Back on track?

I feel like I’ve been on a roll with my running workouts lately. They’re steady and consistent. I’ve been running three days a week, and usually doing yoga at least one day a week, taking a rest day, and filling the other two days with good swimming or spinning cross-training workouts. The runs are at a level of mileage that I’ve always felt should be a base: five or six miles two times a week, ten miles on a weekend. I feel good and primed — and, a bit wary.
Three months ago, I tested positive for Lyme disease. The positive diagnosis came seventeen days before the Twin Cities Marathon, for which I had been training, and about four or five weeks after I had felt my body steadily weakening. The weakening had puzzled me because it was accompanied by the usual signs of overtraining — body aches, joint pains, and fatigue — coupled with strange fever binges that would flare up in mid-afternoon, be quelled with steady doses of Advil, and stay quiet through the night and early morning until the flare-ups repeated in mid-afternoon.

Overtraining is a common condition among eager recreational athletes. The only issue is that I was not overtraining. If anything, I was under-training. I was being mindful of my age, the summer heat, and the fact that I had completed a triathlon just a few weeks earlier. I wanted to finish the Twin Cities Marathon in five hours or less, but I also wanted to finish it safely and with a genuinely honest smile on my face. A smile that said I had done a good job and had had a good time in the process.

The Lyme diagnosis provided the answer. I was not overtraining. I was afflicted with an infectious disease. I went on antibiotics immediately, and after about two days, felt well enough to resume what I could of training. I completed a 20-mile long run thirteen days before the marathon, which was cutting it close but still far enough in advance to do a reasonable taper. I enjoyed a long road trip from my home in upstate New York to the Midwest with my husband, stopping to see my parents en route. We spent four days in the Twin Cities visiting my husband’s parents, my sister, and several other friends while resting and preparing for the marathon itself. He finished in 4:14:56, a personal record. I finished in 5:08:38, eight minutes over the desired finish and with a smile in my face. A smile that said I had done a good job under the circumstances and was going to start training as soon as I could for the next marathon. I was — and am — determined to try and finish under five hours.
So far, so good. I rested my body, and resumed running after about a week’s rest. I began with very short, gentle runs of one to two miles, and built myself up gradually a week at a time. When a friend asked me if I was interested in trying a five-mile trail run on November 1 — an event known as the Fallback Five — I hesitated for a minute, then threw in my hat. I was ready. We did the run together, and I had a blast. Through November, I built up my mileage slowly but steadily, hoping to get to ten miles by the end of the month. I got there by November 22, doing 11 miles on that day. I followed that run with a “marathon in a week” during Thanksgiving Week, putting in a 5, 7, 4.25 and 10 miler. Last week, I logged a 5, 6, and 10 miler. And this week I am eyeing a 15 kilometer fun run, after doing 6 miles today.

So I feel like I’m on track, but I also find myself feeling hypersensitive. Is it odd that the last mile of every run is clocking in a minute slower than the previous ones? Or is that simply a sign of me feeling cold and ready to wrap up the workout? Are those aches in the calves a sign of potassium deficiency? Or do I simply need to stretch more? Is the need for as much as nine hours of sleep a sign of the Lyme returning? Or is it simply a natural need for rest?

I find these questions interesting because I think they speak to the nature of how we can use our workouts to gauge our overall sense of wellbeing and life. Alongside the slower miles is diminishing daylight and the onset of night, a night that comes early two weeks before the Solstice. With the muscle aches comes a longing for warm soups and hot baths, a symptom of winter. And with the fear of Lyme returning? I think that perhaps is a quest for long-term health.

Embracing the dark

A couple of weeks ago, I ran across an article in a running magazine on winter running. The general theme of the piece was one of encouraging runners not to give up on their outdoor runs simply because it was the time of year when fall transitions to winter. Rather, the article’s author proposed, embrace the elements. Think about running in dimmer light, under gray skies, or in darkness as an opportunity to commune with the self, to approach the workout differently, to think of it as a part of the ritual of daily life, as part of what makes one a runner and a human, to boot.
The exhortation struck a chord in me. Probably because the diminishing hours of daylight, coupled with chill temperatures, dampening rains, and even snow and ice tend to drive me indoors. I am lucky because I am able to run indoors. The Saratoga Springs YMCA has treadmills and an indoor track. But with that drive toward the indoors comes a slump in motivation. No matter how inventive one can be with workouts on a treadmill that offers a mosaic of television sets as its primary view or on a track where nine laps equals a mile, running indoors is more of a task than a treat. The miles don’t just slip by; they tick by slowly, as if they, like the body, are itching for the outdoors and spring.
A desire to remain running outside has lingered particularly strongly in me this year because I have had such a wonderful spring, summer, and fall of running outdoors. From the time that I began hitting the outdoor streets regularly sometime last March, I have rediscovered running as source of spiritual joy. My body has responded by going faster and longer. I joined a community group run at St. Patrick’s Day, ran two fun runs in early April and won a giant cookie for placing second in my division in one of them. I surprised myself by finishing a four-mile Fourth of July race at a pace below a ten-minute mile and, despite testing positive for Lyme Disease in mid-September, I completed an early October marathon in a time that was my fastest in twelve years.
After recovering from the marathon, I have wanted to keep going. And, I have kept going, mapping out fun runs through the holiday and setting goals for 2016.
All of this, though, seems to rest on staying outside.

Last night, I got home at 5 p.m. The rain was falling fairly heavily and the skies were dark.

“I’m going for a run,” I announced to my husband.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” he said.

The smell of pork ribs which had been slow cooking all day and a rather severe sinus infection deterred me. Tonight, however, I was determined.

“I’ll be back by 6-6:15 p.m.,” I reported to my husband in a text message, adding, “I have my phone. The ringer is on.”

It was a little after 5 p.m. when I left. It was a bit warmer — in the low 40s — but dark, foggy, and drizzly. I took a right turn out of my driveway, unsure of which route or how far I would go, and began running up the gentle incline of our road. The light tough of my shoes striking the pavement and the relaxed feel of my legs, hips and back led me to sense that this would be a good run. And, then, within minutes I found myself caught in a tangle of dog leashes, fur and two excited but friendly dogs, pawing me and trying to lick my face as I scrambled to help their owner retrieve the leashes.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “they’re out of control.”

“It’s okay,” I replied. “They’re just being dogs. But you be careful walking them. It’s pretty dark out here.”

The darkness disturbed me slightly for the first mile. I realized that a wristband that included a flashing safety light was barely visible to oncoming traffic and wasn’t giving me enough light to see either. I also realized that the fog settling in over the valleys in our rural neighborhood was going to make seeing ahead a challenge. Nevertheless, my body — like the excited dogs — was itching to run. So I moved forward in a cautious but relaxed pace. As I settled into the run, I realized that homes decorated with holiday lights and the white lines on roads that demarcated the shoulders were proving to be good friends. As long as I followed them, I had enough light. I began to understand holiday spirit — in terms of decorating one’s home with lights — in an entirely new context.

On the first uphill, I slowed to a walk and flipped on the tiny flashlight in my smart phone. I followed one of my usual 4.5 mile routes and decided at one point to tack on another half-mile to create an even five miler. I got home wet but not chilled, relaxed and refreshed, and fully invigorated. The run grounded me in a feeling of familiarity with my neighborhood and my environs, and had — as the running magazine proposed — revealed the “inner runner” in me. I will try and do a large number of runs in the coming weeks of winter outdoors and in daylight for as long as I can. But I no longer feel as if darkness needs to be a deterrent.

Strength, Force, and Endurance

Strength, force, and endurance

Early in 2014, I read through a copy of Joe Friel’s book “The Triathlete’s Training Bible”. This text was quite interesting, informative, and helpful. Ultimately, however, it was like a lot of supposedly definitive guides on training that I have read over the years — useful for me, to a point.
One take-away phrase that I gleaned from Friel was “strength, force, and endurance”. For athletes and others who wish to train for triathlons, marathons, and other distance events, these are the core aspects of an effective training plan. Strength, as I understand it, is about building muscular and cardio strength as well as the mental and emotional strength needed to withstand distance training. Force is speed: It’s about training with speed bursts, intervals, sprints, and shorter distance racing events so that your body learns speed in order to pace itself for longer distances. Endurance, in my mind, is analogous to patience. It is about learning not to go all out in the first ten miles of a 26.2-mile marathon. It is about understanding how to go the distance with mental motivation strategies, practice runs, long walks, meditation, and the kind of effective cross-training that will help make you fit for life.

Friel’s words came back to me this morning as one of my friends, a certified PiYo instructor, launched a new fitness challenge via her social media universe of friends. The challenge is to do a certain number of squats every day through the month of August and to experiment with different styles of squats.

Now, squats are an excellent exercise in the strength field. They build up the muscles that power the body through both force based trainings and endurance activities. They are, as my friend pointed out in her efforts to coax me into participation, a great complement to endurance training.

However, there’s a time and place for squats — in my mind, at least. As I write this blog, I am preparing to participate in an Olympic Distance Triathlon in nine days and a marathon in 74 days. This is not the time, I told my friend, to embark on a strength-based regime such as squats. This is the time to taper for the triathlon and then to rev up the mileage for the marathon. I asked my friend if I could participate in the challenge with an exercise that would complement the marathon training. Her response was, “Of course!” She also wanted to know what I planned to do and added that she knew nothing about training for marathons. I decided, as a result, to use this blog post as an opportunity to think and talk about what I might do and how it might complement this phase of my training.

Before I go further, I do want to return briefly to Friel. As I noted, his “bible” was helpful but biblical, if biblical might be defined as the ultimate truth. Where and how did the book come up short?

It’s hard to answer the question I rhetorically posed definitively, but for starters, training plans are plans and life is life. Plans and life do not always map themselves neatly onto each other. Friel proposes very helpfully that the triathlete can devote several years to mastering a life plan of training, and notes that the years of competitiveness can stretch much longer if training is seen as a life strategy. That assertion supports my own belief that unless one is being paid professionally to win races, one should really look at fitness as an activity of joy and a pursuit for life. This also means that life will interfere and training will not follow a logical plan.

The second way that Friel’s book fell short was that it was aimed at people who swim, bicycle, and run much faster than I ever will. I see this target audience as a useful one for selling books, but it becomes problematic when your personal goals might be just as lofty and ambitious for your own self as the goals of an age-group winner or elite athlete might be for them because the road map for the slower and weaker is a little less clear. This is an obstacle I face constantly as I look at training plans that assume such things as being able to run a 10-minute mile (12 minutes is my current working average, though I did beat a 10-minute pace in a recent four-mile race) as a baseline given. I find it hard to follow charts based on such “average” paces when my body is not exactly average.

And finally I have had to take age and weather into consideration. Just when it’s seemingly warm enough to get into the open water swims and long outdoor bike rides that are essential to good triathlon training, the weather in our part of the world refuses to cooperate. Thunderstorms are a frequent occurrence, which for safety reasons results in a cancellation of rides and often even closes indoor pools that are vulnerable to lightning strikes. By the time the skies clear, your schedule may no longer be clear. Along with weather, I have had to come to terms with the fact that while I might be getting better, my body is not getting younger. As I have entered my fifties, I have done so with a much healthier body and outlook on life: I have gotten my weight down to a healthy level and have maintained that level for two years; I have figured out generally what kinds of foods support me the most and which ones are detrimental; and I have amassed a wide range of internal and external knowledge about how to exercise and train so that I not only maintain my current level of fitness but also encourage it to grow. From these learnings, I have deduced that much of training is looking at what works for others and then making up new rules — based on memory, knowledge, and personal experiences — to figure out what’s likely to work for one’s self.

So, my outline of how to train for a marathon — and/or comparable endurance events like the Olympic Distance Triathlon — is as follows:
1. Make a guide for the year. Note that I used the word “guide” and not the word “plan”. Choose one or two “big” events that you’d like to participate in. Again, note that I’m using the word “event” in place of “race” and the word “participate” in place of “compete”. Plan, race, and compete seem to connote stressful, less fun-loving experiences and might — in my mind — go against the premise that we’re doing all this to live longer, healthier lives. Figure out when those events take place and map your training plan (okay, now it’s a plan, but see it as a loose plan) accordingly.
2. The loose plan should be divided into phases: A time for working on what Joe Friel calls “strength”; a time for concentrating on “force”; and a time for endurance. Other training books have spoken of strength as conditioning or base building; and force as speed. If your loose plan actually manages to map neatly onto your life realities, you’ll be dedicating some time to strength, force, and endurance year long. The nature of these things, however, will vary. Variation, by the way, also helps keep training interesting and fun.
3. I generally think of the ideal amount of time to concentrate on training for a “big event” as fifteen to eighteen weeks. This is the rough equivalent of a college semester, which is probably why I, as a college professor, tend to think in such terms. Big events can overlap — my marathon, for instance, comes about nine weeks after my triathlon — but if you have overlap, you want to keep in mind that your training should be about preparing yourself for both events. Along these lines, you also might want to set goals. This year, for instance, my husband and I chose to run this particular marathon because we want to run it in honor of our ten-year wedding anniversary. As a result, I have poured a little more mental energy into the marathon and looked at the triathlon as a fun source of inspiration.
4. Give your body a good honest assessment and consider what kinds of force, speed, and endurance activities work best for you. For me, power yoga and such exercises as squats, lunges, jump roping, and sprints are very good from about December to March when it’s cold outside. In the winter, I work out indoors and enjoy the social interaction I get from the cycling, yoga, pilates, and light weights training classes I have access to at the Y where I work out. I usually disappear from those classes once the better weather rolls around. I also have found that as I have aged I like to do speedwork in ways that don’t involve running. My knees, my hips, and even my boobs feel a lot more vulnerable to the pounding and jolting. So I often use my swim sessions — which I love — as opportunities to do intervals. I can’t say that they’re giving me the same kind of strength and speedwork that I might get from the track, but I do think they offer some benefit and they will help my body last longer.
5. Be ready for every single interruption to your schedule that might emerge. I have already mentioned thunderstorms. Other things that have thwarted my best of intentions this year have been family illnesses, financial crises, work commitments, farming demands, community service activities, and personal fatigue (some might see this as code for laziness, but if your body is telling you not to do something you normally love, it might be worth listening). The interruptions will alter your loose plan and force adaptations. They also will teach you some things that might come in handy for future events: For instance, I started this year following a plan (as in a rigid plan) that would have had me bicycling about three to five hours a day at least once or twice a week in June and July. I stressed and stressed and stressed about not being able to do those rides until I realized that I simply did not have time in my life to do these kinds of rides and that it might be better to get out there and do a one-hour or two-hour ride, rather than nothing at all. This week, after logging two twenty-five mile rides, I have realized that I feel great and that into the future that might be the peak goal to shoot for.

So that’s the outline I’m following now for a marathon. I hope to run 12 miles this Sunday and 12 miles two weeks from this Sunday (after giving my body a week to recover from the triathlon). From there, I’ll work in a 14-miler, then 16, 18, and 20 miles. I’ve been working my mind to prepare my body for these runs with exercises in visualization; a renewal of some basic daily yoga, a practice that usually stalls when the winter transitions to spring and I start chomping at the bit to be outdoors; and simply by mentally breaking the workouts down into small increments. This is not a tactic I have tried before, but it is a compilation of several things that I have tried and have had success with. We’ll see if it works.

And so, finally, what might I do with the August challenge of squats? For me, a good alternative would be:
1. A five minute marathon visualization exercise, as I am falling asleep.
2. Deep yogic breaths, and a few minutes of yoga practice aimed not at pushing for force and strength but for endurance, first thing in the morning.
3. A short afternoon nap.

Is this a challenge? For the phase of endurance, it is. These are tactics aimed at fostering positive energy, mental discipline, and hopefully a happy outcome as I cross the finish lines I have mapped for myself on August 1 and October 4.

Consistent inconsistency

I just finished a four-mile run, and tomorrow I’m planning to participate in the Firecracker 4, a four-mile fun run in Saratoga Springs, NY. I also am contemplating a post-run swim along with a bicycle ride and swim on Sunday.

On paper, this looks marvelous. In reality, I’m wondering.
My year’s resolutions were like those of many others. I wanted to run the Twin Cities Marathon and I wanted to complete the Fronhofer Tool’s Olympic Distance Triathlon. To be sure that I would follow through on these aims, I set aside funds and made sure to get myself registered for both events before the early-bird deadlines hit. I also mapped out what felt like an enjoyable and sociable plan to participate in local 5K, 10K and other races throughout the year.

More or less, the plan has worked out. Knowing that my body is aging and that my risk for over-training injuries from running particularly is higher, I decided that I would aim to run no more than three times a week until at least after the August 1 triathlon, and that I would use the other events of the triathlon — swimming and bicycling — to support the endurance needed to complete a marathon. Knowing also that bicycling is the longest — and for me, the weakest — part of a triathlon, I also resolved to go to as many indoor spin classes as I could manage during the winter to build up my cycling muscles and work on technique. In the spirit of easing injuries and maintaining a strong level of flexibility, I also decided that I would do longer yoga classes consistently through the winter and would swim distances that might be a bit more than necessary because swimming is an excellent way to train for endurance and because frankly I really do like to swim.

So 29 days remain before the triathlon. Three months remain before the marathon.
How do I feel? As the title of this essay notes, consistently inconsistent.

Despite my best intentions, life has consistently gotten in the way of regular training. In February, the issue was snow and blizzards. In April, it was travel. In May, it was a sinus infection — probably from the travel. For the first nine days of June, it was a deadline: We needed to get seedlings in the ground before I left for a nine-day work trip to Salt Lake City. For the last seven days of June, it was more farm related work and community related work.

As a result, the training record looks splotchy in places: No workouts whatsoever from June 2-9. Daily workouts — and sometimes twice daily workouts — from June 10-17. A rest day on June 18, which was the return trip home from Salt Lake City. Nice easy and invigorating workouts from June 19-22. Then bam, nothing at all for five days. Then, two days of really good workouts, followed by two days of nothing. Today actually was supposed to be a rest day, to rest up for the race. I decided to run because I needed to blow off some steam and because I knew I would feel better afterwords — physically and emotionally.

Grappling with the realities of consistent inconsistency makes me realize that this is the framework for life. We are good — and we are not so good. Sometimes when we are good to ourselves, it feels like we are pampering ourselves at the expense of the needs of others. When that occurs, a dose of self-induced guilt often engulfs us, creating reasons to put the workouts aside in order to take care of others. That is perhaps not a bad thing: It is good to take care of others. But what about ourselves? Who takes care of us?

Workout plans for yesterday got sidelined when one of the goats my husband and I have been raising ended up with a bleeding hoof. A quick phone call to the farmers who have mentored us through the goat-raising process helped us learn how to treat the wound — with gauze, a bandaging material called co-flex, and an antiseptic called Hoof and Heal. Of course, none of these things were in our medicine cabinet so I grabbed the car keys and prepared to head out to the nearby farming goods store, Tractor Supply Company. On the way, I muttered somewhat resignedly, somewhat frustratedly, and somewhat jokingly that it didn’t look like I would get a workout in. My husband got upset. How could I think of workouts when one of the animals was suffering?

He was right in a way, but the comment got under my skin. Partly perhaps because it verbalized what I perhaps imagine constantly. Workouts come in a day where the work never ends. So every minute devoted to a run, a swim, a bicycle ride, a yoga class is a minute that is not devoted to something else. Grumpily, I headed out to Tractor Supply thinking that people only cared about me when it was in their interest to do so. Knowing I was grumpy, I knew also that this was not really true and that I am very blessed to have a big universe of people who do indeed care for me and about me a lot. My husband, my parents, my siblings, and scores of relatives and friends have got my back. But when push comes to shove they too are busy and stressed. Care for and care about might be external expressions, gestures that others extend to the self. Care of is perhaps a little different. It is care of the self. It is the work of making consistent inconsistency a little more like inconsistent inconsistency, or consistent consistency. It is a flipping of adjectives, nouns, and qualifiers to give you the best you can give yourself — while also giving the best you can give to others in return.

On a positive note, Rocky, the goat who was injured, is doing well. Like a kid, literally and metaphorically, he bounced back and probably up to some goat-like mischief right now. And I made up for yesterday’s inconsistency with another inconsistency: I swapped out a rest day for a run and am feeling terrific, as a result.

Letting your body be the guide

My last posting to this blog made note of triathlon training. My “official” training for the Olympic Distance Triathlon in which I hope to participate on August 1, 2015, begins tomorrow. I started the year using a paper calendar to log my workouts that begins its weeks on Sundays. After much mind-twisting and mock emotional angst, I decided that I could adapt to the change and treat my workout weeks as beginning on Sundays and ending Saturdays, instead of following a convention of ending the week with the end of the “week-end” — Sunday. That means that officially the training began today. So how did I do?
A simple answer is that I did great. I went to a wonderfully intense ninety-minute yoga class and followed it with an 1,800 yard swim. Another simple answer is that I did it wrong: I overworked myself and didn’t do what the plan prescribes.

And, this little dilemma has been my Achilles heel ever since I began following training plans to prepare myself for major fitness events fifteen years ago.

The simple truth is that plans and life don’t always map onto each other together. The day of the scheduled 50-mile bicycle ride might be the same day that you’re involved with an all-day workshop on turning your kitchen into a farm-retail enterprise. The 10K fun run that you signed up for on April 11 might be too many miles for what the plan says you’re supposed to be running at the end of Week 2 of training.

And what the plan says is enough distance might be not enough, based on your fitness readiness in whatever discipline is being emphasized. Or it might not be enough because you’ve already gotten comfortable doing much, much more. My swimming and my bicycling illuminate this issue quite well. When I’m in the swimming pool, I often feel as if I’m in my second home. Swimming feels to me like meditation and yoga. It relaxes me, elongates me, and tones my body. It quiets my mind, and it seems to break up any tightness that might have built up in my knees, hips, or shoulders from pounding the pavement or spinning on a bike. I logged 1,500 yards twice in the past week. It only made sense to bump that total up a little for this week — with a goal of trying to hit the pool three times in the coming week. Except that the training program outlines three workouts of 750 to 1,500 yards each.

By contrast, there’s still snow thickly coating the ground where I live. The roads are relatively clean, but the chill winds still make outdoor cycling a bit of a challenge. I know I can hit twenty miles — the maximum workout proposed for Week 1 of the training plan — on an indoor bike. But doing it outdoors is a different story. Coupled with that challenge is the fact that cycling for training purposes requires a longer time commitment. The 18-week plan I’m following starts with three workouts a week, of 15 to 20 miles each. Quickly, the distances escalate, with a 30 miler in Week 5, a 40 miler in Week 7, and a 50 miler in Week 11. Will I be ready for those distances when they come? Will I be able to make the time for such distances when they come?

The Olympic Distance event interests me because in the two years that I have tried to train for it I have found it to be somewhat intimidating. On the surface, the distances seem manageable: a 1,500 meter swim (about nine-tenths of a mile), a 24.8 mile bicycle ride, and a 10-kilometer (6.2 miles) run. I registered for the Fronhofer Tool Olympic Distance Triathlon in 2013 because it was taking place within an hour’s drive of my home and had an advertised maximum finish time of five hours. I figured that this would mean that I would finish in about four hours with plenty of back-of-the-pack company.

I was partially right. I finished in four hours, though probably would have finished in about three hours and 40 minutes if a flat tire hadn’t stymied me. However, there was no back-of-the-pack company. I was dead last. Athletes who had completed the run and had refreshed themselves were leaving the park where the event began and ended as I was pulling in on my bike, with the 10K run left to go. Even if I hadn’t had the flat, I wouldn’t have had much company. There was only one participant behind me when I sprung my flat. She passed me as I was going back to find some help at the last support station.
I learned later that the Olympic event is “competitive”, even for enthusiastic recreational athletes. Enthusiasts tend to show up for Sprint Distance Triathlons in droves, but fall off rapidly when it comes to longer events. I have always considered myself more recreational than competitive, so I also wondered if I should try for a shorter event.
I decided to give the Olympic Distance another try this year for a simple reason: I like the distance. I like the challenge of the training and I like the feel-good aura that follows the workouts. I hope I do better than I did two years ago, but I also have prepared myself to finish last. My logic is that the goal is not the race, but the process of learning how to train effectively enough to do the race.

With that goal in mind, I am looking at the training plan — from a Beginner Triathletes website — with my own body in mind. It calls for three workouts a week in each of the three events that comprise the triathlon: swimming, bicycling, and running. It recommends additional time in the weight room, as well as several optional additional workouts each week during the more intense training periods. Because I know that I can finish each of the distances in the physical condition that I am in right now, I am treating the plan as a guide, rather than prescription. Instead of weights, I would like to do yoga because yoga, like swimming, rejuvenates my body and quiets my mind. While I would like to build up my cycling speed and endurance, I would like to treat the weekly distances as suggestions, rather than rules. In the longer term, it seems as if it is consistency in rigor — rather than grueling rigor in and of itself — that will be the best marker of success.

So we will see how the training goes — and if the goal of learning can be the ultimate race for success.

Wish me luck. I’ll keep you posted. If I don’t, keep me honest and ask me how the training’s going.

Being selfish

I recently changed my profile picture on Facebook to the photo that graces this blog. The image was taken March 13, just before a pre-St. Patrick’s Day fun run sponsored by a running store in the community where I live. I change my Facebook images often, mostly for fun but also partly to establish a theme for the next few weeks or months that the photo marks my identity. I chose this image of running because it was the most recent image of me running, and, well, to admit to being vain, because I felt it made me look good.
The photo attracted a fair number of “likes” from friends in the Facebook world. It also drew a question, “What is your secret?”
I happened to see the question on a morning when I felt a bit out of sorts. My knee-jerk instinct was to post a response that was honest but not very positive, if not understood in context: “Allowing myself to be selfish.” I chose not to make that response because I wanted to reflect on this thought a little. Why was it the first response that came up? Why might it be misunderstood?

So, a little bit of back story. Mid-March is one of the crazy-busy times of year for those of us who teach for a living. It is especially crazy when you’re also a parent, working a second job, or like me trying to finish revisions to a book manuscript and start your spring garden in seedling trays indoors. And be a good wife, and a good teacher, and a collegial co-worker, and a good civic activist.

In short, there are too many activities going on in a single day to possibly complete on time. Which means that inevitably the sun sets and the day ends with one or more items on the to-do list that did not get done. This means often that one looks for something else in the game plan that can be sacrificed so that all of the necessary things can get done. Often, the first thing that gets sacrificed is self-care: creating the space in the schedule for exercise, taking the time to prepare healthy meals instead of resorting to take-out, getting eight hours of sleep, even perhaps the extra few minutes to trim toenails, floss teeth, or rub moisturizer into winter-parched skin.

All of these aspects of self-care are important. Nearly everyone probably is guilty of letting at least one of them — if not all of them — slide when the life pace gets frantic. I think the one that falls by the wayside the most is exercise because exercise is a commitment that often requires saying no to others in order to say yes to yourself.

Over the past two week, I have been trying to get myself onto a schedule that mimics triathlon training in the hopes that the schedule will help me do a better job than I have done in years past in preparing for such events. I did have some successes: I did two short workouts in a single day twice during the past week, and I did manage to work in three cycling workouts, which for me is particularly difficult. With the success came some challenges: I devoted time — time that some would say could have been spent on other things — to mapping out daily plans to incorporate the workouts. I also devoted the time itself to doing the workouts. And as I was giving time to exercise, I found myself wondering why.

I am not an athlete, in the sense of being someone who can expect to be a contender in a race. I usually finish races near the back of the pack, if not in last place. I know that exercise makes me feel good because it gets me out of my head and into my body, but I wonder at times if my head is the better place to be, given my work and all of the commitments to completing projects that go unmet day after day. Shouldn’t I be putting the time into grading papers? Shouldn’t I be getting that long overdue project done? Shouldn’t I be cleaning the house?

“How are you doing on your book?” my husband asked me, pointedly after I scooted out of the YMCA where I had gone to swim — ten minutes later than I had promised to be.

The answer wasn’t a good one, and I have promised myself that I will do my best to push through the other piles of work to get to the finish. But I know that there is a lot going on and that the easiest way to wrap it up is to put the exercise on hold. To do that would be the unselfish thing, it seems. To sacrifice an activity I love for the greater good. But I find myself resisting that lurch because, frankly, I have to be selfish, for myself.
And so, that is the secret. Making sure to be selfish, at least a little.

Looking inside

Image of a book cover for Inside Yoga by Lloyd Goldstein, http://lloydgoldstein.com/?page_id=5

I had an opportunity this afternoon to lead a group of students and faculty where I teach this afternoon in a five-minute round of yoga. The yoga exercises were designed to be a break between an opening session of a weekend residency and a study group meeting. With five minutes, I wanted to give the group a few brief exercises that they could do on similar breaks with little fanfare throughout the weekend and in their regular lives.
My five minute session had an additional twist. One of the participants was blind.

I knew about this in advance. Wanting to include everyone without calling attention to anyone, I made my plans carefully. I figured that I could lead the group through the practice of a full yogic breath and the practice of using self-generated electricity from rubbing the hands together to activate and warm the eyes, ears, neck, solar plexus, and kidneys with words alone. But I also wanted to teach a simple sun salutation. Could I do that without showing them how it was done?

A full yogic breath is a controlled deep breath in which the inhale and exhale are done through the nose. The inhale begins in the belly, puffing it outward like a balloon, extends to the rib cage with the side muscles and spaces in between the ribs stretched, and then moves upward into the chest, making the breasts, well, heave upward. The exhale occurs in reverse, with air slowly being released from the chest, the ribs, and the belly. Seven of these full yogic breaths, three times a day, is one of the best ways to ignite a home practice, as a yoga instructor explained to me in 2010. After managing for five years to practice the ritual at least twice a day, I would say that the instructor has a point. Even if I do no other yoga, the deep breathing pumps oxygen into and out of my lungs and leaves me feeling relaxed and refreshed.

The use of one’s own body electricity is activate key points is a long-running practice that informs not only yoga but also tai chi and such healing arts as reiki. I often do it after a workout or a yoga class, as a way of re-energizing myself.

The sun salutation is a basic stretching routine that reaches most major muscle groups. I have advocated its merits ever since the early 1990s when I heard a running coach describe it as a good warm-up routine for marathon training. It involves stretching the arms upward, bending forward at the waist and letting the head drop below the knees, stepping back into a lunge, then bringing the other leg back into a plank, lowering the body into a difficult arm balance known as chattaranga, arching the spine upward into a pose known as cobra or upward dog, raising the hips skyward to form the downward facing dog pose as an upside down V, bringing one leg forward so that the leg opposite of earlier is stretched into a lunge, stepping forward legs forward and dropping the head down into the forward bend, and finally rising up and raising the arms over the head before dropping them down to stand in the strong mountain pose.

I have taught this routine to numerous friends over the years, particularly my friends who are recreational runners. Many of them have thanked me for helping them avert injuries. I never before, however, taught it to someone who could not see.
I thought this idea over earlier this week as I was in a yoga class. In this class, like so many others, I go through much of the practice with my eyes closed or at least averted from the teaching and facing the floor. I do this largely so that I do not get distracted and so that my body can “find” the pose on its own. I never gave the habit much thought, until this afternoon.

“You can watch me if you’d like,” I suggested, as my five minute session began. “But I’m going to encourage you not to do that. Look inside you instead. Yoga, after all, is a practice for you. It’s about caring for your body, your soul.”

In the early phase of my instructions, I caught a glimpse of the blind participant. I had said “bring your hands to your heart,” wanting the students to press their palms together in the namaste position. The blind participant brought her hands to the heart but simply held them there limp. That reminded me of the importance of being specific. “Press your palms together,” I said. The participant responded.
From there, it was smooth sailing. We finished the sun salutation and the group applauded in appreciation. After they left, I marveled at what I had learned about what I had previously taken for granted. You don’t always need an external model to tell you what’s right. Simply, look to your own body. Look inside.

Lessons

I am trying to re-start my blog-writing practice, after an absence of several months. In addition to Moving Your Body, which I’ve maintained since 2012, I’ve created and maintained blogs on short stories, poetry, teaching, sustainability, and hip hop.

The plethora of blogs is a result of a range of projects with which I am involved. For years, I have hoped to find a cohesive thread that would miraculously stitch all of my interests together. At this point, I have decided that no such thread exists, beyond the fact that it is I who maintains all of the interests — and am better off for being multifaceted, as a result.
The plethora of blogs let me dip in and dip out of my varied projects, much as my life as a professor allows for, as well. Always, I have hoped that there are two basic pursuits that set the base melody for everything else: writing and exercise. Both used to be off and on practices for me until late 2010 when I began to realize that if I wanted to live a long, healthy, and happy life, I needed to get serious about the things that would make that life long and healthy. Hence, I began to move my body and I began to write not just morning pages but a night stint at 750words.com, and afternoon stints, as well.

Things went along quite well for awhile. Then, it seemed, that a series of personal and existential crises took over: My mother fell ill and required a series of surgeries. The surgeries caused me to divert my focus. My body sustained a running injury and required some major rest. The injury caused me to divert my focus. My mother recovered in a seeming miraculous way. I couldn’t pull off a similar recovery with either my writing or my fitness training.

But now … I hope that I am back and ready for a re-start. As I begin my fourth year with this blog, it seems that looking back, I have learned a life lesson or two.

I am registered for three races, as of today: a 10K in April, the Fronhofer Tool Olympic Distance Triathlon in August, and the Twin Cities Marathon in October. My husband and I probably will also register next week for our favorite New York state 5K — the Run 4 Your Life, which is sponsored by firefighters and takes place on the last Saturday in March in Schenectady.
How are these registrations tied to life lessons? I think there are a few answers here.

First, I have found out that I’m not easily the type of person who can exercise, just for the heck of it. I know, logically, that exercise is a good healthful practice. It regulates one’s weight, one’s emotional sense of well-being, and one’s level of stress at the very least. Yet, I also know that I am susceptible — especially when cold and tired — to sitting out a day of exercise, or of calling the two or three trips up and down the stairs from my campus building’s front door to my third floor office the same thing as a strong cardio workout, if the mood does not arise. With a goal — a race, particularly — that indulgence disappears. I have no aspirations of winning these races — they are fun, recreational events. But I do not want to finish them feeling fat, ungainly, out of shape, or ready to puke. I know that people will be watching me and that someone will take my picture. Call me vain, but I want to look good in that picture.

In addition, races cost money. A lack of money prevented me from entering races last year. My husband encouraged me not to give up and to train as if I were preparing for races. Several friends urged me to do the same. I gave that intention my best shot, and while I cannot say that I failed, I will say that it was easier to give in to the lethargy that sometimes overtakes me when I’m busy, especially. This year, I didn’t want to be prevented from entering races so I budgeted carefully and differently. I learned to time registration payments around paychecks and in concert with monthly bills. That planning has paid off, not only for race registrations but for other aspects of life. After a few years of wondering if I would ever get off the treadmill of living paycheck to paycheck, I feel marvelously solvent.

The final lesson is tied to fun. Several years ago I remember taking in a statement by the creativity coach Julia Cameron of The Artist’s Way fame, which basically asserted that it was a lot easier for people to follow her regimen of writing three pages a day longhand (morning pages) than it was to take her mandated half-hour self-date (the Artist’s Date). The reason why? It’s easier to work (three pages of longhand every morning, first thing in the morning) than it is to play (spend half an hour in a drug store selecting different shades of nail polish). So, I’m not a big fan of nail polish, but I have to admit that races are fun. The music pulsates, the crowd cheers, people dress up in funny hats, and free food abounds. Before the race, there’s the agony of anticipation and afterwards the self-satisfied joy of completion. There’s a banana, a tub of yogurt, a power bar, coffee, soft drinks, cookies, hot chili, and of course the t-shirt. And more music.

So if nothing else, let’s say that one should enter races for fun. Consider them the artist’s date for athletes. Or the imaginary life of the athlete for the artist.

Guiding on the side

Professors who work at teaching focused colleges have a saying that in some ways differentiates them from their peers at the research centered universities. According to this term, the teaching professor is not “the sage on the stage” but rather “the guide on the side.”

I find the need to differentiate college from university a bit problematic because I have taught at a wide range of institutions and because I happen to like doing research and scholarship. Often, the focus on teaching is emphasized as a sort of defensive comeback to professors at what are called “research one” (or R1) universities who look down their noses at colleagues who work at community colleges, in vocational-technical oriented programs, or in colleges like mine that strive to be “student centered.”

Nevertheless, I do find the differences between sage-com and guide-ness intriguing. I often find myself wondering how one decides when one is performing like a sage and when one is acting the role of the guide. I know from my own experience of attending an elite private university for my undergraduate degree and a state-funded public university in a space colonized by the United States for my masters and doctoral degrees, that the professors who took on the “sage” style of teaching often electrified me with their wisdom but did not give me a lot of immediately retained knowledge. I know from rather problematic but nevertheless reputable measurements like standardized tests and grade-point averages that I personally gained much more learning and knowledge through lived experiences than I did from what professors taught. For instance, I never quite cleared the 80th percentile with my SAT scores but was well into the high 90s with my GRE result. I eked out a respectable but not spectacular 3.2 GPA for my bachelor’s degree but had a consistent 4.0 for my master’s and doctoral degrees. The fact that I worked as a daily newspaper reporter full-time for the twelve years that passed between the completion of my bachelor’s degree and the beginning of my graduate studies, despite nearly failing the basic news writing course in my undergraduate career, further supports the argument that one learns more by doing than by listening.

Still, I greatly respect what professors have taught me, and, like many adults who find their paths meandering into teaching, I found myself almost unconsciously modeling some of their practices when I first had students of my own. Even today, after thirteen years of teaching, I find certain ‘isms from certain professors lingering into my rhetoric:

* Good journalists need to become good bullshit detectors.

* You aren’t going to become a better writer by reading about writing, or talking about it. You need to write.

* Some of the best dissertation topics are heard about in coffee shops. It’s a pity they never get written.

* The best way to do research is to get lost in the library.

* If you’re just embarking on a project, act like a vacuum. Pull in everything.

* Set aside two hours a day of non-negotiable time for reading and writing. It doesn’t matter when those two hours occur. What matters is that you stick to them. For you.

* Critical thinking is a space of discomfort. If you’re feeling uncomfortable, that means you’re growing.

The list can go on, but hopefully the message is clear. Listening to lessons or pearls of wisdom that professors impart has value. But the value is lost if the practice fails to follow.

It has taken me longer than it should to get to the punchline, but the main point that I think I want to make is that the best guides are sages, as well. Sage-dom is not about dispensing knowledge and filling the purportedly empty minds of the masses; it is about building a relationship with students so that students trust the professor enough to take the words that the professor offers and apply them to their own purposes. One can be a guide on the side only if one is able to create an atmosphere of trust among students. Would you listen to someone you didn’t trust? Probably you have once or twice because the “bullshit detector” wasn’t quite working. Even if you emerged unscathed, one lesson that probably emerged from the experience was not to trust that person again.

I think of these words as I prepare to head to Lake Placid, NY, in a couple of hours to work as a volunteer compiler of results at the finish line of the 2014 Ironman. Already this year’s event has been faced with challenges beyond the athletes’ and organizers’ control: thunder and lightning derailed the 2.4 mile swim: Professional athletes were able to finish, but the age-group category (which is the bulk of the competitors) mostly were pulled out of Mirror Lake, where the swim took place, after completing the first of their two loops. Happily, it seems that the storms have passed — at least for now — which should allow everyone who started the opportunity to finish. The best coach could not have prepared the best athlete for this kind of an unpredictable event. The worst coach, however, might lead their trainees to believe that because of this development, the athletes themselves are unfit or incapable of success. They failed. Like I nearly failed news writing. The better coaches, of course, would encourage their trainees to realize that making it to the start line was success in and of themselves, and barring personal health or injuries, that if they did it once, they could do it again.

These ideas are reinforced as I remember running my first marathon. As I was heading out on mile 11, I saw the leaders of the pack heading back, at about mile 21. Marveling at their speed and agility, I joined everyone around me in cheering them on. I found my own pace quickening as my body unconsciously modeled their movements and as my mind emotionally “vacuumed” in their energy. Later, a young woman told me that if she had seen the winners when she was so far back in the pack, she would have simply gotten mad and quit. That, in my mind, is the result of bad teaching. The woman is completely missing the point.

Practicing practices

One of my resolutions for today was to leave the “whine box” at home. Getting to the point of realization that I needed to wean myself off the whine took a little longer than the now-599 days that I’ve been off the word’s homonym. The breakthrough realization came through an understanding that I had been spending the past couple of months making up a story about myself.

The story went something like this: Himanee entered a set of New Year’s resolutions at the start of 2014, and in her classic no-holds-barred style, posted them to Facebook. Among the resolutions were intentions to complete in the same Olympic distance triathlon and marathon that she completed last year with hopes of bettering her times.

She entered the year training stronger and better than ever. She began putting out energy that attracted other triathletes, and soon began making new friends and chatting about training and racing. She went into the cold, wet spring with a strong base of strength, and entered the early months of summer feeling confident and proud. And then the blow came. Time and money — or money and time — made the ultimate resolutions unrealizable. Other projects and priorities put registration fees, new running shoes, and other somewhat necessary pieces of equipment out of reach. And, so, the dreams had to be shelved — much to her bitter disappointment.

So, some of this story is true. But the kicker is not. What I have come to realize is that while I like the excitement of the event, the energy of crowds, and all the swag that one gets from registering and participating in An Event, it doesn’t matter all that much to me whether I compete or not. What matters is that I continue to move my body, stay healthy, and have fun in the process. Coming to the realization that the story of bitter disappointment and dashed dreams was purely a figment of my imagination made me wonder why I needed to make such a story up. Can one not “train” without an event to look forward to? Does one need a race as an end? Can training for health and fitness for life be more than the means to an end? Can it not be an end in and of itself?

I found myself pondering these questions this afternoon as my husband Jim and I drove the winding country highway in the northern Adirondacks toward Lake Placid, where tomorrow the Ironman will take place. We signed up to be volunteers — as we did last year. Only this year we chose to assist at the finish line of the run from 5:30 p.m. to midnight, in the last hours of the race. Last year, we were thrilled to be there when the first competitor crossed. This year, we wanted to be there to cheer the last competitor to finish. I particularly also wanted to imagine myself in that place, crossing that line at some point that would make me an “Ironman”, too.

I do have that wish. Still, as we drove the curves and listened to our vehicle groan as the altitude steadily climbed, I found myself feeling butterflies in my stomach. Could I do that distance? Did I want to put myself through such pain? Wasn’t training enough?

Last night, I realized that I have been struggling this year with more than just making it to the starting line of triathlons, marathons, or any other events. I have struggled for inspiration to write. I have struggled with trying to improve my oral health. In battling with these struggles, I often have gone down the road of lamenting what I lack: money for registrations and equipment, money and time to finance getaways to private writing retreats, and money for a rather expensive dental procedure that my insurance carrier is covering just modestly. As I acknowledged that the laments were accomplishing nothing, I started to wonder how one overcomes the presence of lacks. The answer took me to an obvious space: One either whines or one manages. And one way of managing is to continue to practice.

Training is practice. Writing longhand each morning as I have done fairly consistently for fourteen years is practice. Sharing words with the public — or at least the speck of the universe that is one’s own public — is practice. One can set goals to do something, to be somewhere, to have accomplished this, that, or the other thing by such and such time. Attaining many of those goals might be outside of one’s control (i.e., reasons for a lack of money this year have little to do with me and everything to do with the importance of caring for ailing animals, emergency home repairs, and family decisions to move resources toward collective endeavors). Practice, however, is always within one’s control.

After our stop in Lake Placid for a volunteers meeting, my husband Jim and I decided to head away from the crowds that had converged on the small town for Ironman. We had brought our bicycles with us and wanted to bike some quieter mountain roads. We found a good turnout a little outside the town of North Hudson, unloaded our bikes, and headed out for a spin. I had been training all year; this was Jim’s first time on a bike in more than a year.

“Wow, it feels good to be biking again,” he declared, after our ride.

“Indeed, it does,” I agreed. Then, a bit hesitantly because he always kicks my butt when we do anything sports-related together because he’s not only male and ten years younger than me but stronger than an ox and almost a natural athlete, I asked, “So how did I do? Did I look better?”

He looked at me straight in the eye and said, “You’ve gotten good. Just keep doing what you’re doing. You can only get better.”