These Two are not Related.

The Circle

There is a circle that exists in running and it happens thus: You train hard, you start to get grouchy and negative and tired, you get injured, that makes you mad, then you accept it and move through it. Then you heal, and you can run again which is exciting and fun and you just want to be out running all the time, so you do. Then you start to get tired and grouchy, and then you.....

I am in the exciting phase right now - I am not hurting any more and running finally feels good again. My legs feel strong, my air is coming easily and I am enjoying every minute of moving my legs. To be fair and honest, I have healed faster and more completely than the last time I got hurt. I am not sure if that is because I was more relaxed about it, or didn't hurt myself as badly this time, or what? You tell me. Regardless, I am thankful. Here is where I turn all mushy and junk. I think this is what injury is for. It's a time to take a break and bring you back to a more thankful frame of mind, quit taking advantage of what you have. Sit up and appreciate what you have been given. Give thanks to your Creator for making your amazing body in such a way that it can heal itself. Be thankful for the knowledge available to you on nutrition, massage, rest, fuel, all of the things that keep us on the roads. In my own journey, when I lose sight of these things, I will become negative and unappreciative, and this leads to my injuries. I will not lie, I have made bad choices that have no doubt contributed to being hurt, but the rest of what I have written is truth. We have these gifts, whether we notice them or not. Our humanity is really His Miracle, there for us all to see.

Anyone who knows me also knows that I am not going to be all rainbows and butterflies all the time because that's just not real life. Stuff happens, we get down, and we don't want to get back up again. Today, however, I see the bright side of life, and I am thankful for that perspective.

p.s., someone should take away running because it's obviously done damage to my brain. Perhaps permanent damage.

Googling

In my wildest dreams, I never thought that Googling would be a real word referring to a real activity. When I was a teenager working at McDonald's, people started talking about The Internet and I scoffed. I rolled my eyes, and made fun of it because it was way to geeked out for me. It just seems so fitting that you can actually Google something, and it means that you have really done something for real if you like to think of it like that because after all it's on The Internet so have you really done anything real with any substantial proof? Did you come away with some concrete evidence of your search? Have you ever thought about how you as a child of the 60's, 70's or 80's would think of the Internet jargon that we use today?

Recently Ethan has discovered how to Google. He is only in kindergarten, but on a fast track to reading, and it's really quite amazing. The other day, we came over to the computer, and a Google window was open. He had been intending to do a search on Monster Scorpion, and into the dialog box was typed, "monstr scrpn." That's pretty dang close to monster scorpion. I was afraid he wouldn't learn to read as quickly as Abby. Silly me! And who would have thought that Google would be a teaching tool for reading? HA.

His favorite things to Google are scorpions, aliens, and Spider man. He is always over here trying to sound out what he wants to Google, you can hear him trying to sound out Spider man and his little fits when he doesn't quite get it. Anyway, this morning I came over to the computer and a window was open to this link: http://www.taxes.state.mn.us/forms/m11b_06.pdf . To be honest, I really was thrown for a loop. I had no idea what anyone in my household could need of this document, so I asked Brad what he was doing with it. He was equally as dumbfounded as I. 'Course, he's pretty sleuthy as guys go, and it didn't take him any time at all to figure it out. Lying on the desk was the DVD case to MIIB (Men in Black II). You will notice on the top right hand corner of the Minnesota Revenue 2006 Insurance Fee form is "M11B". I think he might have actually been looking for:

Good Runs Do Happen

For the last 3 weeks, my hip has been pretty much fine, and my coach has doubled my weekly mileage, which I am excited about, but the beginning of this week my legs were pretty dead. I took a couple of runs really slow to allow a little extra recovery, and today it finally paid off. I did an easy run of about 50:00, taking it really easy and did my 4X100 strides, which felt freakishly fast. I had programmed my Garmin to split them automatically, but I guess I goofed it up because it only split one off which was at a 6:08 pace. Looking at the Garmin program, you can see where your pace dips and peaks, and on all of those 100's I was getting under a 6:00 pace. Everything just felt so nicely recovered and strong. I enjoyed it. Hoping that it bodes well for that tempo run tomorrow! Things are looking up finally on that front, it's exciting!

Conversations of Two

I went house shopping for my sister today, and it turned out that I had the opportunity of enjoying the company of my 6 year old son. I was quite pleased. On the way to meet the realtor, we had some very deep thought provoking conversations.

Him: Is it hard to drive?
Me: Well, it's not really hard, but you have to pay very close attention and always watch in front of you or you could run off the road.
Him: I don't think I'll be a very good driver.
Me: Why not?
Him: Because I just keep looking out this window instead of where we're going.
Him: How old do you have to be to drive?
Me: You have to be 16 to drive.
him: How old are you?
Me: 30
Him: I'm going to start driving when I'm 31 then.
Me: You will probably start driving when you're 16.
Him: Are you a grown up when you're 16?
Me: No.
Him: How old are you when you're a grown up?
Me: 18.
Him: Then I'll start driving when I'm 18.
Me: You will probably want to start driving when you're 16 so that you can go over to your buddies' houses and play basketball......
Him: and football and soccer (he is smiling)....
Me: yeah. And I'll just tell you to be home in time for dinner.
Him: What does that mean?
Me: That you make sure you get home when it's time to eat dinner. (LOL)
Him: I'll get a fast car.
Me: What kind of job are you going to get to pay for your fast car?
Him: What do you think I could be?
ME: Anything you want to be
Him: What kinds of things are there to be?
ME: Well, you could be a airplane pilot in the Air Force....
Him: Yeah. I'll be that. I'll be in the Air Force and when I get home from work, I'll change my clothes, and then I'll go and see my little boy and I'll just rough him up. I'll just go in his room and if it's clean and everything, I'll just pick him up and throw him around like this ------> (shows how). But I'll just leave out the spanking stuff, I'll just throw that out right now. Like this------->>>> (shows how by picking up something imaginary and throwing it towards the window)

A Tuesday Run

2 posts in one day, who knew?

So it's been a long injury. It's so hard to even feel fit or like I'm a runner when I'm hurt. I was hurt in July, somewhere in my hip flexor and opted to take the more natural rout of healing, steering away from doctors, x-rays, MRI's and the like. Truth be told, it has healed much sooner than the last time this happened, but it has also lead me on a journey of trying to figure out how to keep it from happening again. I'm not happy when I'm not running, ask anyone who even slightly knows me. I just need that time outside to get my heart rate up or I basically just go into hibernation. I will take this time to apologize to everyone who I have not socialized during my injury and I'm aware of how selfish it is.

Anyway, today I had a 40:00 run with 6X3:00 hard/2:00 easy to do. I felt really strong, and my garmin said they were around 6:50-7:00 pace, which is good, it signals sort of a come around. No, it's not what I had been running in the spring, but that would just be a miracle, so I'll take what I can get. I ran at about 11:30, so I was trying to figure out how to avoid traffic, so I opted to park at Fred's and run an out and back down 1st street. This worked really well with no turns, and it being really straight and not very hilly. It was a little windy on the way back, and I did get a bit slower average for those repeats, but I expected that.

I am hoping to be in fairly decent shape by December and run a 5K to judge where I am. After that I plan to run the 3M Half Marathon in Austin, TX, and I am hoping for a hefty PR. All of this is assuming things go as planned, of course, but it's good to think positive. It's nice to have the heaviness of injury lifted from my thoughts. I like to run fast and push myself to my limits. Any of us who run at all are going to have an injury regardless of what we ask of our bodies.

More On Running

I guess I should write something about running. It's just that running is so irrelevant. It's such a "so what?" thing. Related story follows.

I like to put my day together like a puzzle in such a way that there is no backtracking, and no wasted gas. For this reason, I found myself in WalMart yesterday in my running clothes, an orange top and gray shorts. I'm a very bad WalMart shopper. I inevitably end up with a bunch of stuff I don't need to buy. Once again, I find myself in the fabric department, AS IF I need any more fabric. My fabric situation is ridiculous. (I'm a quilter) Anyway, I had decided to make something for a family member for Christmas, and was in the process of gathering up the required notions, when a GUY pops into the fabric, a bit too cheerful, and says to me, "HI!" As is common to my personality, I mumbled a nearly undetectable reply and turned away - hoping to send some negative body language. Something I must add is that body language does not work with all people. For some reason there are people in this world who did not study body language, or their parents did not teach them body language, or they have bumbled their way through life under the supposition that they don't need body language, or for whatever reason, they just don't use it. I think this was one such person. I wandered around a bit more getting what I needed, and wound up by the cutting table at the same time as him, as he was plopping down a bolt of orange fleece. He grinned at me and indicating my orange shirt, he said, "THANKS FOR THE INSPIRATION!!" I am using caps here because everything he said was so emphatic. Again, I used the same type of reply, barely audible acknowledgement, and turning away, a negative, or at best neutral reply - the negative and positive cancelling each other out. A short lived relief of his pursual ensued, and once again, at the end of my wanderings, I am faced with the guy again. He brightly asks me if I run much, but this time I had a terminal response in that I did agree that I ran a bit, and then turned away, and left the store.

Really it doesn't make a point, except to say that running is irrelevant. At the end of the day - it was only 55:00 out of a 24 hour chunk, and can't be quantified as anything. So you're a runner - so what? There are a lot of runners. What else are you? Is the rest of you good and honorable and kind? Do you make anyone else happy? Do you show your people that you love them?

Don't know, but at the end of the day yesterday, I had two feelings. One was an unsettled feeling about a man shopping for fabric, and the other was a satisfied feeling that I had bathed my chickens just before the cold weather arrived.