Ragnar Northwest Passage 2016

This past July I captained a Ragnar Relay team. (The team did all the hard work, I just signed us up and gave us a stupid name.) Twelve of my favorite running family members (and a couple friends who might as well be family) ran approximately 200 miles from the Canadian border to Langley, Whidbey Island through some of the Northwest's most impressive scenery (and a few boring fields).

I was six months pregnant at the time. Along with a challenging 9-mile hike I did with my dearest Adventure Friend, these were my crowning physical achievements of the summer and my pregnancy (apart from actually birthing Little Squish).

Our team was called "Help the Children." This was the design of our team shirt, along with a quote that said, "Let the children RUN to me." It was supposed to be a joke, but from a lot of the reactions I received, very nice Christians took it seriously, and were moved by the sweetness, and non-Christians thought we were weird Christians who made the Ragnar race a Jesus thing.

Here's how the race works:

 

After our first leg, my van stopped at Shari's for breakfast. It was pure diner food bliss. 

 

Pancakes, scrambled eggs, hash browns, bacon, AND sausage!!!

Running long distances in the Northwest gives me a deeper appreciation for the variety and beauty of my home.

Thanks, Megan, Andrew, Jared, Mike, Melita, Dad, Uncle Brian, Lois, Lori, Anne Marie, Amy, and Uncle Jeff! We didn't come in last! Go team Help the Children!

Guts

Approximately 8 weeks ago, Little Squish was born via unplanned c-section. She's the best baby! She already has strong, kicky legs, which make me fantasize about her future as a runner.

Since my last big event in July, the only running I've done was a micro-jaunt across the Goodwill parking lot to return a shopping cart. And that was before I underwent major abdominal surgery.

I've always known that cesareans are a big deal. I was aware that to get to the baby, surgeons cut through skin, fat, fascia, muscle, and the uterus. What was a surprise was learning that anesthesia has a significantly lower effect on the left side of my body that the right. Weird! So while I very much appreciated my epidural and the numbing drugs of surgery, I could still feel contractions before the c-section and the repair part of surgery on the left side of my abdomen. Not good.

Another c-section surprise came from my kind and supportive anesthesiologist. As I experienced that left-side pain during surgery, she calmly explained that it probably hurt because my uterus was outside of my body. (!!!) Later I confirmed with my doula that that was a real thing that she really said. I was definitely loopy and don't recall telling the surgeons they might as well pierce my belly button while they were at it, so perhaps that whole uterus thing was a drug dream. But no, a little research confirmed that sometimes surgeons repair the uterus with the organ outside the body for easier access. (Happily my belly button remains unpierced.)

My recovery has been fast uncomplicated, although I have never experienced such terror at the thought of sneezing. I'm going to the gym, taking walks, and feeling stronger. I'm itching to run, and yet, there are still nagging fears about starting.


Fear #1: My incision is not healed enough and the intensity of running will make my midsection pop open and my guts will spill out all over the place. Obviously, this is an irrational fear, and yet it's an image I can't shake when I think about running again.

Fear #2: I'm physically too messed up and weak and I'll get injured and not be able to run. This fear comes from my tendency to overdo it when I'm excited about something. I'm impatient to get back to the runner I used to be and I sometimes forget that I'm weak. My joints are funky from the hormonal changes of pregnancy, my core is confused from surgery, and my muscles are under-toned after all those weeks of recovery. Training has to look different, which takes some mental and emotional adjustment.

Fear#3: I won't have time to train, so I won't make much improvement, so I will give up and never reach any goals or have fun or do anything I want to do for the next 18-30 years. I've only been a parent for 8 weeks. Hopefully I'll get better at finding a healthy balance.

Even though I carry these fears, there is this drive to pick up the pace. Now that Little Squish is out, Little Dude has some room to kick around again. When I walk, I feel full of energy and pep. Fizzy joy tingles in my legs and I want to go faster. I haven't run yet, but it will happen very soon.

I'm going to listen to my gut, keep building my strength, take it slow, and stop if something doesn't feel right. And hopefully my gut will stay firmly lodged in my torso as I take those first strides.

4 Phases of Running

The following phases occur over the course of a 3-mile run. 

• Phase 1: Miles 1-2
• Phase 2: Miles 2-2.25
• Phase 3: Miles 2.25-3
• Phase 4: End of mile 3

Tough MF

The little drawings I do are deceptive. I like that they accurately reflect my negligible neck; however, I am far from triangular in shape and no one will ever mistake my legs for twigs. I like to characterize my body type as "refrigerator." Made of mochi. Filled with slabs of beef.

This is not self-deprecation. I am proud to come from a long line of refrigerators. They have remarkable physical stamina, are able to lift and haul, endure and persevere. They're sturdy and durable in the very finest sense of the words.

My mochi coating keeps me warm and gives me a delightfully intimidating heft. The marbled Kobe beef just below the surface is dense and powerful, able to propel me long distances. When I break up middle school fights, even the biggest kids are no match for my physical presence.  My stature makes me brave. I'm one tough Mochi Fridge!

Unfortunately, "refrigerator" is not a highly-valued body type. And no one can tell when a refrigerator is pregnant. I just look like a larger appliance. As I grow from standard kitchen fridge to industrial cooling device, it's easy to wish I looked like something else -- an hourglass, a marble glued to a chopstick, Salma Hayak. It's tough motivating a dispirited refrigerator, especially coming off a long break without exercise.

Happily, I have family and friends who have agreed to run a 200-mile relay this summer, and we all need motivation for myriad reasons. To prepare for this race, I did a double run on Saturday. My crowning achievement was running a full mile without stopping. While it was tempting to dwell on what a pathetic feat this was, I instead chose to marvel at the progress I made in one week's time. Seven days prior, I huffed around the track in a panic, stopping to walk every eighth of a mile. This week, I huffed with confidence, reaching the mile point before taking my first walk break. That's pretty impressive progress! (Special thanks to my sister for patiently running at my pace and distracting me from the unpleasantness of the situation.)

For the second run of the day, six of us met at the track in the evening. While we ran we planned for the relay, designed our team shirt (it's going to be amazing), caught up on life, and laughed a lot. My favorite part of the evening was our session of planks which led to the development of a new form of exercise, yo-ha-ha -- yoga interspersed with jokes to make your core work even harder. I'm telling you, my running team is brilliant.

Go team! Thanks for helping this refrigerator keep running.

Running with Little Squish

I am three months pregnant. This means running with Little Squish boppin' around, changing what running looks like for the next year (or forever). (I had a dream that we asked my sister to name the critter, and she told us to name it "Little Squish.")

Yesterday I ran the Whidbey Island half marathon with eleven family members and friends. It also happened to be the birthday of my grandfather, who would have been 93. Spending the day with family, seeing my Uncle Jeff running in Grandpa's Hawaiian shirt, and commemorating Grandpa with his favorite Dairy Queen treat (the Peanut Buster Parfait), was a joyful way to remember him.

I was nervous about this race because I've only been running about once a week, with some walking here and there. Adding to the stack of worry, my last long run was a 15k about two months ago, and my cousin Stephanie whose presence makes hard runs fly by wasn't going to be there. I also woke up with a cramp deep in my shoulder that made it impossible to take a deep breath without pain.

But for all my concerns, the run went really well.

Least Favorite Moment(s):
I used all but one of the port-o-potties on the route, and still had to make an emergency squat in a secluded wooded area next to the road. On the plus side, I felt much more motivated to keep running in order to reach the next rest stop quickly. Unfortunately, running also increased the bladder pressure and urgency to release the floodwaters, whereas walking reduced this feeling. Run or walk? Very uncomfortable for a slightly shorter period of time or just uncomfortable for a longer period of time?

This is the second race I've completed while pregnant, but it was the first run where Little Squish made its presence known. My theory is that Little Squish is a huge fan of running, and that when it gets excited, it starts to kick its silly little legs, and swing its silly little arms, inadvertently kicking and punching my bladder as soon as I've run 100 yards away from the last port-o-pot.

Favorite Moment:
I passed three people who were walking, and one of them said, "She looks effortless too." Now, I'm an English Language Arts teacher, so let's take a moment to do a deep analysis of this sentence:

By "she," we can assume they were talking about me. I didn't turn around and check if there was someone else behind me, but no one else was near us when I passed them, so it's reasonable to conclude that I am the effortless-looking one.

"Looks effortless," must have been in reference to my running gait and style, since I was actually running at that moment. This means my self-perception as a clunky, stompy wobble monster is clearly incorrect.

Finally, although small, the adverb "too" is perhaps the most significant word in the statement. It indicates that right before I passed them, the walkers were discussing other people who also look effortless when they run. When one imagines people who look effortless while running, one naturally envisions Kenyan marathoners. Therefore, it is perfectly reasonable to infer that according to these highly astute walkers, I look like a Kenyan marathoner when I run.

I'm sore today, and getting off the couch would definitely not be described as "effortless,"but the aching muscles are a nice reminder that I can still run. And I will still run.


 

PF Chang Wants to Ruin My Life

After running the 2014 Honolulu Marathon in very old running shoes (the same ones I trained and ran in the previous year), I developed a pain in my heel that made walking across the laminate floor a daily trudge through the sixth ring of hell: only instead of heretics trapped in flaming tombs, it was my left foot. My dad (who is not a physician) diagnosed me with plantar fasciitis. My physician, with somewhat less certainty said, it sounds like plantar fasciitis, so let's treat it like that and see what happens.

Naturally I did none of the exercises she suggested, and continued with my self-prescribed treatment of really really hoping it would just go away. As one might expect, this did not lead to any noticeable change in the sensation of walking on a bed of red hot needles dipped in sriracha every morning. It did lead to the purchase of several pairs of Crocs. I have indoor Crocs, outdoor Crocs, Crocs for teaching all day, and flip flop Crocs. Don't worry, the Crocs I wear in public look like Toms or Vans. Despite the pain, I tried to maintain some sense of dignity.

The pain was worrisome. How could I train for a big running goal if the day after running I hobbled, barely able to support my own weight with that feeble foot? Would training further shred that poor, stressed strip of fascia? Why was my body betraying me when I had such noble goals for us? Why do I have to be so damn human? The thought of further damaging my foot loomed every time I thought about training. No longer just a nifty appendage at the end of a limb, my foot was a fully-formed saboteur.

We named him PF Chang. PF for plantar fasciitis, and just like the restaurant, I am somewhat Asian, so the Chang seemed appropriate. (Yes, my foot is a dude, because, hello? in systems of patriarchy, who sabotages women? Dudes.)

Naming my foot not only made me laugh, it also helped me build a relationship with this blob of inflamed tissue emerging from my ankle. I started noticing patterns to the pain. It was worst after running. Wearing exclusively Crocs for the rest of the day immediately after running significantly decreased the next's morning's pain. Walking at least a quarter mile in those Crocs after running reduced the pain even more. The more downward dogs I did, the less I winced when I walked the next day. And miraculously, the more I ran, cross-trained, and stretched, the more PF Chang improved. I've had more wince-free mornings in the past month than I've had in the past year and a half.

 PF Chang isn't gone forever. In fact, after a couple weeks of exercise coming second to the 15 million commitments I have this semester, my old buddy has been vying for more attention. And like a neglected middle schooler, those appeals for attention are disruptive, painful, and inappropriate. While my first instinct may be to yell "Dude, shut up!" I will appeal to my better self and use my cache of tools to productively and humanely attend to PF's needs, while still holding him accountable, because being my foot is a major responsibility.

The Thrill of Potential Nudity

An important milestone happened this week. I exercised enough to run out of workout clothes. I had to do an unscheduled load of laundry, or run naked. This has not happened to me in a very, very long time. At the height of training for my first marathon in 2008, I regularly did an extra mid-week load of laundry to keep away the stink.

I have not had consistent laundry issues since then. (I also have not run a faster marathon since then.) You may be thinking, girl, just go get yourself enough workout clothes to last a week, which would be an entirely logical solution. Unfortunately, it is also a rather expensive one that I have a hard time justifying if most of those new workout clothes are going to languish in my drawers once the heat and passion of a new running goal, or new training regimen, or new gym membership have inevitably worn off.

My running bras alone are breath-taking works of architectural ingenuity. Investing in architecture requires thoughtful financial planning to ensure a good return on your investment (minimal chafing is permissible in exchange for a bounce-free experience) and avoid bankruptcy (show me effective, breast-taming architecture that costs under $75).

Then there comes the task of finding running tights that A) fit properly, B) are comfortable, C) will not immediately burn through at the inseams due to the heat and friction of my mighty thighs, D) maintain opacity when I bend over, and E) cost less than what I would spend on a week of groceries. (I regularly compromise on C and D for the sake of E, and to do all my gym stretching with my butt facing the wall.)

But after several months now of imperfect, but consistent training and healthy-esque eating, I venture to claim that I am actually making the long-term, sustainable changes in the patterns of my life, which are the foundation of my big running goal. And since I want these patterns to include changes in how I think, then I think I should go buy some new workout clothes.

Embedded beneath my self-confidence, firmly lodged right under that touch narcissism is a voice that tells me I should wait until I'm a certain kind of runner, or have a different body, or have somehow earned new workout clothes. This voice implies that the version of myself that exists right now is not good enough and doesn't deserve it. When I think like this, I mire myself in a sticky, toxic narrative that posits present me is not the real me. It says happiness and satisfaction only exist in the future when I'm finally not who I am right now. That's gross!

And so, to honor present me, and celebrate the authenticity of the joy in my life, I'm going workout clothes shopping this week. And then I'm going to use those workout clothes. Because I'm a runner. And I don't want to run naked. Ever. 

I'm in Training

I adore french fries. Thick and tender steak fries, curly twists of seasoned starch, zigzag-sliced tubers, county fair blocks of deep-fried spuds, hand-cut artisan, or McDonald's frankenfries, I consume them all with soulful, life-affirming gusto. I love them even more than I love hyperbole, and without hyperbole, I'd probably die.

But I'm in the market for some long-term change, and conventional wisdom (or the "wisdom" pedaled to women in order to persuade us to conform to a narrow vision of beauty, acceptability, and happiness - I digress) suggests that french fries and big athletic goals are mutually exclusive. Objections to the objectification of women aside, conventional wisdom has a point. Eating as many french fries as my heart truly desires is not the most efficient way to become a better runner.

So here's what I've been doing lately: I've been telling myself I'm in training. It's a tiny little phrase that's been essential in getting me to the gym and getting leafy greens into my body with shocking regularity. I have a few theories about why it's so effective.

1) It's immediate. I'm not going to be in training starting this weekend, or on the first day of next month, or once this semester is over. I'm in training right now. And so I need to do the things that runners in training do. Like eat kale. Right now.

2) It's a reminder. When confronted with the slender, golden body of a crisp, yet tender french fry, it's easy to forget about my big goals. Telling myself, I'm in training reminds me to move toward those goals. And when I'm reminded about my grand plans, I get really excited and remember all the other things I can be doing or eating that are still pleasurable, but are not french fries.

3) It slows me down. Identifying as a person in training gives me pause in a frenzied fog of lust for salt and grease, and makes me think, do I absolutely have to have fries right now? Often the answer is sweet gold of Idaho, yes, french fries are the only solution. But most of the time, remembering I'm in training is a bucket of ice water to those lusty yearnings.

Being in training doesn't mean I don't eat french fries any more. Deprivation, a sense of loss, and  dimming the spark of life in my eyes are not part of my long-term goals. I'm not training to be an elite athlete, I'm training for successful big runs. The fries can stay, they just need a little balance. So I'm going to keep bringing my gym bag to work, keep eating kale, and keep reminding myself:

I'm in training!

Power in Numbers

No matter how many different motivation strategies I discover and try, they all lose luster after a while, and I'm back to the grinding slog of getting myself to do what I need to do. But one strategy that doesn't seem to lose its effectiveness is peer pressure.

Meeting with other people to exercise takes the unpleasantness out of what might otherwise be another boring training session. There are definitely days when I relish a solo workout with nothing but my body and brain to keep my company. But when I only rely on myself to keep me accountable in my training, I get a little soft. I am a very accommodating personal trainer. You worked hard yesterday, go ahead, take a day off. And eat a doughnut. 

Family Track Club saves the day! For the past three weeks, my cousins, siblings, dad, friends, and I have been meeting on Saturdays to run around the middle school track together. We represent a range of ages (1-68) and fitness levels, from marathon runners to 5K walkers. The beauty of the track is we can all move at our own paces, and yet we can all be together, socializing and supporting. Our weekly gatherings are also a reminder that I am part of an amazing family. I belong to an adventurous crew that is up for anything. They're so inspiring!

I'm usually not too enthusiastic about getting out the door on a Saturday morning, but once I'm on the track with a gaggle of people I adore, those laps fly by. Even though we're working hard, the fun numbs the pain (for the most part). Social training is not going to lose its luster any time soon.