The Pull

Lately I've spent a lot of hours running and very few on the bike. This is by choice, of course, although that choice is strongly influenced by time. If I had more hours in the day, I would run and bike every day, but I only get 24 so I fit in what I can.

Yesterday I'd planned to run twice- not that this was written down, because I don't keep a training log. (I discovered years ago that training logs are a bad idea for perfectionists.) After the early run, errands took over. At some point during the day, I checked my email. There was a reminder that today was the Ride of Silence, when cyclists all over the world ride in silence to remember cyclists who've been hit by cars.

That planted the seed. I started to think about the bike. I really wanted to ride just a little to think about my mom. Of course, my perfectionist side wouldn't let go of that second run. I thought perhaps I might get all of my errands and projects done and still get to squeeze in both a run and a ride.

A few hours later, Big E came home, did a quick-change and headed out to squeeze in a bike ride on one of my favorite trails. As he left, he asked if I wanted to go.

Of course, I still thought I could fit in that run so I said no. With two hours of light left, I still thought I could do both AND somehow finish an art project and make dinner.

A few minutes later, I discovered a text on my phone, sent 20 minutes earlier. My favorite riding partner was also headed to the trail. Not long after, she called and basically said, "Whatever you're doing, stop. Get your bike. Get here."

That was it. I finally gave in to the pull. Clearly I wanted to ride my bike and needed to let go of that run.

Less than 30 minutes later I was at the trail, ready to squeeze out the last bit of daylight on the bike. I'll admit, it wasn't silent. In fact, I was having so much fun enjoying the unexpected ride with a friend that I never stopped talking. That was okay with me. It was just like one of the non-stop talking walks I used to take with mom.

The run never happened. Dinner was late. I finished up my art project while I cooked. I ended up cleaning the floors at 11pm before collapsing into bed.

It was totally worth it.

Goose Attack on the Run Commute

On Monday I moved into my new office. There are endless reasons to be excited about this place. It's part of a state of the art training facility. There are showers. Clean ones. It's close to Chipotle. My coworkers are fun and they let me talk about poop. Best of all, however, is the commute.

No, not the drive. The non-car commute. It's bikable AND runnable. Seven miles through decent neighborhoods without too many stoplights.

Today was my first attempt at the run commute. Since I'd only run on about a half mile of the route before, it was like exploring while on my way to work. A mile in, I discovered quotes stamped in the sidewalk.

I was tempted to read them all, but stopped after two, realizing I could save them for future run commutes. I smiled the rest of the way in, feeling like I'd found a secret place, even though everyone on that street has probably seen these quotes every day for years.

The run home was nearly as pleasurable, once I made it past the geese. Unfortunately, the geese also like our little paradise of a workplace. I made it past the few that inhabit the parking lot only to encounter a killer goose just down the street. I was trudging along, minding my own business on the sidewalk, when I was suddenly charged by a pissed off goose ready to peck my legs off.

At this point in this story, I'd like to tell you I was brave and stood up to that goose. On the contrary, I completely forgot I was armed with mace. (I was expecting to need this only in the case of pervert attack. The goose attack caught me by surprise.) I did not stand up in fight. Instead, I turned and ran straight into the street, screaming like a terrified child. Thankfully the car in the street stopped. I'm not sure if they stopped in order to avoid hitting me or to watch with amusement as a grown adult ran away from a bird. Either way, I was thankful not to be hit.

I would've been more thankful if they'd run over that damn goose.

In the end, I made it home safely, which I was also quite thankful for. After years of being terrified of death by shark, moose, bear, wolf, I certainly didn't want to be the girl who died of the dreaded goose attack.

That goose better watch out. Next time I'm fighting. Maybe...

The Fish Whisperer

Flying the day after an ultramarathon seemed like such a good idea when I booked the ticket. Of course, when I purchased tickets to FL with a 50 minute layover in Atlanta, it did not occur to me that if our plane was late I might be expected to travel the length of this massive airport in less than 30 minutes on legs that refused to work properly.

Long story short- I clung to Big E's arm while he drug me through one terminal, onto the train and most of the way through a second terminal only to discover we had no plane.

At least the walk to a new gate and plane was at a much more leisurely pace.

Once in sunny FL, we tried our hand at some new, non-snowy sports. Although the kayaking and paddle boarding were a blast, I have to confess, the deep sea fishing was my favorite. This, of course, had nothing to do with the fact that I caught more fish than anyone on my side of the boat.

Just call me the fish-whisperer. (A couple of those are Big E's too, but don't tell.)

That said, it's quite possible that Big E never actually had much of a chance to put his hook in the water. It turns out that while I excel at catching fish, I'm completely inept at removing them from the hook. What can I say? They're slippery little suckers....

Big E's job was not done with hook removal either. He also had to protect my prized fish from these guys while we waited for our fish to be cleaned on the dock. (Because, of course, I also don't know how to filet the fish I catch.)

Hopefully I redeemed myself slightly the next day by at least cooking my own fish up for the family. At least I mastered the beginning and end of the process....

Maybe someday I'll master the whole hook removal thing. Until then, it's back to running....

Mud Wrestling with Raspberry Bushes

The after-effects of mud wrestling while running. Those shoes were green when I started!

Today's 50k was the first race with the new "Do what you can" motto. The first race in my year of going after it and not making excuses.

I definitely had my work cut out for me.


Ten miles in I was already tired. The usual tricks to keep my brain from realizing this did not work. So I was faced with 21 miles of running while the negative voices in my head tried to tell me to quit. Thankfully the positive voices in my head are stubborn and refuse to let me quit unless I'm risking hypothermia, crapping my intestines out on the trail, passed out cold... You get the drift. Fortunately none of those things happened today, which meant I did what I could in the moment. Or moments -all 1,200 of them it took to finish.

Days like this, when the body doesn't quite work how we'd planned, are never easy. They are, however, great for character building. They are they days we recall during tough times and say, "I did that so I can do this too."

Now if I could just get these feet clean....

Shut Up and Write (or Ride or Run)

I was tempted to start this post with a list of reasons why I haven't been writing. Then I realized that would go against the spirit of the above quote, which has sort of become my motto this season. I opted instead to just shut up and write, because right now I have time, words and a place to write.

Like last year, I didn't plan this years races out in advanced. I've come to embrace the idea that I have a lot more fun when I jump into a few races early on and find inspiration from how those races unfold. Last year I was inspired to finish out the year of racing simply. This year, I was pretty quickly inspired with the idea to do what I can, with what I have.

This idea first came to me at the second fat bike race of the year. Conditions were rough. After a dozen crashes, miles of pushing in through rutted slush and a few more miles of riding with ice on my cleats, I really wanted to quit. As I came through to start my last lap, I did a quick mental check and realized I didn't actually have a good reason to give up. I wasn't cold. I wasn't badly injured. I was just really grumpy because I couldn't clip my bike shoes into my bike anymore. So I did the best I could at the moment, which was to run over to the truck, put my hiking boots on and give up clipping in altogether.  I was the last one to finish, but I did what I could. I was happy with that.

At the next few races, I noticed how often people commented on gear. At one point, someone squeezed my front tire before the start of a race and said, "These tires suck." I thought about that the whole race. Sure, I would've ridden faster with better tread, but those tires are on my bike because they're what I can afford right now and they're what I can afford right now because of choices I've made in my life. I can sit on the couch until the day I can buy better ones or I can get off my ass and race anyway. The worst thing that can happen is I come in last place. (Okay maybe the worst that can happen is I crash a few extra times, but you get the idea...)

Once I thought about this concept of doing what I can, with what I have, I realized it's not just about the gear. It's also about accepting where I am in my training and in my life. So many of us hold ourselves back from trying something because we think we're "not ready." We convince ourselves that we're not in shape to run that marathon, or not qualified enough for that dream job or too shy to speak our mind. Of course, that might be the case sometimes, but I'm going to venture a guess that more often that not, we're just not ready to risk what might happen if we try and things don't go quite the way we'd planned.

Long story short- this year will be about racing without excuses. It'll be about choosing races that scare me just a little. (Or races that scare me a lot.) It'll be about showing up on the start line with a whole lotta spirit and determination, even if I have crappy tires, or crowd anxiety, or fear of charging moose, or a little less fitness than I hoped for. (I could go on for pages here, but I'll save you the crazy insecurity that poor Big E has to put up with before every race.) It'll be about silencing that voice in my head that says, "You are not ready," racing anyway and accepting the outcome, even if it's last place. (Or lots of crashes, or coming face to face with a grizzly, or being chased by wolves......)

Did I Really Just Wear Shorts?

One of the fun parts of writing a blog is looking back on myself a year ago or two years ago or four years ago...

It turns out when I look back to last year, not a whole lot has changed. Last March, I vowed to take advantage of every day of snow we had for the rest of the year. This challenge turned out to last me well into April. My love of snow carried over into this year, although this year I was forced to learn to love sub-zero temperatures as well.  Once I learned to keep every millimeter of my skin covered, this really wasn't a big deal.

Or at least it wasn't until about 10 days ago when I realized I have an ultra marathon to run in less than two months and I haven't run more than a mile without snowshoes since December.  Of course, the windchill was something like -15 the day I decided I'd better get my ass running so I was left to devise a running outfit that would cover my entire body.

Of course, most of the sidewalks were still covered in ice and the 5 foot piles of snow took up the entire shoulder, which means I was left running down the middle of the road in this bank robber outfit. In the end, the outfit was a success. I was warm, I didn't fall on my ass and I didn't get arrested or shot.

Of course, just when I found the perfect outfit, it warmed up and this happened:

 It occurred to me while I was enjoying my run in 50 degree weather that while embracing every last minute of winter is a good thing so is learning to embrace every change in the weather.  Or every change in life for that matter.  So here's to embracing tomorrow- wintery or springy, gloomy or sunny, busy or quiet...

Finding Forgiveness

Three years ago today my mom vanished into thin air. I know that is a harsh way to put it, but that is how it will always feel to me. One day we were joking about my boobs, a few days later she was gone.

In the days immediately following her death, I remember thinking if I just kept moving forward, I would feel better every day. After all, I'd spent the first few moments after I'd learned she was gone curled up on the kitchen floor, hysterical. It could only get better, right?

It took about three days to realize my naivety. I'd been taught in college that grief fit this nice pretty process of stages. I expected to move through them neatly, as if passing a test for each stage so I could reach the next and feel better.

Just in case you were wondering- that is complete bullshit. At least it was for me. Losing someone is so much more complicated than that. While I've never actually revisited the specific kitchen floor I occupied three years ago, I've accepted the fact that some days the kitchen, living room, bedroom or even bathroom floor might be the scene of a meltdown for no specific reason. I found myself nearly tearless at her first memorial, but in the last three years I've bawled my eyes out at the circus, cried so hard I've hyperventilated while running on a trail and sobbed my heart out while a friend walked down the aisle.

I've discovered that grief isn't just yours to move through as you please. It fluctuates as others around you grieve as well, it rises up unexpectedly when you hear a song, it smacks you in the face on nearly every holiday. I've also found that, if you lose someone you love at the hands of another person, accident or not, it is difficult to not let your grief fluctuate with the actions of that person.

The night my mom died, my initial reaction toward that person (I'll call him FC because he was the fire commissioner) was compassion. Perhaps this was driven by selfish motives. Maybe even then I knew that it would be easier to move on if I could forgive him. I wanted to think he'd done something we all could've done- looked down to change the radio, answered his phone, been blinded for a second by the sun. After all, he was the fire commissioner so he must be a good guy right?

Within a few days, I found it much harder to find compassion. We learned that FC had caused numerous accidents in the past few years. In fact, the truck with which he hit my mom did not belong to him. He'd totalled his own in an earlier accident. Compassion was replaced with anger. The kitchen floor called my name.

Four months later, FC was officially charged with vehicular manslaughter. Anger was replaced with relief. Another three months passed and the charges were reduced to "over taking a passing a vehicle." FC received a $1000 fine and a six months suspended license. When I read this on the Manatee County Court Records website I was shocked when I scrolled to the bottom of the page. Where the accident had once been listed as fatal, it had been changed to non-fatal. As if that person he hit had......

vanished into thin air. 

The kitchen floor and I became good friends for awhile.

Five months later, FC was arrested. Eight charges of child molestation and lewd acts, which together held the possibility of life in prison. Sadly, I was relieved again. In hindsight, I would like to change that, but at the time I wanted him to be punished. It didn't occur to me that in order to be punished, he would need to hurt someone else.

After 15 months in prison, FC was released. The children refused to testify. Let's just say, I hope this day was my rock bottom. I had found solace in the fact that this man might be locked up forever. I didn't care what for, I just wanted him locked up so I could never think about him again. I was livid. At him. At the people who always seemed to protect him. At the world for allowing people like him to exist.

A few months later I saw this quote:

I knew when I saw it I needed to apply it to this situation. I just didn't know how at the time. I did what I thought it meant to "forgive" someone- I tried to accept what he had done, all of it, and be ok with it. I tried to understand it. I tried to sympathize with it. The fact of the matter was though- I couldn't. He's done some pretty bad shit. I didn't want to understand that.

I did want that peace though so I decided to change my thinking. I decided that if my idea of forgiveness wasn't working, perhaps I needed to change it. Perhaps, forgiveness isn't about accepting what someone has done. It's not about finding empathy for a particular act. Maybe instead, it's about letting go of wanting revenge. It's about realizing that sometimes, despite what someone has done, you have to hope he will become a better person, by choice.

The fact of the matter is this- FC will not go back to jail unless he hurts or kills someone else. I don't want that to happen. What I want is for him to stop. What I want is for him to be that man I thought he was that day my mom died- a guy who drags people from fires, who pulls people from cars, who saves lives instead of taking them.

My forgiveness, my peace, then, is this- I hope he chooses to be that guy. If he doesn't, I might have to redefine my idea of forgiveness again, but I will keep my peace. Somehow.