On Practice

Today was Shabbat, which is my rest day. But I realized while sitting in davenning (prayer services) that spiritual practice is called "practice" for a reason.

My experience in services today was kinda like my speed workout yesterday. At a certain point, I wanted to bail out, make excuses, take it easy, zone out. In a run, that translates to "I didn't get much sleep last night. Maybe I should just cut it short." In spiritual practice, for me at least, it's often, "I can't be present. My family needs me at home more than my religious community does. I should head home." In either case, life's demands and my own lack of focus on my goals get in the way of really attending to the work at hand. And the answer is the same in both situations: come back to your breath. Come back to yourself.

Mantras help me to stick with it, whether "it" is paying attention to prayer or keeping up my pace. There's a chant that we use during the High Holidays, "Return again, return again, return to the land of your soul." What worked to keep me knocking out those 1K repeats yesterday was less deep: "Oh, girl, dancing down those dirty and dusty trails, take it hip to hip, rockin' through the wilderness." Whether it's spiritual practice or athletic training, some days it's just about showing up, putting one foot in front of the other.

An elder in out community likes to remind us of the importance of not just kavannah (intention), but keva (that which is fixed -- liturgy, words). We have to show up for the fixed practice, what's in our prayerbook or on our training plan, if we're to have any chance to infuse our repetetive actions with the spirit that will flow into the rest of our day.

It's Official!

"This card confirms your acceptance into the 113th Boston Marathon on Monday, April 20, 2009."

Here we go!

Fuel

From an excellent discussion of fuel for the marathon:

"The marathon is less a physical event than a spiritual encounter. In infinite wisdom, God built into us a 32 km racing limit, a limit imposed by inadequate sources of the marathoner's prime racing fuel -- carbohydrates. But we, in our infinite wisdom, decreed that the standard marathon be raced over 42 km...So it is in that physical no-man's-land, which begins after the 32 km mark, that is the irresistible appeal of the marathon lies. It is at this stage, as the limits to human running endurance are approached, that the marathon ceases to be a physical event...It is there that you learn something about yourself and your view of life." (Tim Noakes, The Lore of Running, p596)

Caveat about fuel: Because of this "eat to run" mentality, we runners are notorious for getting carbs in whatever form. As we learn more about trans fats and high fructose corn syrup, I'm trying to be a little more discerning. (Though on a recent run in Charlotte, I did refuel with a York Peppermint Patty and a yellow Gatorade. 'Cause I had two sweat-soaked dollar bills on my person, and a wrong turn had turned 10 miles into 12.)

~~~

Did my tempo work on the treadmill today. Both Jesse's and my heart-rate monitors are on the blink, so I have a hard time gauging my pace for tempo runs ("comfortably hard" pace, a little slower than 10K race pace). It's a weird pace, one I never feel like I can sustain for as long as I actually do. Getting 8" or so of snow tomorrow, so Thurs will be another indoor day. :-(

not as easy as expected...

Quoting from my running log for today:

wearing: northface tech top, sporthill 0-40 pants (yay!), saucony fuzzy, brimmed hat, fleece gloves, 1 pr smartwool socks

very hilly on purpose, since this was a "down" week. fell on black ice on boston ave. ran out of batteries in the MP3 player soon after. lost my course notes and had to try to remember (i did ok). started out overdressed, fearful of the -5 deg. wind-chill. looped back by the house to shed a layer. then was too cold going into headwind, but not sweating like a pig while running uphill in the sun. lot of crossing back & forth to find clear sidewalks and clambering over snowbanks hurt my time. i made ice on my hat! overall, one of those "another f*ing growth opportunity" runs.

Since I had no music, I had a lot of time to think, and found myself remembering my first "race". It was the 1 mile fun-run held before the Charlotte Observer Marathon & 10K (which my mom did for many years). It was probably 1983 or so. I wore a lavender, cotton sweatsuit. The race was in early January, so in Charlotte it might have been in the 40s or 50s, but I remember thinking it was so cold and such a long way! Little did I know that 25 years later, I would willingly step out my door for a 10 mile training run on an 8-degree day.

Even though a 10 mile "long" run is cake at this point in training, today did kinda suck. I actually had to sing the Rocky theme song to myself all the way up that last haul up Winter Hill to keep running. But a nice guy stopped to make sure I was ok when I fell on the ice, and I didn't get hit by a turning car before I could stand back up, so that's a good thing.

Good-Day Goals & Bad-Day Goals

Had a marathon training mtg tonight w/ Team MBHP, and was impressed that Sean put his marathon time goal out there for G-d and everybody to see on his fundraising page. Goals can be scary.

After I ran my first half-marathon, I realized I could be faster, but that I didn't push myself and was scared. Of what? Setting goals and missing the mark? Meeting my goals, finding out that I'm capable of something more, and having to set a new goal? Finding out that I'm strong enough? Finding out how many people hold me up and love me anyway when I'm not strong enough? Eventually deciding to run a marathon?

So, here I find myself training for my first marathon. And I do have a goal, on which all of my training is based: I want to finish sub-4, which means a 9 min/mile pace. 26.2 of 'em.

That said, I've learned that for running, it's good to have a good-day goal, and a bad-day goal. Bad days happen -- last night's dinner was too spicy, or after I'm warmed up, my foot still twinges where it was broken. If I don't cut myself some slack for that, I'll go back to being afraid to set goals.

For instance, my shoulder has been hurting a lot for a few days, so yesterday my good-day goal was to do 3 x 1 mile at 8 min. pace. My bad-day goal was 2 at 8 min pace, and then break the last mile into halves if need be. When I got to that last half-mile, I thought "You have another .25 in you." And when I got to the last .25, I thought, "This is just like the turn onto Hereford right before mile 26. Run, girl." I had a good day.

My bad-day goal for April 20th is to finish. Because really, running 26.2 miles is pretty hard, whether you finish in 2:04, 3:57, or 6:30.

Yeah, baby! 37 degrees and partly sunny on Friday means I'm doin' my tempo run outside!

Also, for those of you running in the northern climes this winter, here's an article that explains why it's so hard and occasionally painful. (No, it' not just the thing where you have to bound through knee-deep snow like the boot-camp tire drill.)

Thanks to everyone who's signed up for the Facebook group.

Squish. Yeeoow! *Grin*

That was me sounding like a cat doing king fu, over and over through today's 12-miler. The sidewalks are lined waist-high with snow, so the choices are "climb every mountain, ford every stream" (you know, the streams that form at every curb-cut). In either case, the feet stay wet. I love my Smartwool socks.

I also love the new stuff I added to the MP3 player last night. I had some doubts -- you never know how a song or a new flavor of gu is going to work out until you run with it. Here are the top ten surprise winners (also in player below):

1. Prince of Love - Zoe Lewis
2. Straw Hat and Old Dirty Hanky - Barenaked Ladies
3. Gravel - Ani DiFranco
4. I Feel Lucky - MaryChapin Carpenter (lucky 'cause no one was around to hear me singing this one!)
5. Rain King - Counting Crows (live version from Across a Wire)
   
6. Charlie on the MTA - Manhattan Tansfer
7. Forgotten Years - Midnight Oil
8. Send Me on My Way - Rusted Root
9. Me Vale - Mana
10. Deadbeat Club - B-52s

Other news: just created a Facebook group for my marathon supporters. Please join and invite your friends!

Thanks to a Twitter challenge by Jesse, and a response by Dan4th, we just passed the $2,000 mark for fundraising!

mutual admiration society

I just got a heart-warming batch of emails in response to first round of thank-you notes. It looks kind of like, "Thank you." "No, no, thank you." "No, really. Thank you!"

Everyone has their own reason to give -- because they:

• have been homeless or in danger of losing a house;
  
• did a charity run, walk, or hike and found out something new about themselves;
  
• are advocates, teachers, social workers, nurses who work with people facing housing insecurity;
  
• were double-dog dared to match a friend's $25 donation;
• know how hard it is to get funds for people with messy lives, when people are looking for the "best return" on their charitable dollar.
  

On that last point, a donor who works at MBHP put it best. "[There's] nothing glamorous and neat about the work, which makes it hard to raise funds for its mission. Can’t put a brass plate on a client indicating 'made possible through the donation of …'."

So, thank you again to all of you who give $10 and $100 and $1,000! (Why did you do it?)

Today marks one week back in Boston after holidays in North Carolina. I celebrated by doing my long run in the snow and starting to catch up on thank-you notes to donors. Got a lot of sweet, concerned responses to my post on Facebook about my planned 11-miler, so here's the report:

Did an 11-mile figure-eight, using the gym as my mid-point. Last winter while training for the Martha's Vineyard 20-miler, I learned that a double loop is great for cold-weather runs, because you can ditch an unneeded layer or pick up a fresh water bottle if your has frozen. Thankfully, most folks had shoveled, so it was easy going, especially compared to taking my son to daycare in the stroller this morning! Finished the distance in 1:46, which was fine, given the sloppy conditions in parts. Must add new songs to the MP3 player though!