Running Confessions

While the theme of Confession has come up:

I'm a big fan of long distance running. I crave the miles sometimes. My husband says I dream about it on my off days because I kick him at night. The thought (or the reality) of a three hour run doesn't make me tremble anymore. But, of course, I am no speed demon. The Penguin speaks my language. The time my friends and I did a 5K under 30 minutes (and I mean, seconds below) we went out to celebrate. None-the-less, I feel strong.

But I have to confess that I WANT to be faster. No matter how much I know "I'm just racing myself," it really stings to get spanked by someone 40 years my senior. Truth be told, I've come a long way. I started just a couple years ago, and I've dropped major units of time off my races. Part of it was ditching the stroller race days, part of it was ditching my fear of getting hurt, and part of it was actually training. These improvements, though, take me from the back of the pack, to the back of the middle of the pack.

My running partner called me not long ago and asked if she could ask a personal question. "You've been running for about a year longer than me. Do you ever feel pangs of competition? Are you ever jealous of others' speed?" She had lowered her voice, like she was confessing sins.

Our team's creed is always about Finishing and Socializing. And, although we regularly talk about race times, there is never the sense of competition. Honestly, I'm very thankful for that. To voluntarily get up at 5am every Sunday morning, I have to be going to something I really enjoy. But, after every race, I habitually pull up the results page and study my times & splits. I replay the event, wondering if I could have done better and comb through the names and their position relative to me. I'm wounded by seeing my name so far below others I know who spent little time preparing themselves. I'm secretly jealous. I'm silently competitive.

Thankfully, for the love of my running friends and of the sport, I'm able to keep it to myself. I'm able to keep self-fulfillment in perspective and be mostly happy with my accomplishments; it does make me proud to get to the starting line. I know I'll never place in a race (unless there are only 3 of us in my age category), but I keep dreaming of that run where my body transcends it's boundaries and I can pull up the results to see I've run a sub 8 minute mile.

"Mumnesia"

So, I forget a lot of stuff. I think that a lot of moms feel like that. So much so, they did a study on it (click here to read the article). I like to think that none of it is gone permanently.

Second to moms, the next most forgetful group of people must be runners. Who does a second marathon without forgetting the pain of the first?

Constantly hounded by the feeling that I might be forgetting something, I am delighted when I remember something! Yesterday I went jogging by myself and you know what I had sort of forgotten? It is a LOT harder running with the double stroller than running solo! It turns out that my difficulty isn’t so much all the “baby weight” I’ve gained being pregnant, but the 75 pounds of child plus related equipment I’ve been pushing! I just didn’t notice it so much before.

So, pat yourself on the back if you went jogging with your stroller today! Plus it burns more calories than running alone….

Go Andrea Go!

Andrea, I'm so PROUD of you!!! What a thrill to see you running with the Olympic Torch!! I just read about it in the paper here in Portland Oregon and just about fell off my chair - yay for you!!!

I also have to admit that I'm so thrilled to see the publicity for See Mommy Run (and the logo we worked on together! Woo hoo - my first design job goes national!). ;-)

Shelly

The cup needs to be filled

Howdy Running Mommies!

How is that for a Bostonian talking Texan? I've got to get ready for the big move. Today I was contemplating my Mommy skills as I had three children on 3 different sports fields and a baby on my hip and I needed another Mommy to back me up in case I exploded. I called my friend, Lina, who agreed to take my eldest home from soccer if I failed to show. I remember having it all covered and thinking I was always going to do it all and not ask for help. I like to give help. I like to be in the black at all times and secretly I think those who are always asking for help or cannot get their acts together are not having a good Mommy time. But here I am sometimes needing to ask for help. It is humbling and it is REAL. Thank God for other Mommies out there who had children before me and "get it." I remember my good friend, Leslie, telling me in 1999 that we may not get to be friends because her youngest was the same age as my oldest and that I'd need to learn not to be uptight. We forged on and she is still a good friend. She turned 50 this month and looks and feels better than she did 10 years ago. She has it together big time.

See Y'all Later,
Trice

Sooo Proud of Andrea!!!

http://video.nbc4.com/player/?id=238715#videoid=235604

check it out!! It is Andrea and the Olympic torch!!!!

Spring is Springing.....Maybe?

So we have had two nice days in a row and I'm really starting to think that Spring may have actually arrived for good this time! Unfortunately, along with the perfect running weather I got a sick 5-year-old and my husband is out of town so I haven't been able to take advantage of the weather with outdoor runs. Nothing like running on the treadmill at 8:00 at night...yuck. Anyway, this weekend, I'm taking the boys up to Philadelphia where at the Franklin Institute they have the Star Wars Exhibit going on right now. Exciting, no? Yeah. So has anyone been to the Franklin before and have any tips for us? Anything else I should be sure and take the boys to around the museum? I'm thinking I'll be a total tourist dork and run up the Rocky steps! Hey, if I have to endure 3 hours of Star Wars, my boys can endure mom being a dork, right?

Reaching....

Hello Running Mommies: Great day to be alive. It is sunny and Monday. I had an interesting weekend. I belong to a homeschooling group (I always feel like a fraud since I only homeschool one and two are in school), but that is another story. Well the group put out a request for judges for a debate/speech contest. I smiled. I grinned. I thought finally something I can actually do!! I'm not crafty, I do not sew, knit, glue anything, I barely sew buttons on and most of these women are amazing at it. I flunk art and music on a regular basis. I casually fill out the judge form and the regional folks sign me up and seem thrilled that I'm a lawyer with some speech/debate background. I use the opportunity to take my 9 year old son with me and he has not seen me in a suit very often and never seen me as a lawyer. We show up and get taken to a neat hospitality room where he pigs out and I get coffee. I notice a middle-aged woman talking to some of the other judges and she's asking for background. They all eagerly chirp away and she happily takes notes. She gets to me last. I am not sure exactly what to tell her. She sees by my nametag that I'm a lawyer, but she wants to know more. I tell her I grew up in Boston, went to law school there. I blah blah blah on awards, trial advocacy, my time as a Law Professor, my time as a federal Prosecutor.... but she keeps looking and wanting more. I'm starting to ramble a bit and wonder if she needs to know that in 1989 the Dean of my law school nominated me as the Most Outstanding Female Law graduate. I'm feeling a bit sweaty here thinking what more?? I homeschool, I clean the house, I do all sorts of mundane things now. I'm just not that intersting, but heck I run. Sooo.. I dropped it on her. I said, "I run Marathons." Ok, so I've only run two marathons, but that is technically plural. She stopped looking at me like I was a fraud for being there. She was impressed. Running and debates?? No correlation. No connection. But, she was clearly not a physical person and running finally got me past her. Then after introducing the other judges to a packed auditorium-- she forgot her notes on me and just gave my name, which she mispronounced. It was pretty funny.

confessions II

Routes in this town are just plain hard to put together. It's as if all the developers have this antagonistic view of each other. Where one subdivision ends, another begins but never, oh never, do they blend. Of course, I live downtown (when envisioning downtown, keep your mind from conjuring up images of, say, New York, Miami, Los Angeles. Think more Americana...a place that is at least trying to maintain the small town America of yesterday.) and everything is blended here. People, streets, neighborhoods, financial brackets.

On the other side of the highway are the subdivisions. The box houses. The McMansions. It's also where the plastic surgeons have their offices, where the big-box stores are.

(I am not knocking it. That's what I'm trying to say. Keep reading.)

On Saturday (beautiful, inspiring, Saturday) I chose to lengthen my run by *gulp* crossing the freeway...baby jogger and all (no taking off into undeveloped fields...).

I would go through an under construction subdivision, down the hill by the high school, take a short shimmy through the park, cross at the Central Expressway, up (and, yes, I acknowledged to myself the bitch of hill I would be running) through the Country Club (where hubby used to Super), along the busy thoroughfare and then over the Central Expressway and then...

But wait...as I approached the stoplight set amongst the box stores just outside of the Country Club, I realized that there wasn't a sidewalk where I could have sworn I had seen one. So I pushed the 'cross the street' button (does that button have a name? does anyone know?) and waited. And I looked humorously at all the poor 'rich' people trapped in their BMWs and air conditioned SUVs. I crossed.

(previous scene repeats itself, except this this time character has lost some of her jovial patience.)

Set free again, I scurried for about 20 feet. And then that sidewalk ended, right before the bridge to go over the freeway. The sidewalk to get over the freeway was on the other side. Of course, there was no sidewalk leading up to that point.

So I turned around, feeling like a total dweeb, naturally. Aware of all the eyes watching my numbskulled 'progress'.

This is where I encapsulize. (Not sure if that's an actual writing term. Maybe it just became one.)

Called husband, hinted that he should pick us up, bravely asserted that we would make it. (Ah, my flair for drama.)

Back through Country Club. Passed a group of teenagers, felt good about myself when they said, "Cool!" as I whizzed by (ha-ha. no whizzing there. lots of walking, though.) But had unkind thoughts--despite my efforts to self-edit--about the young, unencumbered beauty that jogged so daintily from one of streets.

Finally. Across the d*****d Central Expressway, jaunt along the park, back by the high school, but this time...this time I said, "Ah...to hell with it." And I pushed the jogger over the grass (fully aware that a thorn just might puncture my tires.) until I got to part where the sidewalk began. And then finally home. Where I found my husband doing some heavy duty yard work.

Shortly thereafter we both collapsed into the bed, explaining to each other which of us was the tiredest and why.

The run was just work. That's the way it is before a route is worked out.

I love being a runner. It explains the rest of life to me.