Early Morning at the Track

Time to go outside.

You wake up at 5:30 a.m., a half hour before your alarm is supposed to go off. The high-summer sunrise has already turned your bedroom gold. It's easier to get up when the light comes so early.

You tiptoe to the bathroom. The house is cool thanks to the dry nights here at the feet of the Rocky Mountains, and thanks also to the swamp cooler on wheels that's breathing chilly air down the hall. The cooler's white noise, air and dripping water, drowns out the birdsong and the faint train whistle coming through the open windows.

The kids' doors are closed. You know your little girl will sleep later this morning, because she woke you at 2 a.m. after a bad dream. You're glad you didn't jump like a wild animal when she touched your shoulder as you sometimes do. Instead you gave her a big hug, took her to the bathroom and tucked her back in. You fell asleep again easily yourself. The softest sheets you own were on your bed. Between those and the warmth of your unconscious husband (who stayed up until midnight or later writing code), you felt as cozy as possible at summer's height.

But now is no longer the time for cozy. In the bathroom, you unfold the green Nike Tempo shorts you'd laid out and pull them on. You drink one tepid glass of water. You put on your 2011 Bolder Boulder T-shirt, the same shirt you wore in the Top of Utah Marathon last September. You use the bathroom. It still hurts a bit from the bladder infection you came down with on Wednesday night, but the antibiotics have already cut into that, and you know you're going to be OK. Still, you down another glass of water.

You exit the bathroom, pad into the living room in socked feet and find your shoes. They're the Brooks PureFlows you bought a while back. The cheap Casio watch you bought last night and a small water bottle are in one of them, your Thera Band for stretching in the other along with your car keys. It seems silly to drive just 3/4 of a mile, but you're not supposed to run on concrete yet, and you are a rule follower.

Outside it's even cooler than in the house. The sky is the high white color indicating a hot day is on the way, and the sun's beams are already long and yellow, but the air on your skin right now is like satin. The neighbor's sprinklers run, and a grassy smell hangs in the air. You get in the car and drive to the high school.

Alone at the track, you begin by walking. The east-facing bleachers shine in the sunlight. Overhead, a hawk flies, white on his underbelly. You marvel that his wings barely tread the air, as if his mind is entirely free from thoughts of controlling his flight. You think, "May I run like he flies," and then laugh at yourself for your pretension. You walk five minutes and then begin to shuffle-jog. You get to run for 35 minutes today. The first 15 must stay slow. The left side of your lower back hurts a little. You try to imagine squeezing your sitz bones together, and it helps.

Slow and fast don't matter to you, any more than they do to the hawk. You're not counting laps or otherwise tracking distance. You're using the Casio only so you know when to start and stop. The red surface of the track gives slightly under each step. Without thinking about it, you're able to go just a tad faster. The sun is higher. Tree shadows across the track shrink.

At the 15-minute mark, you run a pick-up. One minute fast, with 90 seconds of recovery. An older woman arrives and begins to circle the track's outside lane, walking. You speak to her, but she just smiles and walks on. On the next lap she apologizes, saying she didn't put her ears in before going for her walk and didn't hear your greeting. You don't have time to tell her as you run by, but you understand. You are running with no music, and she is walking with no noise. In the cool morning, such distractions are unnecessary for both of you.

You run four more pick-ups. They feel like a trip to healing waters. You hadn't had any exercise the day before because of the bladder infection. You were tired and grumpy and wan all day yesterday. Now, you've shed all that like an itchy snakeskin. "It's a gift, it's a gift," you repeat with each few steps. Five pick-ups are enough. You finish the last one and then exult in the last slow minutes of your run. The track is the same color as the one the Olympic Trials contenders are competing on this week. You are no contender, but while you can't relate to the talent, you understand the passion.

The track is fully in the sun when you leave. You head home, where you will find your whole family is still asleep.

Tomorrow, for the first time in months, a run will be part of your Saturday. It has to be slow, and it has to be short. It has to be on the treadmill this time, because you'll need a machine at the gym when you're finished with it.

No matter.

It will be perfect, too.

It too will be a gift.

Conference, Fire...and A Little More Running

The view in Boulder now looks something like this:

A lightning strike today sparked the blaze they're calling the Flagstaff Fire. I first saw it driving down to Boulder to pick my kids up from preschool. The school is right on the side of the ridge just north of the one where the fire is. You can imagine my good driving manners went out the window a little. Please pray for the firefighters and the people whose homes are near there. My family is safe, but we know a lot of people who are probably facing evacuation.

It was a dramatic way to come home. I spent the weekend at a different kind of marathon, the American Library Association Annual Conference. This year it was in Anaheim, CA, right next to Disneyland, but alas there was no Magic Kingdom time for me. The days were packed with programs on topics like "Social Media in Libraries" and "Serving Underprivileged Library Customers," as well as discussions of ebooks and other hot topics. There was also a giant expo with publishers and other vendors who sell to us. Famous authors visit (George R.R. Martin spoke about the fantasy and science fiction genre), and other famous people who have written books turn up to sign copies (I saw Molly Ringwald of 80s movie fame; apparently she's written a book of short stories; the line was far too long for me to stand in).

Each night I retired to my cool, quiet hotel room and crashed. Other librarians partied far into the night. Yes, it's true! Librarians unleashed love to dance and cut loose.

I, of course, couldn't do that. Too much alcohol and too many late hours aren't compatible with my exercise addiction. I rose every morning of the four days I was there at 5:30 a.m. for my workouts, which included my second return-to-running session, this time on the hotel treadmill. While it wasn't as fun as running outdoors with Cynthia, it was still much more fun than the recumbent bike, and a definite confidence booster. Not such a confidence booster was the ALA-sponsored yoga class I attended on Sunday morning. My back was not pleased with all the forward folds or the quick flow of the sun salutations. No more yoga for me for a while.

This morning I went to Pilates with Patty (MUCH better than yoga) and followed it up with another treadmill run, this time increasing the running time to 35 minutes. I felt great, throwing in eight 30-second pickups and stretching well afterwards. My back is doing fine now, away from sitting in conference sessions and on airplanes and shuttle buses.

It was the first of THREE runs on my schedule for the week. I'm starting to add in a little running time on Saturdays, though it will continue to be supplemented by low-impact machines for at least a little while. Saturday will also be on the treadmill, but I will try to up the fun quotient by doing Friday's run outside (unless smoke moves into town, in which case...treadmill).

I apologize that I've been such a bad commentator on everyone's blogs. I'm going to play a little catch-up.

Stay tuned for a review of Scott Jurek's Eat & Run (amazing how much reading I get done on planes when the kids aren't around and there's no wi-fi to tempt me onto the Internet). Will Terzah go vegan? Doubtful....but Scott was more persuasive than I expected.....

My First Comeback Run!

Today I ran! Outside! For a little more than three miles! Here are eight seconds of video proof:



The video, taken during the first of eight strides I did mid-run, also gives you a good idea how I was feeling. It's not much of a stretch to say that this was better than any finish line I've experienced. A big part of it was that Cynthia joined me, bringing her confidence, her camera and her good humor (also her gadgets; I was watchless, having lost the Timex on a walk last month and having loaned the Garmin to Dan). Her presence made the run feel like a real celebration.

Everything's better with friends! Cynthia and me post-run.

It also helped that the run, while not pain-free, was nothing like the rusty slog I'd forced myself to envision because I'm a hope-for-the-best-prepare-for-worst type of person.

We arrived at a park called Golden Ponds at 8:30 a.m. The day was on its way to 100 degrees, and you could tell already as we started walking to get off the concrete before our first running steps. Egrets drifted on the pond surfaces, and at one point a great blue heron wafted up from the shore and flew to the opposite bank. I didn't care that it was hot. I didn't care that my tailbone spoke to me as we started running.

Graceful egret swimming

The first few steps felt a bit labored, but once I warmed to the rhythm, I realized that my legs, the raising of each knee, felt lighter to me than I remembered from earlier this year. It could be I was just overtrained at that point, but I prefer to think that this says something about my core muscles being stronger, doing more of the work expected of them than they were able to do before.

At the beginning of the run, legs feeling good. I wore my pink "Run" shirt from Kathy and my Brooks PureFlows.

Fifteen minutes into the run, we launched into strides, as Coach Darren had spelled out in my plan for today. We were supposed to do seven, but somehow I lost count and when Cynthia checked the data later she found we had done eight. Running faster felt wonderful. A breeze had picked up, and I pictured myself slicing through it like a knife through silk. On the last stride, I repeated "BQ by 40" in my head. Really, though, for this run I didn't think much about the Boston Marathon. I enjoyed this run for itself.

During a stride. Cynthia was nice to pause and take pictures.

After the strides we had about four minutes to cool down running slowly, and then we finished up the lap around the pond by walking. All told, it was a bit over three miles in 30 minutes. I'm not a demonstrative person, but I was elated with how this run went. My cardiovascular fitness is about as good as it could be given the lay-off from running and the tedium of the recumbent bike, and my legs didn't let me down at all. At the end, I felt hungry for more (my next run is on Friday).

Cynthia and I hugged and said goodbye at the cars. I wish we had had time to go out for a celebratory iced tea or coffee, but she had a work meeting to call into and I had a Pilates appointment. There wasn't a lot of time between arriving home and needing to leave again for that appointment, but my back and my left flank had started talking to me again on the walk to the cars. It wasn't much worse than I've felt on occasion post-Alter-G, but I wanted to nip it in the bud so I took some of my shower time to take a mini-ice bath and then drove down to Boulder with a package of peas stuck down my pants.

I think I am headed toward having a shot to finish off the inflammation, but I'm going to see how the month of bringing back running goes. At Pilates, Patty and I discovered that my IT bands and hamstrings are REALLY tight, much worse than I would have guessed. She gave me a new exercise called leg circles (mine are just like the "intermediate" ones in the link, where the model is using the band to help). This felt wonderful. And I'm going to attend Patty's class next week, so there's more Pilates in my future.

Today, though, was about one perfect run. It was about being outdoors, an understanding friend by my side, wind in the trees and on the water and the mountains above us like the beautiful but indifferent sentinels they are. It's a feeling I haven't had in too long.

Apologies to Maya Angelou, but this caged bird got to sing today.

Scott Jurek and the Food Question

Cynthia and I had a great time at the Scott Jurek book-signing event last Thursday. She's so much fun to chat with, and once we arrived at the party we both knew other people and were each able to meet someone new. Meeting other runners, especially local ones, always helps me feel more connected. You can see pictures and get a good summary of the event at her post.

After Scott's talk was finished, I attempted to win a pair of shoes from his sponsor, Brooks. They invited volunteers up onto the stage, where we were put through a series of what Scott called proprioception tests. The first test? Merely lifting one of your legs and balancing on the other foot. I don't know if it's that my confidence has been shaken by this back thing, or if it was because I was wearing clogs, or if it was because I was up on stage with a pair of running shoes at stake and lots of eyes out in the audience--but whatever it was I failed immediately, put my leg down and was the first player disqualified. Oh well. Reminders to continue doggedly with my core work are always welcome (and if I'm ever on Jeopardy someday, I hope I do better than that)!

The book itself will be my next read. I'm really curious how I will feel about it, because there is a lot about food in it. Scott is well-known for his vegan eating style. He thinks it's what made him the runner and the man he is today.

As a former vegetarian myself, and as someone who struggles to eat healthily for the sake of my running and my girlish figure (ha!), I have no problem with those who choose to eat vegan, or those who emphasize protein or carbs, or any other style of eating. There are vegetarians in my family, others who are committed meat eaters, and there are others who have to watch carefully what they ingest because of blood pressure and other issues. To me, it's all good--and none of my business really.

The only time other people's eating styles bug me is when it's implied that I need to eat their way too, or there's going to be some dire consequence for my body and, sometimes, for my soul. When that happens, discussions of food can drive me up a wall. There are very few things in this world that I think are black-and-white--and food choice isn't on that select list. I think you can be a good and healthful person who chooses for whatever reason not to eat animal products....and I also think you can be a good and healthful person who DOES eat animal products.

I'm really curious how Scott will come across on this topic. From his presentation and our brief meeting with him when he signed our books, he seems like an open and nice person who thinks of others and contributes his time to charitable causes. But I'm still a little wary, because there are a lot of over-the-top eating-style zealots in Boulder, and there's far too much obsession with food choices. If there was as much attention paid here to, say, homelessness and solving our issues with that as there is to food choices, we would have much less of a problem with homelessness.

I put myself in this category, too. I think about food and body issues far too much. Really, in the great scheme of things, my eating is fine. I have enough money for food, I'm not overweight, underweight, or a frequent patron of fast-food joints, and I try to keep animal welfare in mind when I buy poultry and dairy products. I, too, should refocus the unnecessary attention I pay to food and drink on those with real troubles.

What do you think about the food thing? Do you think we rich types (and yes we are rich compared to the person holding a sign on the corner and/or using the local soup kitchen) obsess too much about food? Do you share my opinion that any eating style can be healthful and ethical?