the tulips.