Hello and happy Monday! I have birthday stories to tell and garden notes plus lots of gratitude and insight to share about the KFOR “Remarkable Women” experience. My heart is full, and I hope you’ll check in throughout the week to see what’s going on at the Lazy W.

But today I have a running and fitness update. This is our first Marathon Monday blog post of 2020, and there might not be many this year. Let’s dive in!

Only 47 days remain before the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon. I am one of many local runners who are beginning week 12 of an 18 week Luke Humphrey (formerly Hansons) training cycle, and momentum is building. The easy volume is well established, my body has long since preferred running six days per week, and gradually the “SOS” workouts are not just doable; they are also pretty exciting. I can see that my body is adapting week by week. I feel stronger and more capable of running a good, strong full marathon than I ever thought possible. April 26th will be the day to prove it, ha!

Speedy days can be literally terrifying to me if I spend too much time anticipating them. But, as with every difficult task in life, once they are completed, the feeling of exhilaration is irreplaceable. Learning to speed up and grab that feeling of control over and over again has been disorienting and fun and, again, exhilarating. One of my motivations for pursuing a BQ is that I crave more agency over my own body. More impulse control, more awareness of how things feel, more control over everything from hunger to power and exhaustion, fear and focus and self consciousness, resolution, all of it. Internalizing the sensations of narrow pace ranges has helped a lot with this.

Okay. I could talk about that forever.

I have recently learned a few things worth sharing:

• Do not look too far ahead at the SOS workouts, because stressful anticipation can erode your confidence and ruin the fun. I write them down in my planner a few weeks ahead and try to ignore the details until the morning of each workout. Then, if I feel queasy about it, I consciously fill my head with at least three times as many positive affirmations and negative fears. It’s just good old fashioned encouragement to myself. Nothing fancy, but it helps.
• Stay in the moment and trust the experience. Remember that no matter how hard any interval may feel in the moment, you invariably feel stronger and healthier and somehow magically better at the end of the full workout. Run the mile you’re in. Run the interval you’re in. Be in the moment. Let the next step or interval or mile or challenge bring its own difficulty. Worrying about what is coming next just ruins the current effort. Trust deep down that you have everything you need, that tomorrow and even race day are already well provided for. Every single day that seemed like the hardest test ever, has turned out to be a blip on my radar. I bounce back almost immediately, even as the weeks grow in difficulty. This is good to remember.
• I have been reminded of the crucial little daily habits! Dynamic warm ups are great for cold muscles and joints, slow stretching is magical for an exhausted body, and strength moves are imperative, not optional. My feet are the first to let me know that my hips are getting weak. Pretty cool little warning system built in there. Spend the time.
• Run those speed and tempo days outdoors, no matter the weather, if at all possible, even if it’s very inconvenient to your schedule. The treadmill does not provide the same difficulty as road running, so your body may not reap the same rewards, and the paces are not perfectly accurate. (Apparently the faster you go on a treadmill, the greater the pace discrepancy between its readout and your watch’s. And on Tuesdays especially, you need to know how fast you are running.) Best case scenario? The lingering doubt as to whether you “completed the assignment” will be absolutely haunting. Depressing. And worst case scenario? You will straight up not be prepared for race day. What a waste of all that effort. Embrace inclement weather.
• Nutrition and sleep make a luscious difference, especially on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays! So nice to be well fed and deeply rested for hard runs, haha!
• I have learned to give thanks for every mile, whether easy or hard, successful or embarrassing.

One of the unique features of this plan is that the weekend long runs are capped at 16 miles. Many marathon plans prescribe exhausting runs well beyond that, so runners who have not used HMM before are surprised. But the supporting work leading up to those 16 mile Sundays is so substantive that your body is far from rested when Sunday morning rolls around. Last week, for example, I had already logged 48 miles, 16 of them pretty hard, by Saturday. Then Sunday morning I was able to run 16 at a good, steady pace, not far off of my tempo. If I were to think about that very long, I would make myself tired and sad. But the reality was that, somehow,  I felt amazing. Not drained at all, just hungry.

This fact alone gets me excited for how great I will feel at the end of taper week, which has a grand total of just 26 easy miles scheduled. The book explains a lot about enzyme replenishment, the restorative powers of sleep and stretching, glycogen stores, etc. Everything combined? There is a fabled 3 or 4% performance increase at the end of this cycle. I can’t wait!

 So including this week, I only have six more speedy Tuesdays, 6 more tempo runs (they gradually longer), and 2 more 16-mile runs. The weekly volume continues to build, but so should both my fitness and my fatigue, haha! Such a funny combination.

Okay. Have you endured enough rambling? The process of marathon training is so interesting to me, even when I am not in the thick of it. But being in the true thick of it again, in a focused way with measurable goals attached, is so fun. So exciting. I am thankful for the experiences of facing nervousness and fear of failure, of flying and being carried by that rippling purple cushion of energy that shows up during a good tempo run, of spending everything I have in my body on a fasted, depletion run and laying flat with a bottle of water nearby. I love the feeling of sharpness it all hones. I am smitten with the work coming next.

Thanks for checking in!!  

Happy belated Valentine’s Day, friends! Handsome and I have celebrated with a handful of traditions as well as a few fun new treats which I’ll post about later.

But for now! What a sweet and loving week we have had at the Lazy W, mostly because of two small cats? I never expected to say that.We have needed more mousers here, more cats who could be tasked with snake patrol once things warm up, and that should be soon. So after a few days of searching online ads and messaging with nearby offers, Handsome settled on a pair of young cats from a woman in Harrah who takes in ferals and strays and has them fixed and immunized, etc.

On Tuesday evening we drove to pick them up. They were over-the-top sweet and much smaller than they appeared in photos. They cuddled us, we said our goodbyes to the woman, and we drove our feline quarry back to the farm, where Klaus welcomed them with exuberance and hospitality. I tried to play it cool.I should cut to the chase here: We fell in love with the cats. This was especially annoying to me, because I generally do not get the obsession people have with cats. No offense, but I like most cats from a distance. I only agreed to adopting more because my sweet, wildly convincing husband had said they would be outside cats with a job to do. Earn your keep, and all.

Another chase worth cutting to, and keep in mind that these animals are closer to the kitten stage than lion or tiger. Okay: they slept inside with us. Also, we decided, very seriously and unanimously as a family, to make blanket piles and cuddle puddles and all sleep downstairs with the new farm residents, so they could get used to us.

The next day was Wednesday, frigid cold and raining in Oklahoma. I did not have a run that morning, so I spent lots of time trying to think of what to do with this new situation. When Klaus and I went outside to do chores, I carried the kittens to the hay shed, intending to introduce them to Forest Cat and show them where the working cats eat. Maybe get them to sign their W-2s.

Okay I’m just going to tell you. They bolted. After a few minutes of tentative interaction with their much larger, much less social coworker, I turned my back to talk to Johnny Cash (the gander), and when I looked back they were gone. Into the dark, dismal, cold, wet February gloom, two skinny little motherless babies had vanished.Also, I have a lot of feelings this week thanks to hormones and the full moon.Chase, cutting!! When Handsome got home he tried to make me feel better, like it was an inevitable happening to lose feral cats, but I knew he was as sad as I was, and I felt awful for it happening on my watch. I just thought they would follow me! I was aghast. We missed them. It was a long, worrisome, sad day that was also, it is worth mentioning, filled with some business about Jocelyn and some plenty stressful hours at the Commish. We were verklempt.

By evening, though, each of them had been found. They were hiding nearby, the boy between two large bales of hay (I barely caught his eyes in the gloom) and the girl in the forest (Handsome had to show her how to navigate the predator fence). I cannot relay to you the joy and relief! You might never have guessed we only knew these animals for eighteen hours, ha.

In the days since, we have decided the will be indoor cats until they grown bigger and stronger and have a better bond with us to not hide, if they get scared. Here are some facts:

• They love hot breakfast in the morning. And if they don’t get scrambled eggs and warmed milk they try to steal your coffee.
• They use the litter box, thank heavens because I cannot emotionally uphold such a serious deal breaker right now.
• They are supreme cuddlers, affectionate and endearing, which is the job of all babies in nature.
• Cats, it turns out, are difficult to reprimand and are terrible followers.
• Klaus is patient with them, allowing all antics except playing with his toys.
• The little boy is a gorgeous black and silver tabby, named Johnny Ringo. Sometimes we call him Toonces when he is naughty. He has a suckling fixation that absolutely heartbreaking.
• The little girl is a perfect silky black with snowy white feet and a few white splashes, including this sweet white dot on her lip. We call her Domino for now, but it doesn’t fit perfectly.
• Cats are crazy. They really do stay awake all night. That is not a myth. And they actually love yarn toys and foam rollers. My macrame artwork is at risk.
• I don’t know anything anymore. This in in the category of Paradigm Shift.
• I love them. Don’t tell my husband. Definitely don’t tell Klaus.

Questions and marital negotiations remain about more animal additions, much larger animals, but that whole story will simmer on the back burner for now.Gotta go. I have an attention starved 130 pound dog on my arm and two hungry kittens lurking nearby.

XOXOXO

Last Monday I was lucky enough to attend a fascinating speaking event with my sweet Mom. Edmond’s Oklahoma Christian hosted Raymond Santana as part of their 7th annual “History Speaks” speakers’ series, and it was time very well spent. You may know his name instantly from the Central Park Five saga, but before diving  in I want to point out that much of the university’s literature and commentary touted him, instead, as one of the exonerated five, and I find that beautiful.

Mom and I sat in a sold out auditorium, knowing that several annex rooms had also been filled, where guests were watching the live conversation on big screens. Mom and I chatted with a few people seated near us and made notes of all the books being recommended (Just Mercy by Brian Stephenson among them).

When the University’s president introduced Gary Jones, their Dean of Students, the gentleman who organized the event, he invited us all to pray as a group, to agree that racism is a sin, for help seeking to understand more than to be understood, and for insight and courage to live well. They also played a video montage of previous years’ speakers, and I found myself wishing I could go back in time and listen to every single one. Certainly, we will pay attention in coming years and make a point to attend again.

Whether you have seen the Netflix series When They See Us and watched Oprah’s subsequent interviews with both the players and the actual people involved, or read about these events real time since the awful events in 1989, I think that you would find Mr. Santana’s remarks deeply valuable. He spoke life over his story and over his future. And he offered that same, powerful life to the audience. It was beautiful in every way, and when you consider the ugliness in his life, the injustice and suffering that happened to him at such a tender age, this beauty is a remarkable thing.

I could talk for hours about this 90 minute conversation. If you ever have a chance to hear Mr. Santana speak, jump on it. He is so overflowing with love, insight, and strength that  you cannot possibly walk away feeling defeated in your own circumstances. Mr. Jones echoed my thought by commenting on how often we “complain about stuff that really isn’t that bad.”

Santana spoke of the 1989 events, of course, and did a good job describing the root of each misturn. Fear, mostly, is what came across to me. Natural fear and innocence and compliance, and the opportunistic tendency some people have to exploit all of that. He spoke of childlike hopelessness, and of bewilderment; but also he eventually spoke of the power of education in prison. Books were his arsenal for reframing his entire life. He named some of the formative titles and expressed with relatable affection how they helped him shape his thought process.

After being imprisoned for seven years, Santana was finally exonerated. But he made sure we understood that exoneration did not, and does not for others still, necessarily mean freedom. For someone ripped so traumatically from his childhood, he had an insightful grasp on the importance of finding safety in your home. He described the ongoing, residual pain from how deeply his character had been vilified.

“It is easier to build strong children than it is to repair broken men.” ~Frederick Douglass

Santana shared the back story of the genesis and production of When They See Us, and everyone especially loved his building Twitter banter with director Ava DuVernay.  If like many you were unsettled by the documentary, he pressed us gently to remember that what they shared with the public was a watered down version of the truth. He also walked us through his feelings and thought process about how sharing any version of the truth would affect his friends (particularly Kory), how it would affect their futures. Because every story we tell does have an impact. It was a valuable reminder to me.

Okay. Let’s bask in some of the life he spoke over his story!

His faith was tested repeatedly. He had to learn how to be a fighter. But time has given him the perspective of not just being exonerated but of crafting his own freedom. He named blessing after blessing after blessing in his life and exuded spiritual energy as he spoke. “Back to back blessings,” is how he put it. It gave me goose bumps. Isn’t that how life is, really? Yes.

More on being a fighter, Santana described how it felt to be like a boxer, to always be waiting for the bell to ring, but also maybe not wanting it to ring. Over time he developed the skills and momentum that would eventually help him build The Innocence Project. He continued to find ways to “channel that fighting energy and get proper revenge by being successful.” When asked how it felt for the state of New York to never have apologized for the wrong done to him and the others, he just smiled and pointed to the fact that they have to see him on television all the time, watching him make something with his life. “God puts us on the platform. He gives us our voice back so we have to use it.”

This part grabbed my attention in a special way. In The Alchemist, we read that blessings ignored can become curses. If we are blessed with a voice, with a platform, then we are expected to use them. Ignoring such a blessing could become a dangerous curse.

Someone in the crowd asked for advice to a person on the brink of giving up. Santana had nothing rehearsed to say, nothing poetic, he just shrugged and shook his head almost like he was confused and said, matter of factly, “Never give up. Plain and simple.” He elaborated, gently, that giving up is just not an option. He suggested that we strive to envision our futures, seeing possibilities beyond our circumstances. I was deeply moved and reinvigorated for so many private battles in my own life.

Okay, friends. I could continue for a long time but will close up now. I am so thankful to my Mom for bringing me along to this beautiful evening. I am so humbled and inspired by everything Mr. Santana had to say. And I hope that some of this can transfer to your heart, to your life, for any battles you are fighting.

“Envision your future. See your possibilities.”
~Raymond Santana
XOXOXOXO