Lunch of Champions

Nothing makes me feel more on top of life than packing a nutritious and delicious lunch. Field greens, red quinoa, blueberries, goat cheese, and toasted pecans (packed separately to stay dry), all drizzled with balsamic vinegar at chow time.

Eating deer food makes me feel so much better during my workouts and for the rest of the day, especially the afternoon. I've found it very difficult to focus on staying away from junk, but relatively easy to put energy into scavenging for great ingredients. The good stuff starts to overtake the bad, and I'm left with a 90-10 split in deer food's favor.

I feel great today, and I think part of it is the food and a great big overwhelming part is the weather. I ran for 45 minutes this morning in the mid-60s air-- that's a full 20 degrees cooler than my run on Monday. Thank god this marathon is in November.

Upper upper legs

My upper upper legs are sore! Or at lease that's how I phrase the complaint in public. I'm not sure if it's the pilates leg raises from a plank or the fact that I pick up the pace on uphills for races, but ow. This morning's 45 minute (generously labeled) jog stretched me out but did little for the soreness following me.

Also, the inner part of my right arm and the top of that hand are sore when I flex or point my hand or raise those fingers. This, I know, is from the tennis I played for the first time in about a year on Saturday.

Now, I'm clearly not a professional athlete, but I am a professional, and these body parts are, ironically, those I need to 'work' at work. You know, for all that sitting and typing, pointing and clicking.

Nice to complain just because my complaints are pathetically funny. Whining's more fun when I'm fine.

Pride Run

Since I'll do (almost) anything for either free food or a free t-shirt, these races are the carrot to this here blog's I-don't-want-to-slack-off-and-embarrass-myself stick. While the $18 entry fee always goes to a good cause and is a no brainer weighed against the loot (which included a great shirt this time, by the way), some of them I find myself thrilled to support and quite energized by.

The Pride Run, in its 29th year, is one of these. It raised money for SAGE, an organization that provides services to and advocates on behalf of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender seniors, many of whom face discrimination in the elder care context or fail to seek out those services out of fear of discrimination, and who may not have traditional social safety nets to advocate or care for them.  A great cause for a need that is obviously when you think about it, but I hadn't really thought through.

Of course, the national anthem is also energizing when sung by Lady Peppermint, an apparently famous drag queen with a jazzy rendition. After the gun, I walked slowly for about four minutes to get to the starting line, and then jogged/walked for the next almost five through the too-narrow start of the course. I could either push and weave or just go with the flow, and since nobody cares how I place, I decided to slow it down a bit and just try to enjoy the experience.

I felt pretty good the whole way through. I think it was a combination of the frequent water stations (during which I drank half a cup and poured two down my body), the good warm-up I got jogging to the start on the southwest end of the park, and little bit later start at 9 (relatives and friends of newborn chick, did you hear that? late start at 9am!). I also found a sweet spot for a mile and a half in the middle, where I found myself well behind much faster runners but ahead of those I'd passed. I'd only ever experienced that on the freeway.

The runners were very supportive, cheering each other on and slowing down when necessary to ask if the overheating heavy-breathers were doing okay and to give some you-can-do-it-just-breathe-slowly-and-regularly-you're-doing-great!s. Two cheerleaders in particular entertained me, an elderly man who believed in tough love, and a well-meaning liar. Mr. Tough Love stood right after the second water station and yelled to us all "Pick. It. Up! This is NOT a picnic. Plenty of time to drink once you finish!" About half a mile out from the finish, Mr. Fib, with a smile, cheered "Looking great folks, almost there! Just 400 meters!" I loved him for about 300, realized he lied, hated him for another 300, and then loved him again when I realized he got me quickly to the finish.

As the cheering got louder, I picked up my pace, and as I picked up my pace, they started yelling encouragement at me. It felt great to finish strong, and greater to see that the post-race snack was pretzels and a BIG Stick popsicle! My time was 51:25.

I asked a random stranger to take a picture of me with my cell phone, "you know, for the parents," is I think what I said, because I was sweating and it seemed like a strange and touristy request and the blog thing is a longer story. He kept making me move to just the 'right' spot, took the picture, handed it back, pointed out that he framed me perfectly in between the flags, and said "for the parents, good for you."

We are the stories we tell ourselves. ?

Walking to work today in a half-sleepy, half-slowed-by-the-warm-sun pace, little half thoughts bumped around in my head as I watched the yoga-pants and sneaker-clad go by. A bit of envy for the time set aside and toned limbs; impressed by the look of daily effort.

God, I hate them. I'll never be one of those workout in the morning people.

And then I snapped a bit more awake and reoriented myself in my life. Riiiight.... I've forced myself to be one of them. I was just earlier.

Good morning! Now, if only I could wake up from the sleepies...

Life is like a bag of chocolate

My life is less like a box of chocolates and more like a bag of chocolate chips. I know exactly what I'm going to get-- small rewards that I keep coming in a continuous stream to bribe myself into good behavior.  

I ran for 70 minutes this morning, and it took me about 40 to get into it. Getting into it took endorphins and seeking out some (water) park entertainment.  

It was 80 and 400% humidity by 7:15 this morning, so I hopped the little wooden fence and ran through the sprinklers. And then, because a certain someone wasn't there to give me a 'what are you, five?' look of incredulity, I skipped to the wooden swing and started pumping. Now, that is the way to cool off. Old runners' trick.

I kept the phone out to snap a few shots, which kept my eyes darting around, looking for something interesting to capture. Over the next couple minutes, I tripped, accidentally erased my one awesome swing picture, and unknowingly took these uber-candid me-in-motion frames.

And here's how it ended. With shade and turtles and a little peace. And sweat.

Fathers Day

Stopping and starting is hard; momentum is lost and has to be built up again. I've been writing less because I've been running less, and neither makes me feel good.

Work and the flare have zapped the energy I'd need to get myself excited about getting back into the running that had become habit, and it's being excited about the running that sends me back here.

I did have a wonderful run on Sunday with my dad, an hour around the park, with stops at every other drinking fountain to splash ourselves. The last couple times I've run, for the Corporate Challenge and my parents' visit, I got out for an experience rather than out of shoulds.

And that's what I have to do, keep getting out for other reasons, or for no reason. I like it when I do, and the whole thing becomes a virtuous cycle. I just can't handle having to handle something else.

Running was my break and I'll let it fall into that again, Thursday. Tomorrow morning is pilates.

Corporate Challenge

I could fall asleep at my desk right now. Yesterday I participated in the JP Morgan Corporate Challenge, a 3.5 mile race around the park to raise money for the Central Park Conservancy. I had only run twice in the almost two weeks leading up to it and didn't have time to warm up, so I was feeling neither in shape nor peppy. I will admit to a bit of what-on-earth-am-I-thinking-with-this-marathon-thing thinking.

I forced myself to focus on the music and the runners and the road just in front of me instead of how much longer I had to run or how slow (or dead) my whole body felt. I finished in 34:14 (a 9.78 minute mile pace, compared to the 10 min pace of the Japan Run), which I'm pretty happy with.

Then it was back to work until 1:15 or so in the morning, so no run this morning. Juggling lupus, work, and running feels like a lot right now, but I'm hoping that I've come out the other side of the flare, that running and being relatively rested will get easier, and everything will feel more possible with some zzzzs and endorphins.

Puerto Rico

Made it out for a run just in time to catch the downpour and the tail end of the Puerto Rican pride explosion.

GW

After waking up at 6 am with a migraine, I knew yesterday was not going to be the running day I had been waiting for. Luckily, I was able to deal with it, go back to sleep, and wake up a couple hours later ready to enjoy the day, if not a run.

A bunch of silver dollar whole wheat blueberry pancakes later, we decided on a last minute bike ride with a vague idea of the route. By the time we stopped at a bike shop and crossed the park twenty minutes later, I was starving. We picked up juice and baguettes with cold cuts, hit the west side bike path, and headed up to the GW bridge. It was a bit tricky finding our way onto the bridge, but crossing was fantastic. The path over the bridge is uncrowded and there's a cool fresh if not twinged with car exhaust breeze. The view is fantastic, more for being impressive than beautiful. The part of Manhattan that I recognize looked far away. It felt even farther away once we crossed the bridge and ended up riding through a park in Fort Green, NJ.

We saw a deer at the park entrance and groundhogs at the picnic area by the water we rode by at the bottom of the long hill. Verdant is the best way to describe the bike path, or perhaps verdant and hilly. Wildflowers and ginormous leaved plants lined the way and filled the air with the scent of wood, pollen, and dirt after a rain. The top of my quads felt the uphills; my arms were tired from holding up my body on the downhills, and my hands hurt from the sustained gripping of the brakes. All good news! Working the front of the leg is supposed to help runners stay balanced. Apparently all the work running does for the hamstrings needs some countering if knee problems are to be avoided. My arms got a bit sore quickly because I've been working them with pilates, and my hands hurt only from squeezing, not from lupus related joint pain. We returned home almost six hours after departure, and although we stopped for food and drinks, that's still a solid cross-training outing (at least measured by the sweat dripping into our eyes).

I think the meds are working. I don't want to jinx anything, but I have felt almost nothing lupusy in three days, and that has kept me feeling incredibly positive even as my head has kept me from running. Instead of "it's not one thing, it's the other," I feel "thank you, universe, I can handle the lesser of two evils." Of course, the attitude depends on the day and where exactly I am on each front, and work, sleep, whether I've had chocolate that day, if my favorite tv show is on, the weather.... It's exhausting and rather thankless to keep a positive attitude all the time, but hard not to when I'm consumed by relief.

I'm working from home today to hopefully end-run late nights at the office early in the week that could cut into my sleep time. If the head and weather permits, I'll run this evening. Very little would make me happier. How many times can I say "cross your fingers"? That should have been the name of my blog.

Running Voices

The NYT is doing a wonderful job profiling runners from a wide spectrum of age, purpose, goals and backgrounds. I find them inspiring in a doesn't-make-me-feel-bad-for-skipping-my-run-this-morning kind of way. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/05/27/health/MARATHON_VOICES.html?ref=nutrition


I especially love the video of Sab, the 85 year old. I've got such respect for the older runners. That's what I want to be when I'm 85. And it's not just because of what that must mean for how they feel physically in their everyday lives and what activities they can still do, which would be motivation enough. I look at someone twenty years into senior citizenhood who is regularly running and I see someone who has figured out how to have balance in his life. He is and has been prioritizing health and activity and his person beyond investing in career and general functioning as a person in the world activities. There isn't a sense of his time having passed. Running presents new, if arbitrary, goals, and a time for self-reflection and memories to mix with fresh brainstorming for new projects.


Preparing for a marathon has given me that arbitrary goal to get me out there prioritizing wellness and balance. As I've hit a snag these last two weeks and been walking and pilatesing more than running, I remind myself that there will be time to train for the marathon, but my main goal is and my focus should be on the training itself.


For me, that has meant just weathering this patch of appointments, high stress and a high workload, trying to get as much sleep as possible while moving my body somehow everyday. Tomorrow morning is pilates, which I'm already looking forward to, and then, after another good night of sleep, runs this weekend.

Rheumatologist Update

Quiiiick update: the doc was not at all alarmed by what I was describing. The good news is that apparently how a lupus patient does within the first five years of diagnosis provides a pretty good idea of how the rest of her life will go with the disease. Since I spent a decade after diagnosis with close to no symptoms and no flares (and have never had any organ involvement), this was reassuring. Basically, she said I have lupus and can expect to have little flares every once in a while, and will likely look like what I'm experiencing now.

"I can totally deal with that; sign me up for the occassional bump like I'm hitting now. But you have to understand, I am not going through THAT again. I won't do it." Yeah. I think I forgot that definitive statements and a serious stare will not intimidate lupus away, and that I can't negotiate with my doctor. Luckily, I backtracked to quasi-maturity before I lost her.

1,356 viles of blood were taken. I'm being tested for everything that can be tested for (including Lyme Disease, since I run in the park) and then some. Results should all be back in about a week.

In the meantime, the best thing I can do is up my dose of the drug I've depended on, which is what I did immediately when this started two weeks ago (as effects often take at least a month to be felt). I can (and probably should) work out as long as I don't feel serious inflammation. I should try to rest when I need it. Apparently, while waiting for an appointment, I did just the right thing. Who says endless googling and overthinking won't do me any good?

rheumatologist

at the rheumatologist's office and waiting for my name to be called. i felt relieved last night that i'd be making this a professional's intellectual problem today. i can tough out the physical part, whick isn't bad at this point, but the wondering what i can and should do has been exhausting.

now, as i look around at the elderly patients in the waiting room, i'm getting anxious. it's not only because it feels damn inappropriate and unfair for a 26 year old health food eating work out 6 days a week girl woman to share the room with the elderly, but it brings back how i felt at 16 in a similarly populated waiting room. shitty is the word that comes to mind. that or scared shitless. it's amazing what fear and anger does for my vocabulary.

40:11

Hot run. Everyone broke into smiles around three quarters of the way through where a spritzer was set up to cool us off. In the mugginess, the sweat, spritz, and cups of water dumped on my head were not evaporating.

Still fun. I started out in the last starting pen because I had estimated my pace at an 11 minute mile at registration. There are thousands of seriously overconfident (or clueless) registrants out there, because there were herds of people ahead of me who ended up running at a 13-15 minute pace. By the time I hit the starting line, I could already see the elite runners all the way on the other side of the park. I was a bit disappointed that I didn't get to see them up close.

The first mile and half was a lot of weaving between very slow runners and bobbing and leaning out of the way of people faster and more frustrated than myself. I had no idea how quickly I should have been running. I found a woman about my age who seemed to be going not crazy quickly but was clearly in better shape than I am and a great weaver. I kept three steps behind her until the three mile mark, which is where the long hill started and I couldn't (read: didn't really want to) keep up. I looked for my cheerleader in the 70s, gave up on him in the 80s, and saw that smile and wave in the 90s, right where I needed it for a little bounce in my starting-to-drag step.

For the fourth and last mile, I alternated between bursts of powerful steps to the beat of my music and just wanting to stop and walk already. The NYRR volunteers are awesome, and it's amazing how nice it feels to have strangers make eye contact and cheer you on at end with reminders that we'd made it and the finish was just around the corner.

At the finish, I dumped one more cup of water down my throat and one down my shirt, grabbed a wonderful tart apple and a french toast bagel.

I'm happy with my 10 minute mile pace and happier that I felt good before, during, and after.

Astaire

This man made me smile. He's not running here, he's dancing-- seriously dancing. Nailing exacting footwork, grace, and a low hummed melody. No self-consciousness. No audience he's aware of. Probably, in New York style, no audience at all.

Just me, plodding along. I didn't even have to slow down to stalk Astaire or snap this without his image smearing across the frame.  Did a 40 minute glacial run just to run. No pain and nothing felt scary off.

I made me smile, too.

When Life Gives You Lemons.... Sweat.

Not much to say on the health front other than I'm going light on the running and heavy on the scheduling doctor's appointments for next week. I don't feel so bad; it's just that I feel something, and that something is a feeling that has lead to no good in the past.

I started up pilates again with a lesson this morning. What felt like an indulgence when I flirted with the idea two weeks ago now seems justifiable as an investment in my physical, mental, and emotional health. I've learned that although I can suck up just about anything to get through even the most demanding of days, I need an outlet to be able to hang in there. I can either cry it out or sweat it out, and I'd like to move the mix from an equal balance toward more sweat. My contact lenses are getting irritated.

The exertion is cathartic and the challenge of trying to incorporate more advanced moves keeps my mind engaged and me fulfilled with little milestones of accomplishment along the way. Increasing strength in my core, arms, and secondary-for-running leg muscles should enhance my overall fitness and, I hope, make my running easier and more efficient in bitty increments.

I'm planning an easy run tomorrow, and then looking forward to participating in the Japan Run on Sunday. If nothing else, this is all a not-so-subtle reminder to make the best of the moment, take things as they come, stay proactive, and shut off the 'what if's' after the pressure of the current stream of anxious thoughts has been released.

My Competition

Lupus, shmupus. I'm gunning for him. (...or is it inappropriate to use this type of expression after Palin has- and meant it?)

Anywhooo....look who's coming to the 2010 Marathon!
http://sports.espn.go.com/new-york/news/story?id=5242796

Now everyone's got a reason to come watch. He'll be the smiley guy right behind me.

3 Laps?

Today I ran three laps at an average speed of 14 minutes per lap. Or so says my GPS watch. I couldn't get the damn thing to stop beeping and giving me every option under the sun related to the laps I was not running. I'll have to read the full guide to it later. I really wish I had some sort of an instinct for finding my way around even a little piece of technology.... This was utterly predictable.

It feels like I ran about 35 minutes this morning. It was fairly uneventful except for the heat. By 7:30, it was very very warm and humid. I need to swap out my hat for a visor to let the heat escape from my head, and next time I'm planning to ask one of the doormen cleaning the sidewalks in the morning to hose me down before I hit the park. Between the mini fanny pack I occassionally sport, the hat-but-soon-to-be-visor, and chunk of a new watch, I look special. Being drenched shouldn't ruin the look.

I really couldn't care less, except for the fact that I enjoy event-related tshirts. I registered for the Japan Run in Central Park this Sunday. Space is limited and last sign up is tomorrow, if anyone is interested.... http://japandaynyc.org/main/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=131&Itemid=140