The Wicked Googly

It's not often that I blog twice in one day. But my body has had me doing nothing but sleeping, sitting and thinking today.

Yesterday, I was out running with my friend Dave on the Kalamazoo River Valley Trail. We tend to start from the trail head of the trail, but this time, we took a bit of a different route, since we ran from his house to the trail.

On the way back, during this super slow run, we passed the 1.5 mile marker and I said "remember when we used to turn around right here?"

I logged my first activity in my running experiment just over a year ago, on March 25, 2012. It was 2.1 miles at 34 minutes. I suppose the good news is that I can do about 3 miles in that time frame now.

But when I first started, I had no idea that I would still be doing it today, let alone training for a half marathon. I am still super slow and my goal for the half marathon is to finish.

I expected to be doing something much different this year. My plan did not include running either short OR long distances. It didn't include running 8 miles yesterday or 13 miles this coming weekend. It didn't necessarily involve me going to school right now or living by myself (well, with Dakota by ourselves).

And as I thought about what could have been or something I had wanted in the past, I know that those things are still options. But while the story of my life is not over, the plot has taken a wicked googly on to a path that I didn't necessarily see coming.

But, it's ok. Why? Because there are now some other things that are beginning to fall into place. They may be unexpected things, but they are opportunities to be taken.

I have no doubt that as I run my 13 mile run this coming weekend, that I'll be thinking about the things that could have been, the things to come in the future , the things I need to change and the things that have changed in the last year.

Lent, fries and 25 miles

I had fries yesterday. After 40 days, Lent is over and my self-imposed sacrifice was done. The sad part is, they weren't even very good fries.

It was quite the interesting experiment. In some ways, I ended up replacing fries with even worse things like onion rings. Sometimes, I went the coleslaw or salad route. Or I just didn't replace them with anything.

I don't know how my eating habits will alter now that I'm "allowed" to eat fries. The interesting thing is that in the last few weeks, my eating habits have gotten bad - it's like I've regressed into my college days. With a lot of stuff due in the last few weeks of the semester (yeah, you know, that semester where I decided two classes at the same time was a good idea), I've been drinking a lot more Dew and eating badly.

This is my last week of the semester, with a final exam on Tuesday and paper due Thursday. The craziness should be a bit more tame after this week. I am going to try to be more mindful to make sure I get enough water, eat better and try to plan a bit more. 

Especially since my half marathon is 4 weeks from today.

As I was looking at my calendar earlier today, I realized that this first week in April is my heaviest training week. I am scheduled to run 25 miles this week (2 Monday, 5 Tuesday, 3 Wednesday, 2 Thursday and 13 for my long run on Saturday).

That's a bit intimidating.

Granted, in the last few weeks, I have not run all of my scheduled miles. But I ran 8 yesterday and man, was I super slow. I know there were a lot of reasons for it, including lack of sleep and lack of properly fueling beforehand.

This week will be my transition back into balance. The months of February and March put me off kilter. Heck, I don't even know where March went, to be honest. 

I am looking forward to the month of April as I hit my peak in training, and then start to taper off. It will also hopefully bring some time to focus on some of the things I have been too busy to deal with (like my apartment).

It's time to be good to myself.

Progress is progress

I got to thinking about this last night. On the way back from Kalamazoo, we were talking about walking/running and the trails out at Hawk Island and the Lansing River Trail. My friend Carrie asked me if a two mile run seemed short now. I realized I had said "I went for a 10 mile run" a couple of times. And it does, a little.

You see, on the course of this half marathon journey, I decided one day that I was going to run a half marathon. BUT - I did not wake up one day and say "tomorrow, I will run a half marathon!"

I started training for this race in October. It's taken me until March to run 10 miles. Why? Because my training had me slowly increasing my long run mileage each week. And some weeks decreasing, then increasing the following week. It's back and forth. It's not just "I'm going to run 13.1 miles tomorrow". I've had to build up to it.

And along the way, I've had to celebrate those small successes. The ones that helped get me to the next step. There will be a larger success, but that's over time.

And tonight, I connected this analogy to something in the news today here in Michigan.

First, let me preface what I write below. I support equality and gay marriage.

You see, the Republican National Committeeman, Dave Agema, made some pretty deplorable comments on his Facebook page yesterday. Or, more accurately, he copied and pasted a "study" by a "doctor" that basically spewed hate and lies towards homosexuals.

Yesterday, my best friend Dave posted his personal comments here. Now, for those of you that don't know him, he's the Chair of the Republican Party of Kalamazoo.

This morning, a statement made by 21 Republican leaders from around the state (precinct delegates, College Republicans and others) called on Mr. Agema to resign his post.

Shortly after, Dave added his name to that list calling on Mr. Agema to resign. He then issued this statement.

I stand behind MiGOP Chairman Schostak’s statement that our support for traditional marriage shouldn’t be used to convey any form of hate or discrimination towards anyone. The Facebook posts by National Committeeman Dave Agema are disgusting and do not reflect what the Party stands for.

While I respect the Committeeman’s right to free speech, as protected by the First Amendment, I also have the same right to both free speech and free association. When we exercise these rights, we accept responsibility for the results of that exercise. I choose not to be associated with his remarks.

Similar statements and cherry picked statistics were made back in 1966 to support a ban on interracial marriage when Loving v. Virginia was before the Supreme Court of the United States. Being in an interracial marriage, I’m a little sensitive to these types of comments. They were wrong then and they are wrongly used now.

I cannot silently stand by while one of our Party leaders promotes bigoted statements and then tries to hide from the damage caused by saying “It was someone else’s research.” At the least, the Committeeman needs to apologize for his failure to clearly fact check the statements he posts and if he cannot, then he needs to step down so the Party can rebuild the bridges that have been burned.

My job as the Chairman of the KGOP is to build our membership and get our candidates elected so that fiscally sound policies are adopted. The actions of Committeeman Agema do nothing but hinder our ability to come together as a Party and promote diversity in our membership.

Now. For those of you Democrats/liberals/people that support gay marriage that are reading this, you might say "well, that's great that they are standing up to hatred and bigotry, but now they should do X, Y, Z (support something else)." Ok, I totally get where you're coming from.

But, like my running example, you can't always just get there overnight. Sometimes it takes training, education and TIME to get to the bigger goal.

What we should do is celebrate what these leaders did to stand up against hatred. Is it all that those of us who believe in full equality regardless want? No. It's not. But it's a start. And to me, that gives me hope.

It gives me hope that people are reasonable. It gives me hope that even though we may not all agree, we can work together. It gives me hope that even though there are people like Mr. Agema out there spewing hatred, there were 21 (22) brave souls (and more) standing up and saying he was wrong.

Like my half-marathon training, we have to celebrate the small successes. That two mile run was HUGE back when I first started training in October.

Then we have to keep adding a little bit more on. And then sometimes, we have to take a step back (this past week, I ran 10 miles, this coming weekend, I run 8). But at the end of the day, we end up getting to the bigger goal, after we've built upon it. Progress is progress, no matter how big or small.

Here, we have to find the common ground. People have to show they are willing to compromise and accept progress when it happens. And we also have to LISTEN to others and understand their viewpoints if we have any hope of changing their minds.

I can only hope that I am doing just that.

Pain

Some days, it's easy to move forward. You have a string of decent days where your doubt isn't overtaking you, and things are somewhat moving along.

Then you wake up one morning and everything is wrong. How you feel, your worth, our mentality. And you have to fight it. It causes you to have trouble breathing and focusing. And you're not quite sure how you'll get through the day, so you try to ask for help.

And that fails miserably, since it feels like what you're getting for feedback is to suck it up and you're being yelled at. You react and lash out because that feedback caused you more doubt and pain.

And because of that lashing out, it causes further pain because you get yelled at. And it's not the kind of yelling where you're angry and ready to defend or retort. It's the kind of yelling you just take. It's the kind that reminds you of how horrible you are and your failures and what you did wrong.

It makes you shrink away, not knowing what else to say, except 'sorry'. It's the kind of reaction that reminds you why you are supposed to strive for perfection and when you fall short, it makes everything wrong and diminishes your self-worth.

It reminds you of how alone you really are. It causes you to be paralyzed. It causes you to further question your existence and reminds you that you're not good enough.

And it gives you the perfect excuse to go to bed early and hope for a better day tomorrow.

Slow

So, I'm hitting a wall of sorts. I haven't run in about a week, but went out today for a 5 mile run. And I was hovering around an hour for 5 miles.

Yes, I am slow.

No, I don't know how to get faster.

I hear all of this stuff about tempo runs and strides and other ways to get faster. Except when I'm out there, I can't seem to go faster than I do.

Oh, and did I mention that I still take one minute walk breaks after 7 minutes of running (which is better than what I was doing at 6 minutes of running)?

And it's causing a struggle in me. When I was out today, I thought that maybe I should just give up running, since my pace is slow and maybe I should just change to walking.

But then there's that constant message you get from the running community that you shouldn't compare yourself to others or it doesn't matter how fast you go...except that races are timed and when your "running" pace is close to a walking pace, at what point are you not a runner?

In my head, I just want to finish my half marathon. But on the other side of my head, I'm embarrassed at my times and sort of think I have no business "running".

I don't know where this leaves me after the half. At this point, I just need to cross the finish line without getting picked up by the car that follows.

Foo Fighters got me through

I haven't been updating much, mostly because in the last couple of weeks, things have been super busy with work, school and training. I've been just keeping my head above water until the end of the semester (which is coming soon, but I have lots of things due until then). The good news is, the Lent thing has been successful so far, as I haven't had fries and I've been following the no meat on Friday rule (thank goodness I love fish/seafood).

However, today, I hit a milestone - my first 10 mile run. When I took up running almost a year ago, I never thought I would run anything more than a 5K, and here I am, training for a half marathon.

I did a 5 mile run on Wednesday, but it was on Thursday that I started freaking out a bit about doing 10 miles today. I had planned on doing nothing much on Friday night, because I wanted to go to bed early in order to get up at 6:30 on Saturday morning (and the fact that I've been wanting to sleep a LOT lately). Instead, I went to trivia that started at 9:30 and finally got to sleep after midnight.

My alarm went off at 6:40am and I finally rolled out of bed about 15 minutes later, which is a pretty good for me, as I tend to use snooze a lot. My goal had been to take in some food about an hour before my run, so I had an English muffin with some jam, and some Power Bar gel bites. I also took a GU out on the run with me.

Last week, I had run 8 miles, which included the normal 4 mile block, adding a neighborhood called the Pines (which adds about 2 miles) and once around the lake (2 miles). Today I had to go twice around the lake, which I felt a little concerned about, since it might end up seeming really long.

So, I got to the building for the group run and a couple of things happened that surprised me:

1) I was running/walking the longest distance of everyone there today (apparently, everyone else doing marathons weren't there), and
2) The running coach wasn't there today.

WHAT? I had to run 10 miles on my own? Minor panic ensues, as I realized that I was going to have to push myself along through the...entire...thing. In some ways, I was ok with it, because I tend to not like running with others because I feel like I slow them down. But, I knew it would help if someone were there to keep me going.

So, I set off, and was first out, but was soon passed by the 3 runners doing 6 miles today (they're at least a minute or two a mile fast than me). I felt pretty good, alternating between running 7 minutes and walking 1 minute. Once I got into the neighborhood, around 2.5 miles, I walked a little more than usual because of the hills. I also stopped for a quick drink of Gatorade at the first aid station.

When I got to the lake, I was feeling pretty good and at about 4 miles. There's a trail that's offroad that you have to go through in order to get to the other side of the lake, and it's had ice/snow on it the last couple of weeks, so I walked most of it. But as I got to the top of the hill, I had a cheering section. The two pugs that live at the house next to the trail were out in the yard, and followed me, barking as I ran by. Only one of them was around the second time I went by.

I also had to run past the high school track team, who was going the opposite way I was. But man, did they make me feel slow...twice. Other than that, I do like running around the lake, because it's fairly quiet. My music list was being weird too, as it kept playing the same songs even though I had it on shuffle...so there was a lot of Foo Fighters and Metallica, which worked out just fine!

After running the lake twice, I was just over 8 miles, and pretty much counting down in my head the remaining miles. I do this thing while I'm running where I break things down into small, doable parts, such as "get to that mailbox/light pole/sign/tree" and that helped a ton today.

At the end of the day, I was able to do 10 miles in 1:56:54. I was slightly faster this week than I was last week, which was surprising. At this rate, I should be able to do the half in less than 2:45, so that's what I'm shooting for at the end of April.

I'm getting closer to my running and my fundraising goal. For updates or to donate, check out http://pages.teamintraining.org/mi/nikewhlf13/angelaclock