Lazy W Marie

Carpeing all the diems in semi-rural Oklahoma...xoxo

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Marathon Monday: a Happy Detour

Happy Marathon Monday! How are you? I have a quick running update (more for my own records) and some amazing news. Some encouragement for you to never stop praying for things that matter.

I finished Hal Higdon training week 8 with mixed feelings. With a total mileage goal of 26 for last week, I only ran 18. But those 18 miles I did run were gobbled up like candy, and I had tons of energy still in my legs! I started early in the week with a couple of short runs and enjoyed my first ever 8 mile “Laps of Eternity” run here at the farm. That is a heckuva lot of repetition, you guys. 32 times around the rectangular sandy back field. Even the llamas got bored of watching me. But I have to say it felt wonderful. I was on cloud nine after that run! My plan then was to round out the week with a 14 mile run at Lake Draper with the South Oklahoma City running club and the Landrunners. I was super excited! The weather has been drop dead gorgeous. Our schedule was just right. I had the strength and energy to spare. Check, check, check.

Then everything changed and our weekend was nothing like what we had planned. Because a prayer was answered.

My girls were both at the farm for the entire weekend. Both of them, at the same time, from Friday evening until Sunday afternoon! This is such a big deal. If you are close friends of ours then you know how nervous, giddy, and deep down thankful I was.

My oldest daughter used to run cross country and is among other wonderful things a talented athlete, so I invited her to join me on the the long run. It turns out she prefers sprinting to long distance, though, and her back was hurt, so that would have been a silly risk to take. We all stayed home on Saturday and just enjoyed the farm in every possible way.

Then very early Sunday morning, per a bedtime agreement from the night before,  she and I crept out at sunrise and struck out for our first ever run together. She was sweet enough to pace slowly with her old mama for seven laps. As we ran I had to suppress every urge to warn her of slippery red rocks or fallen limbs, to grab her elbow when her head flew too close to a pine branch. She isn’t a baby anymore I kept having to repeat to myself. Hard habit to break, you know?

Anyway, after lap seven she popped out one ear-bud, smiled, and said with all manner of coolness, “I’m just gonna wrap this up!” And then she evaporated. I have no idea where she ran to, she was so fast. I think she was abducted by aliens, the way she just tore off the well beaten dirt path like quicksilver.

A natural sprinter, indeed. I ran one more mile while she fed the horses before church, and I could not stop smiling. It took several years, but we finally ran together. And that is more special to me than any practice run with strangers could ever be.

So my heart is brimming as I type this, even though my miles are lagging ever so slightly. I started this new week off strong, again, and have every reason to believe that my body is capable of doing whatever I ask it to do.

More importantly. I have every reason to believe that Love is powerful enough to answer every prayer, no matter how impossible it seems.

Keep running, friends. And never stop hoping and praying!

XOXOXOXO

 

Marathon Training Begins

   Ah, January… you temptress. You flirt.

   Forever seducing me and scandalizing my imagination with possibility, with promise, with high energy and blank-page calendars just begging to be scribbled with lists and fantasies about all the good things I want to accomplish and become.

   But this year, I have a more concrete plan for you.

   As January is every year, this month in 2014 will be replete with new beginnings. Fresh starts. Our gardens will need planning and cleaning; the sparkly holiday decor will get swapped for scrubbed baseboards and fresh pillow covers; and I might even be studying Spanish and attending a series of beekeeping classes. All good, worthwhile stuff. But there is one new start that will require more focus and discipline than all the others put together…

OKC Marathon official site

   On December 30th, I begin serious training for the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon. After talking about it for several months, the time has finally come to get to work. Quit goofing aroung and start putting in the hours and miles. Following a wildly successful and really fun half marathon last spring, my excitement level for this new challenge is through the roof!

Our west field is not warm and verdant like this right now. But I am dreaming of it hard.

   As this cold new month pries open her sleepy eyes, a mere 117 days remain until the race. One hundred seventeen days to train my body (and more importantly, my mind) to run 26.2 miles safely and smoothly. I will be more or less following the Hal Higdon training program dubbed “Novice 2.” You can see this 18-week plan right here.

   If I am reading this plan right, then the coming weeks will accumulate a whopping 397 training miles. EEK. I might need new socks.

   Are you running this winter and spring? Are you training for any particular race? I hope to write weekly or bi-weekly updates on marathon prep in the coming months, so I would be really jazzed if you followed along. I’m a sucker for encouraging words, and if you’re local and training too, even better!

   Besides running, what other fresh starts are on your January horizon?

Jogging is very beneficial. It’s good for your legs and your feet.
It’s also very good for the ground. It makes it feel needed.
~Charles Schulz
XOXOXOXO

Senses Inventory: Skunked

   Everything was going just fine. I was on a good, average run around the back field. My miles were adding up. My thoughts were sliding by easily, transforming a worried mind into a peaceful one. The harder my heart beat the less it hurt. My sweat was warm and salty and mixing with the cool rain, the oily mixture of both running in beads down my arms and legs.

   I ran downhill through the prairie grass with the forest on my right, rounded the bottom of the trail, and turned south along a little ridge of red rocks made slick from the rain. My footprints matched a string of llama hoof prints. My arm brushed past the same soft pine tree branch that always, always touches me on this lap. It’s like a touchstone, a gentle nudge, even a little kiss every quarter-mile.  I took a deep breath and navigated the rocky downhill corner, enjoying the goose bumps from that pine tree kiss.  Then it happened…

  That deep breath I took should have been refreshing and energizing. Instead, it filled every cell of my being with…

   Skunk spray.

   So obviously it warrants this Senses Inventory.

********************

See: Even through my rain-spotted sunglasses, I see the blurry haze of skunk spray. All the colors of the farm are muddled together. They are slowly dropping into shades of brown and gray. My eyes are burning now.

Hear: Pacino is uphill near the house, singing and screaming at the free range guineas and chickens. I hear Dusty give a little whinny, like he felt a disturbance in the force. Besides these animals voices, all I hear is Shakira from my iPhone, making promises to me about truthful hips. She has no comfort for me about skunk spray.

Smell: I normally kind of like the smell of skunk spray, but this is too much. It’s just so dang strong. It’s so intense. It’s like skunk spray… concentrate. It’s like all the skunks of the world have been warned they have one last chance to rid themselves of spray, and they must do so here at the Lazy W. Behind this. Exact. Tree.

Taste: That sour, peppery, putrid, slightly gaggy, warm, fuzzy air that follows a truly drenching skunk spray. I taste it in my mouth. I taste it in my throat. The awful taste is now seeping down into my empty stomach.

Touch: Now the oily mixture of sweat and rain feels dangerous, like it could in fact be, well, you know…

Think:  Is this skunk spray actually on me? Or is just about me? And where is the skunk??And are green garden tomatoes as effective at sanitizing as standard tomato juice? I know my car needs cleaning, but there is no way I am getting in there smelling like this.

Feel:  Betrayed. I feel betrayed by nature.

********************

   Have you ever been skunk sprayed? It turns out my little run in was just friendly fire; it could have been much, much worse. And I credit the damp weather for intensifying every detail of the blast.

   Still, Momma Llama Seraphine would only get **just so close** to me when I walked back uphill.

Slightly Rude.
All of it.
xoxoxoxo 

Iron Goat 2013 (upping the ante)

   When your husband mows and grooms the back field path where you run, and he asks about your weekly schedule to help you find more time for running, and maybe he even comments on how you need new running shoes… is he calling you fat? Maybe. It certainly feels that way for a minute. Or, as Handsome recently said (rather defensively), he just knows that you’re in a much better mood when you run regularly.

   He’s absolutely right.

   Anyway.

   It’s high time for another Iron Goat, friends.

   Last summer I dove into this little fitness challenge with my sister-in-law’s inspiration and the encouragement of lots of friends. It was so fun and fruitful! I first described the Iron Goat right here. Then I offered a quick update halfway through the plan. Finally, I wrote a recap several weeks later. Here are the quick nuts and bolts:
The Iron Goat training program is simply 
the gradual accomplishment of the Iron Man challenges,
spread over a month instead of one day.
This amounts to, over the course of one month, 
running 26.2 miles,
biking 112 miles, 
and swimming 2.4 miles.
Totally doable, you guys.
   It all sounded to me like a crazy amount of exercise until it was done. Now it seems light. Last summer was an experiment, a springboard to better personal goals. It served to get me moving, and I soon found myself hooked on a brand new running lifestyle. 
   This summer is more exciting, for two reasons: I know now that the running piece is not only possible but will feel amazing; and now I own a bike. An actual, functioning, hand-brakes, multi-speed, non rusted, rubber-tire having bicycle with a leatherish seat and a pretty baby blue paint job and everything. So I can actually complete the 112 miles-on-wheels piece. The swimming will again be pretty approximate, but even laps around our round pool are enough to get my arms and tummy burning.

   This time I am upping the ante a little. I want to double the running goal and accomplish the swimming and biking goals… In half the time. That’s two full calendar weeks for me to…
Run 53 miles, bike 112 miles, and swim 2 or 3 miles. 
   Will you join me?

   The point is not just to do some slimming; it’s to stretch some boundaries. Experience those feelings of accomplishment and transformation.

   The slimming will happen naturally because with that much consistent activity and challenge, your body will crave better food and more water. and you’ll be shocked at what changes happen in two weeks.

   If not the Iron Goat, then what exercise are you seeking this summer? What are you doing to care for your body and your spirit? I have several girlfriends who are making concerted efforts to move and sweat every day, and they are such an inspiration! No matter how busy you are, you have time to be healthy. Activity and good food will improve your life in every sphere.

“Lack of activity destroys the good condition 
of every human being,
while movement and methodical physical exercise
save it and preserve it.”
~Plato
xoxoxoxo

   

Jangly Nerves & Positive Thinking

   The Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon is this weekend. As I type this, in about 58 hours thousands of people from all over the world will convene in our beautiful city and run different distances at varying speeds in remembrance of  April 19, 1995.

   And I will find out if I have prepared well enough for the half.

   Honestly, you guys, I am terrified. I am worried that I won’t make it past mile 9 (the longest I have run so far) or that my yoga pants or the elastic of whatever stupid, not matching outfit I end up wearing that day will fail when everyone is looking. I am worried that 6:30 a.m. is too early for my body to do much of anything besides drink coffee, enjoy the sunrise, and watch chickens and llamas do their thing. Will Handsome be willing to have a 4 am Hot Tub Summit with me that day?
   I am worried that while running with strangers a big gust of Oklahoma wind will kick up on an unfamiliar urban hill and steal my favorite turquoise beekeeper’s ball cap, Velcro fastener mangling my ponytail in the process, and that I will be so devastated that I exit the race to reclaim it. I will then trample someone’s perfectly designed tulip-and-pansies flower bed and never show my face on the north side of town again. I am worried about embarrassing my little brother and our nephew, who are also running that day, and I’m desperately worried that my beautiful daughters will be there on the sidelines and feel embarrassed of me.

   For the past nine months or so I have been “training,” sometimes strictly but often not. There has certainly been slow, steady progress; my abilities today are without a doubt beyond what they were last summer when this all started. But at this moment on Thursday evening before the race, a sort of panic is overtaking my confidence like an ugly oil spill.

   Side note #1: Isn’t it interesting to note the nine months detail? 
Amazing things can happen with a woman’s body in that slice of time.

   Enough negativity.

   No doubt about it, if I can get my thoughts and feelings under control then everything will be fine. The race will be a success. I will come home with my favorite hat and a medal to give my parents-in-law (I’m running for them), and no one will pretend like they don’t know me. At least, not any more than they already do.

   Running is absolutely a mental game, and I recently enjoyed some proof of this fact. Would you like to hear a little story?

   This past Monday afternoon I went for exactly my second public run since junior high P.E. class. Running in public is a ginormous phobia for me, adding to my building sense of dread and doom for this weekend.

   I drove to a municipal park about twenty minutes from our farm, believing the paved track around it to be one mile. At home I am accustomed to running two miles before stopping for water, so at this park I planned to do the same. Two miles, which would be two laps. Right? I listened to the same music, kept my normal pace, and just kind of got lost in the zone.


   Side note #2: I used to regard sports metaphors with a special disdain, 
believing them to be contrived and super dorky and not sincere. 
Now I know they are anything but that. There really is such place as a zone, 
and it it’s absolutely magical there.

   Back to Monday.

   I ran steadily, following this lovely paved path which alternated between sun and shade, semi-private and very public. I celebrated inwardly how friendly people are to runners. Then at the end of two laps I felt thirstier and much looser and more warmed up than I usually do after two miles. I checked my phone and saw that rather than twenty minutes, I had been running for almost an hour! It was shocking. I later confirmed the path I took was three point-something miles.

Side note #3: I have the best running music in the universe.

  The point this proves is that my body could fulfill the expectations placed on it by my mind. I thought I was running two miles, which is easy, so I just kept going. Easily. And it turned out to be six. Then grabbing one final three-mile lap was a breeze, and I finished nine miles giggling out loud.

   Once my mind was distracted and in the zone, my body naturally followed suit. I have no doubt that if I had been focused on difficulty, that would have been my experience.

   The whole thing is flat out exhilarating. The physical, the mental, the emotional… All of it.

   So while I cannot predict the exact results of Sunday’s race, I can insist on a return to positive thinking and trust that it will foster a good experience. I can support my little brother and our nephew for their incredible efforts. I can thank my husband for supporting me in mine. And I can love and honor the people for who I am running, the rescue workers and morgue workers:

Harvey Wreath
Judy Wreath
Alan Prokop

   Thanks for listening to me sort this thing out. The big irony here is that running has become my stress reliever and at this eleventh hour, no matter how stressed I am, I’m not supposed to run anymore, just rest and stretch till Sunday.
   Continue to pray for the city of Boston, and when you wake up Sunday morning send me some positive vibes!

“Winning is not bout headlines and hardware (medals).
  It’s only about attitude. A winner is a person who goes out today
  and every day and attempts to be the best person he can be.
  Winning is about struggle and effort and optimism,
  and never, ever, ever giving up.”
~Amby Burfoot, Editor-at-Large, Runner’s World
xoxoxoxo