Space Girl's Posts

Running With the Spirit of Dog

Posted by Space Girl on July 19, 2011 at 8:30pm

The Destructo Puppy was running free again this morning. I found her tormenting the elderly corgi from the other side of the fence with her freedom. Realizing that it was the second time that she escaped this morning alone (never mind the previous days before that), there seemed to be only one thing to do with all of that excess energy, so I grabbed a leash and away we went (much to the corgi's relief). Along the way, I taught her how to drink from an opened water bottle because it was already hot, but along the way she told me the following:

1. That thing on your wrist is little more than a collar for humans if you're paying more attention to that than the path ahead of you.

2. You see how I sometimes stop to sniff something cool or slow to a walk when I'm feeling like I need to catch my breath? Yeah, maybe you should do that too once in a while and stop worrying so much about that collar on your wrist. You'll breathe better and stop worrying drivers with that red face of yours as they go by.

3. It's funny how your form gets better when we speed up and stop worrying, isn't it?

4. There's always time for belly rubs. For humans as well as dogs.

5. SQUIRREL! Sorry, I couldn't resist.

In the six months that she's been a part of my life, I wonder sometimes who has been teaching whom. I brought her to obedience class a couple of months ago (for both of our sakes- and my sanity), but she gets me thinking out on the roads and trails all the time now.

A Feather on the Breath of God... Before the Dark Flood

Posted by Space Girl on July 16, 2011 at 10:00pm

Today was supposed to be a simple non-stop 20 minute run at Choctaw Creek Park. I struggled early on, partly with the heat, and also because I haven't used the metronome to determine cadence in months. The huarache straps were a minor annoyance, but I thought I could get through the workout with little difficulty. I was in a fairly meditative state when I thought of Hildegard von Bingen's "Feather on the Breath of God", which I contemplated until my intestines rumbled, and I suddenly found discomfort to go along with a fair amount of urgency. It took three tries to find a working porta-potty before I made a mess of my running shorts. Every time I tried to run in between, the worse my situation became. I made it, however, and realized that the run would have to be bagged after that. I was five minutes away from the goal. I have wondered what I should do. I think the best thing would be to just move on to the next workout and go from there.

I had tried to be more spiritual when I ran in the past, but it never seemed to work. I could handle running to military jodys. But anything else just didn't seem to work. I think I expected the meditations to take care of the running for me, rather than looking meditating to help me take care of the running. The difference in there is that I do the work to make it happen. I think. I am still sorting it out.

I contemplate new directions that my life could go in. Physical therapy instead of becoming an RN? I could make it happen at OU after all, given what I have been reading. My doors of opportunity may still be open, and I've just been trying to open the wrong ones.

Lastly, everybody talks a great line about running with other people in running clubs. It's great if you live anywhere but rural Oklahoma. I finally realized today, however, that your running club doesn't have to have people in it. With that in mind, the Crazy Lady Ultrarunning Party was mostly born. Is born. It's me, Kinzie, Annie and Mischief (the token honorary guy). We'll crash ultras, steal the beer, and forget to collect the awards. It's all in the name of Fun.

There will be more to come on that. For now, it is late.

Thinking While Running... or About Running...

Posted by Space Girl on July 15, 2011 at 11:00pm

The year has, like other years past, not gone according to plan. I have fallen off of the running wagon yet again, and am slowly ambling back on. It hasn't entirely been due to a matter of willpower, however. I learned a couple of months ago that I have SLE (lupus) and RA. That explains a lot, and yet I quietly vow not to let them run me over (no pun intended). So I am on week 5 of the old standby that I have come to know so well: the Couch to 5K plan.

I honestly thought that I would be running in Tulsa this month. However, I realize now that it may have been for the best. Daytime temps have been in the triple digits for the past month with no end in sight. That has led to concerns about buying hay, how to pace myself when I take the dogs along for a run, and so on (and we won't even go into what it's like on the "bad days"). But I still go out there in my two year old huaraches, three days a week. Maybe I will make it to the Route 66 Marathon this year. Maybe I won't. I've been thinking about 24 the Hard Way too... just not all 24 hours of it. I can make it there. I just have to keep running.

I have been re-reading bits of "Born to Run" for inspiration, and Jenn Shelton's statement about why she really runs ultras still resonates with me today. I am not at all gifted at running like she is. I have yet to feel "flow" when I run (it's harder to do with two ornery dogs on a leash I have learned, trust me), but the hope that ultras will make me a "better, more peaceful person" is still there. Would it be easier to have humans to run with? Maybe. I have gotten so used to having to do it all on my own, however, that I don't even worry about trying to find a running club to be a part of anymore. I have been researching Sikhism and going over my books on Zen and shamanism. Trying to find that link between the spiritual and the mundane seems to come about through doing, and seems to express itself best in pursuits such as long-distance running and yoga.

That is what I am thinking about tonight when I should be sleeping. But the answer seems to be coming slowly into focus after stumbling around half-blind in the darkness.

Dealing With Food, Prednisone, and the Universe :)

Posted by Space Girl on August 13, 2009 at 5:30pm

If there's an upside to being a few weeks away from age 35, it's that I finally figured out a few things with regards to patience, perfection (or lack of it), and how to deal with setbacks. Sure, I don't burn off that doughnut that I scarfed down in the break room at work (I was rushed and STARVING) like I did ten years ago, but at least I don't freak out about it and go punish myself on the treadmill for ten miles when I get home from work. And when things don't go quite according to the training plan (because I had a couple of bad mushrooms and my face and mouth suddenly looked like I was being eaten alive by flesh-eating bacteria last weekend. Oh wait, they still kind of do), I can shrug it off and see what I can still do in spite of that. Getting older isn't easy on the body, but it can be easier on the mind than being a teenager in high school... if you let it be.

I got around to realizing all of this after my mom called and asked what I wanted for my birthday. Honestly, I haven't a clue. Oh sure, VFF KSOs would be nice when it gets colder, and a Garmin Forerunner 205 looks awfully swell, but I'm certainly not about to make anyone shell out that kind of money on me. For the most part, I got all the cool stuff on my Xmas lists from years past already: a horse farm with real live Mustangs (and a Quarter Horse)! I even have an adult- sized hula hoop (for cross-training purposes, you understand :P ) on days when I'd just rather dance around and keep in touch with my inner dork (and spin my hands and hoop right into the ceiling fans... again). To keep from driving Mom nuts and inducing "Mom guilt", however, maybe I should just have her and the rest of the family send me a card and some basic art supplies (I've been meaning to try and take up Chinese brush painting again anyway, now that my first of two college degrees are out of the way). It will certainly keep me away from the ceiling fans.

One thing that I did do this week that I've done in years past (but not enough of lately) is watch the Perseid meteor shower in my own backyard. There's nothing quite like massive Prednisone- induced insomnia to keep you motivated (and very, VERY wide awake) enough to catch a few meteorites streak across the sky over the course of a few hours, and it definitely beats anything you might watch on late- night TV. And you can't not think about the world (and the rest of the universe) around you and realize just how amazing it really all is while you're doing it.

Looking at my training log, I realize that I'll only barely get all of my scheduled runs in this week, that the Prednisone has made me swell up a few pounds and messed with my HR on runs, and when I finally do get off the stuff (Pred) and figure out how to sleep again, I'll probably be scrambling to get all of my runs in next week too once my brain realizes that it can finally rest. But I suppose I still owe it to the Prednisone for keeping me awake for one of Nature's best light shows around. It won't help in the quest of improved PRs, but not everything in life has to. I wish I knew that ten years ago.

* No ceiling fans have been harmed in the making of this blog entry.

** The use of Prednisone should only ever be done under doctor's orders, and should be avoided at all costs otherwise. If you ever have to take it, you won't need to worry about sleeping in late.

*** If you get in touch with your inner dork and take up hooping, be wary of ceiling fans, walls, cats underfoot, and Welsh corgis.

A Lesson from Nature

Posted by Space Girl on August 7, 2009 at 1:30pm

Or, "Even Geese Guano Has a Purpose" :)

I did a workout (as part of Eric's "Marathon Prep Camp") in the huaraches yesterday (despite the fact that I seem to have come down with a head cold, so nose breathing isn't always possible), then I decided to run barefoot on the grass next to the trail again for the last ten minutes (since I wasn't able to run on Wednesday). As I have come to expect, my feet found sand burrs (little round thorny balls of pain that seem to exist purely to torture the unshod-- and that includes cats and dogs) yet again, but *this* time I noticed something. The further away I got from the pond, the more sand burrs I'd impale the soles of my feet on. Nearer the pond, the more I'd have to pay attention to make sure I didn't step in the "gifts" left from the local wildlife, but... there were no sand burrs in that area. That's when it hit me: the birds (mostly geese, with a few ducks) have been eating them. They just don't stray *that* far from the pond. So if I stick to a smaller part of the grassy area along the trail, I can run barefoot without bleeding! And I have a bunch of otherwise ornery geese to thank for that!

Towards the end, my left foot found one stray sandburr, so I told the geese, "Hey, you missed one!" One squacked back at me as if to say, "And your point is, you goofy two-legged? Suck it up!" I suppose he has a point. It's not like sand burrs taste that good, I suspect.

In short, the lesson learned was, "Where the guano ends is where the pain is sure to begin!"

I've now thought about bringing geese here to the farm to eat sand burrs (and hopefully grubs and other bugs), but they're really not nice birds, and I just know they'd terrorize my aging corgi. :P

Starting Over... Again

Posted by Space Girl on July 12, 2009 at 11:30pm

I remember running as a kid in New England. Or rather, I remember running after multiple leg surgeries to deal with my external birth defects (I was born with femoral anteversion, which are basically really crooked legs). I would mistake myself for being fast, only to be out- sprinted by dang near everybody else all the time. I ran anyway, from bullies (I was an ugly kid, no bones about it), scary dogs, and more bullies. Sometimes, I'd even run with friends. The one thing I realize now, though I didn't know it then, is that while I was never mistaken for being fast, I could go for hours and outlast others. I kind of wish I'd figured it out sooner, but you know what they say about hindsight.

I remember watching Joan Benoit Samuelson on TV in the early 80s, winning the Boston Marathon and wanting to do that someday, even though the race was really long and trying to fathom how long 26.2 miles really is in a 9 year old head is hard to do. ;) Years later, I'd briefly been part of the high school cross- country team in the early 90s (I'm what Jack Daniels refers to as "highly motivated, but with little to no natural ability"), but I was dropped for lack of any leg speed. Thankfully, that particular private school also had lacrosse and the legendary modern dance teacher/performer Martha Gray. I still sucked at the latter (with Gray telling my father outright that I was definitely "not built for dancing") but it was apparent that I was at least willing to throw myself into it, so I was tolerated. When it came to lacrosse, it turned out that it was the one sport that I had any natural talent at. I didn't have to *just* run; I could charge into people, elbow the hell out of them, and snarl at them-- oh, and get that little white ball. For once in my pre- adult life, being built more like a draft horse than a petite graceful girl (like everyone else around me) was an advantage.

I was forced to switch high schools in junior year due to finances, and the new (public) school didn't have lacrosse. I didn't even attempt to join the track or cross- country teams; I knew better. I swam for the varsity team, and biked around town. I'd do the minimal amount of running in gym class that I had to, and that was it.

In college, there wasn't much for sports to choose from. The president of the college suddenly split with a few million of the school's money in my freshman year, so any and all student activity budgets were slashed. I had stamina enough to walk and sometimes run just about everywhere (I didn't have a car, and hauling a bike up or down 4+ flights of dorm stairs just to ride it seemed like an offer at attempted suicide at best), so that was the only form of exercise I had.

Onward to 1995, when I decided to start running again. Why? Basically, I did it for my mental health. My bike had been stolen, and I was too broke to join a gym. I barely had a clue as to what I was doing. I was armed with a beginning runner's guide from a fitness magazine and a pair of Asics that looked good and were on sale (duh). The Internet was unknown to me, and I lived in a part of Massachusetts that didn't have any running clubs. Like most athletic endeavours that I've attempted in my life, I really sucked at it. Just getting to 30 minutes of nonstop running seemed... miraculous.

So with all of that in mind, I'm not sure what I was expecting when I tried signing up for a 5 mile charity race a year later. I finished close to dead last, convinced that I was going to die from the heat (it was 98 degrees that day, and the race director, clearly a sadist, started the race in the afternoon). It was blatantly obvious (to me) that I had no business even trying to race. I almost threw my running shoes in the trash on the way home, but then I remembered that driving while barefoot is illegal in Massachusetts. The shoes stayed on me, but barely.

I picked up an issue of "Runner's World" later that week, and read an essay by John Bingham in "Runner's World" (his first), and I realized hey, maybe I don't have to be fast after all. That article is really the only reason why I didn't give up. Shortly after that, I moved closer to Boston, found other runners, got onto the Internet, and my running picked up from there. Thanks to some local "Deads" that I used to meet up with on Sundays, I got the nickname that I'm now writing this under (well, if there hadn't been cute Boston University guys standing around by the Charles River, and that dang tree root hadn't reached up and grabbed my foot, which caused me to do a near- perfect somersault... oh heck, the name suits me anyway).

Shortly after finishing my first 6 hour ultra (which happened about 7 months after finishing the Boston Marathon), I was severely injured by a patient at a psych hospital that I used to work at. I spent most of 1998 in pain and in bed, unable to move. I only barely escaped having to go under the knife. My personal life was a bloody mess, and it was all I could do to keep from falling into despair. The one thing that I wanted to do to take my mind off of it all was the very thing I could not do. Prior to that injury, I had actually managed 7 minute miles. I never got that fast again. (I'm lucky if I manage 9s right now.)

A year later, I spent a few days with Roy Benson and several other runners. It was a relief to hear from him that severe injuries like mine usually take about a year and a half to recover from, but that I'd be fine. Then we went out for a long run, and I was asked a very strange question. He asked how many 100 milers I'd run.

"Uh, none." I replied, baffled. "Why?"

"I've been watching you run, and you move just like they do. I think that's going to be your ideal distance."

Wait, my brain was saying. What? My body... me running... 100 miles? Ideal distance? Did he really say RUNNING and IDEAL DISTANCE in the same sentence about ME?!

Well yes, he had. There's one thing I've learned about training for long distance races and having significant others around, however: they get crabby about the training. (And good luck getting them to run with me.) Especially if it's for an ultra, and doubly so if you're as slow as me. When I say, "Okay, I'm going out for a run, I'll be back in 3 hours!" it's damn sure not when I'm in "peak mileage mode". They know that. Hence the crabbiness that inevitably sets in.

And hence why the 100 miler is still on my "to do" list.

Admittedly, getting into a car wreck last spring hasn't helped either:

So I'm starting over. Again. Though at least this time my personal life isn't a mess (on top of the other stuff), and I'm learning that my "heel striking running ways" is probably what held me back for so long as an adult distance runner. So I'm relearning how to run like a kid again too (although the Oklahoma grass is WAY meaner than any crabgrass I ever met in New England. Ever try running on sand burrs? I rest my case!) in huaraches (speaking of the traditional footwear of the Tarahumara, I guess I should point out that I found out about Barefoot Ted and his "minimalist footwear" only a few weeks before "Born To Run" even came out-- and I only found out about THAT from his blog, which I think is pretty funny. Certainly gave me more inspiration when I finally got a copy), and sometimes use a metronome to make sure I stay in range of the right cadence (that annoys the heck out of me-- the noise, not the cadence), and maybe, just maybe, I can go out for a 3 hour run someday and the mileage won't seem so laughable.

(Wow, if you managed to read the whole thing then you must have insomnia as bad as I do. :P)