Running Goals

         Ever since I started running again in 2013 I have been become real good at setting realistic goals for myself in terms of running. After completing an 8K race in 2013 I set my goals to the half marathon and soon, I had signed up for a 50K in West Virginia. Granted, moving from a half marathon distance to a 50K distance with a crazy elevation is a bit odd, it worked for me. I then went on to running 7 marathons and even qualifying as a Marathon Maniac. 

        But where are my goals now? It all depends on what happens in my next 3 races. I have the Marine Corps in two weeks, the Rehoboth Beach Marathon in December and my first 50 miler in March. My short term goals are obviously to finish all three races. Speed is not really part of my goals for these coming months, but I would like to work on time at some point in the future. I can't work on my speed goals now for to work on speed it would require me working on my eating habits and while training for marathons and a 50 miler it would be tough to simultaneously work on my weight and restricting calories and such. Yet, I would like to move off running after March 2018 and focus primarily on weight training, some running and mainly focusing on the quality of my food intake. 

         But I do have another goal brewing and it's the one of going back to the West Virginia Trilogy in the fall of 2018 and beating my time from the last time I did a 50K there. Now, THAT would be a worthwhile goal. When I first ran it I did it within second of the cutoff go 10 hours. It has rained that day and I had fallen several times and the back of my thigh was in extreme pain, but I finished. The RD of the race later wrote me a hand-written note and said he's hope to see me the next year and I have never gone back to get my vengeance on that mountain. So as this dream of going back to the crazy mountains brews I dream of finding new exciting adventures far and wide. When I go to Tennessee in March to run my 50 miler that would be the first time I would leave my little family and be away from them for so long, three days! This trip is like getting my toes wet and seeing how it goes, trying out something new. I have a strong feeling I am going to love it. 
             
             But I cannot even allow myself to think that far ahead yet. First, the marathons this fall, then the race in March and then, ever so slowly open the door to the possibility of going back to the mountains to beat my time. Hills are not my favorite thing either. Yet, exploring new aspects of my running is what makes running worth while. What are your running goals?

 

 

          

Mortality, Imagination and Romance

            Since my grandma's passing I have thought a lot about my own future passing. Yes, super morbid, I know, but that is what I have been thinking a lot of lately; If I have any control on how I  would "go" (hopefully in the distant future), how would I like to go? I mentioned this to a friend not realizing how odd most people consider talks about death, and she nervously joked, saying, "wouldn't it be nice if we could control how we go?" But I don't think I am trying to necessarily control the date, or the way, but surely there are some aspects of aging I and everyone for the matter, have control over. 

               Little over a year ago, I went with my 8 year-old daughter to the Arlington Cinema Draft House in Arlington, VA to see a movie called, Run Free, the hero of the documentary film, Caballo Blanco, was an ultra-runner legend, goes off on a routine run one day and dies on the trails. He is found by his friends days later and brought back to town to be buried. As sad as this was, after seeing my grandma live through several years of blindness, deafness, and being almost completely immobile for the last year or more, I feel Caballo's passing was actually quite forgiving and much more welcoming than my grandma's passing. So it's not really about controlling when, or how really, yet, I would like to think that if I continued to run into old age, as he did, perhaps, I too could meet such a simple, breezy end. 

                This whole topic brings me to another topic, romance. (be patient)....There's something about running that paints all things, even morbid ones, like death, with a romantic stroke. Perhaps it's all the time spent alone with one's thoughts. Or better yet, perhaps it's all the time spent alone with one's imagination that has allowed my imagination to run rampant. Whatever it is, every aspect of my life is colored with this tint of romantic gravity, all loosely connected to running. I just came to the realization today, as I drove to work, listening to my running mix on top volume, and pretty much aching to be running more than the 2 measly miles I was able to squeeze in, that I pretty much live in my imagination, and, more importantly, that my imagination is very powerful. How else does any runner get through grueling daily training runs without reliving the finish in one's head? 

Meditative benefits of the distance runner

                      As a distance runner I fully believe that my running is my meditation time and that this one external benefit is of exact equal importance to me as the physical benefits I get from running, not less....but AB.SO.LUTE.LY equal.  In addition, I believe that distance running has even much more powerful results than regular meditative practices might for it involves your whole body into physically learning how to work with, feel, see and then let go of all sorts of discomforts, through the use of your mind.

                      Let me explain, this past Saturday, I ran 23 miles and, being a somewhat slow(er) runner, I ran it in four and half hours. This is four and a half hours of working with your body, working with rising and falling discomforts, listening to your body on whether to slow down, drink, speed up, take it easy, eat, looking carefully each second as to not step on some hole, etc. It is safe to say that the WHOLE four and half hours was spent addressing and adjusting for minute-by-minute discomforts. Off the streets, this running practice has enormous implications for my personal life, but none more important than this one; the fact that nothing bothers me anymore. Let me rephrase that more clearly, of course things bother me, to some extent. I still feel discomfort, but I now I simply don't trust it's strength anymore. I don't fall apart when I feel threatened, I don't believe anymore in it's ability to unhinge me. In doubting the strength and validity of a perceived discomfort we make it less painful overall and we feel less a need to be defensive.

                       Coming from having been somewhat always super 'sensitive' and and easily hurt growing up, this change is very welcomed! Rewind time a few years and even a tinge of threat to the ME that I know would have gotten me unhinged completely. One wrong word from a loved one would have had me bed-bound in tears for hours, even days. A few years back, experiencing feelings of jealousy, hurt, annoyance, and frustration were experienced as simply unbearable. I totally believed in these hurt feelings and their ability to break me and it was no fun being me in this state, for I was constantly padding my proverbial walls so as to not get hurt. Too often, when met with discomfort (back then), I would feel the need to quickly ACT in order to alleviate and get rid of the thought discomforts as soon as possible. That is where my reactions were always less than nice. In social situations, this is typically when one deliberately acts to hurt others back for the perceived pain and discomfort they believe others inflict on them. One must conclude then, that when one ACTS on their 'lower level' feelings, such of jealousy, frustration, annoyance, it's not necesarily that this person is 'bad' or 'mean', but that they absolutely have no choice for they absolutely MUST act in order to get rid of the feelings of discomforts created by the perceived offence currently creating chaos in their life. This need to move the discomfort out of your body faster than it's meant to is what the Buddhists label as suffering. Emotional suffering is most often a perceived, but real-feeling pain that must be expelled from the body as soon as possible in the form of, unfortunately, hurting others back. Byron Katie, a author guru of mine, often says that "defensiveness is the first act of war".   She's reminding us that being defensive IS a choice we make and one we could very well do without.

                            But now, after over a year of running (or should we call it meditative running) anytime I feel pangs of any social discomforts, such as jealousy, annoyance, intimidation, frustration, I simply do what I do on hilly runs; go at it slow and steady and I don't trust it's power, I know it in my bones that it TOO will go away. Whatever I do or think, I certainly don't act on it, I simply keep on moving, and soon I'm on top and the discomfort has moved on. In life, as in running, all discomforts morph, change, move around and always dissipate, fade away into nothing. Therefore, I trust that all discomforts in real life, as in my runs,  morph, change, move around and fade away too, all I need to do is approach it slow and steadily and with this knowledge that it will not be there long, as long as I keep on moving and following my path.