Reflecting on 2012

Before this morning's run, I spent some time reading through all my blog posts from this past year. I would definitely consider myself to be a sentimental person and I appreciate the opportunity to pause from the daily grind and reflect on the blessings and lessons from the past year. Each year, it's always easy to pick out and remember the big events. Several New Year's ago, some friends took turns toasting to a different favorite memory from the year. There were many "oh yeahs!" spoken, as others helped me to recall some of the smaller but still special memories from the year. Rereading through my blog, I was able to do the same.

It's true that the days are long, but the years are short. When I reread blog posts for the beginning of the year, it feels like it was just yesterday. While I've done a good job at weaving my outside-of-running life into my blog, there were still a few big events from the year that were left out - the beautiful weddings of so many close friends, three incredible weeks in New Orleans, the beginning stages of planning a wedding! Having this forum serves many purposes for me - a chance to reflect, to digest, to track, to document. 

I just signed up for an eight-week yoga class, which I'm really excited for. Over the years, I've tested the yoga waters and have struggled with my feelings towards it. For so long, I've thought that it's not a justifiable work-out because I'm not dripping sweat and out of breath. A few weeks ago, I bought a one-day pass to try out yoga at my gym and it was amazing. I've been so focused on how slow yoga is that until now, I haven't been able to appreciate that that's a huge benefit of it. We live such busy, go-go-go lives and what a gift to be able to etch out time for no one but yourself, to truly slow down (And with regards to it being a work-out - when you're shaking, you're definitely working those muscles). 

While running is a different kind of work-out, it is certainly time that I can carve out for me. It's easy to skip out on a run because there's just too much to do, but once I start, it's uninterrupted time for me. After Hope Express, I struggled with my motivation and reason for running. It was a tough adjustment, because I felt like I no longer had a good reason to run. I felt like it was an interruption to my life at times, instead of a gift of carved out, set aside time....which it is. 

All relationships change over time, so naturally my relationship with running has changed too. I still struggle to believe that I ran 18 miles as part of Hope Express and that there was a point in time that I was running 2x some days. I just today realized that this is the first year I ran 2 half-marathons. Ryan and I trained and ran our first race together - proof that love does conquer all. While living further from home, I feel closer than ever to many of my family and friends back East. My definition of family has grown immensely and my friends now include a group of people in Ann Arbor who make it really feel like home. 

Carrie Bradshaw taught us long ago that as we balance our relationships - with commitments, family, friends, work, passions, and goals - perhaps it's most important to remember the relationship we have with ourselves. It's easy to lose ourselves when we feel pulled in so many different directions, but we owe it to ourselves to un-gumby at times and  find ways to put ourselves first. Whether it's experimenting in the kitchen, reading in the bathtub, or running through the park, may we all remember to treat this most important relationship extra special.

Happy new year and here's to a wonderful, beautiful, special 2013!

A Lesson from Science

The holidays are filled with the best of things, but it sometimes feels like that comes at a price. I've noticed a reoccurring theme in conversations with friends and family this week, as the guilt from neglecting any resemblance of a healthy living has crept its way into our lives. I feel fortunate that I have a significant enough amount of time off from work that I can come home to visit family and friends and have time to relax, but as special events, visits, and gatherings invade my schedule, it becomes challenging to balance it all. Ironically enough, it's sometimes just as hard for me to "find time" to run or work out when my day is completely empty. It began to snow in the afternoon yesterday and I immediately thought it was a great excuse to stay in and spend some extra time on the treadmill in the basement. It never happened though. I found my way to the couch....and never left.

In a conversation with my cousin on Christmas Eve, my mom randomly but so timely paraphrased Sir Issac Newton - "Objects in motion stay in motion. Objects at rest stay at rest." It so perfectly summarized something I had been hinting at for months (if not forever, really). While we oftentimes complain of wanting and needing more time in the day, I know for me, it's hard to have a semi-busy day. It either is or isn't. It's either a rushed run or a non-existent workout. On free days when I have nothing but a run scheduled, I often find myself still managing to skip it. Sometimes when I have the most time, I get the least done.

As many people have, I have accepted that the best way to overcome this is to start early in the day. This morning, I smashed the Laws of Motion by getting the gym out of the way...and then slowing down to a snail-like pace the rest of the day. Take thatttt all-my-science-teachers-ever!

absence makes the heart grow fonder

I have not been a very diligent blogger lately. I'll assign blame to my shift in focus away from solely running to a more diverse work out schedule, something I wanted to do following the Detroit Half. Immediately following the run, I wasn't sure how quickly I'd want to jump right back in, and yes, it's been slow. Nevertheless, I've found myself looking forward to runs and noticing a difference when they're missing from my life. 

Yesterday, my family went to Rockland Lake, a favorite spot to run near my hometown. It felt good to head out as a family and it felt nice to just go for a run for the sake of running, without stressing. I ended up not being able to use my phone, so I couldn't track my time. While I would never volunteer to head out for a run without it, it was a pleasant change of pace and I enjoyed it. It felt good just to run.

Detroit Recap

It has been way too long since I last wrote and even longer since the Detroit Half. Not too good considering I still want to write a recap for that event. It's hard to just think about that and not everything else that has happened in the past month since I last posted, but maybe that will be motivation for me to be more present. So let's rewind five six weeks...

Ryan and I stayed downtown the night before the half, which was a great choice. In the morning, we just had to walk a few blocks to meet some friends, and then just another block to get into our corral. It made it much less stressful than I imagine it would have been had we driven in from Ann Arbor, had to find parking, etc. Nevertheless, my nerves were still out of control. It was frustrating and unsettling, especially since they blew a horn every time another wave crossed the starting line. It made my stomach jump!

It was still dark when we finally started, just about 20 minutes after 7AM. Once the sun started to rise, I started to feel a little lighter and more at ease, and I hoped the fact that I had to pee was just nerves and would go away (it wasn't and it didn't - ugh!). We saw Colleen just before we started up the ramp to cross the Ambassador Bridge into Canada, which was awesome - I greatly appreciated her coming out. It was a huge help.  Crossing the bridge was beautiful. It was PERFECT timing, as the sun was just started to come up over Windsor.  There were a ton of people out in Canada and we ran right along the water, with an awesome view of Detroit. Honestly, the weather could not have been more perfect! 

I tried to hold off, but I just couldn't, and when I saw what I thought would be a short line at the portapotties just before Mile 5, I decided to stop (which is only worth noting because it's never happened to me before). It was frustrating and hard, because Ryan and I were running together and we had wanted to run at least half of the race together, so he had to stop and wait for me.

The whole course was really cool. We ran through the (HOT!) tunnel back to the US and looped through some neat neighborhoods with lots of people out cheering. 

Ryan and I split up at Mile 10, which was bittersweet. I wanted him to go on and push himself, but I was oddly emotional. I spend so much time and effort encouraging those around me to simply try and to focus on the journey - it's not about where you end up, but about where you started, and then ended up. Nevertheless, I couldn't take my own advice. Knowing I was going to come in over all other halfs I'd done, I was frustrated and upset. Instead of celebrating that I was running another half-marathon and enjoying the accomplishment, I found myself fighting back tears.

When my always-supportive friends and family called and texted to ask about the race, it was hard to hide my feelings. It wasn't until later that night that I realized how much I was letting 2 miles of feelings overshadow the ENTIRE day, race, and training. Instead of acknowledging and accepting the facts (I did the best I could with training; I was aware of the fact that the lack of cross-training put me at a disadvantage; my knees had been bothering me on every long training run I had done leading up to the half), I was allowing myself to ignore the big picture - I had run a half-marathon...and I had done it with my best friend, a first for us. 

More than any other race I've run, this one certainly proved to me the most emotional. For whatever reason, it challenged me in a new way and with some distance now, I can say for sure that this too serves a purpose. Things aren't always what we want them to be, and that's okay, but even with the best support systems in the world, if we don't believe in ourselves, we won't get very far.