Change in the Winds

Change is necessary in life. It’s good. It’s bad. It has its moments. It can tear you apart or put you back together. I am not afraid of change. I embrace it. The Good, The Bad, The Ugly it adds to my character and develops me as a person.

   

Last night my husband told me he accepted a job offer. It’s for a company that the more he gets to know the more he smiles when he talks about them. My husband has hated his job for 9 years; I want him to know what it feels like to be with a company you can stand behind. To be proud of your work, to look forward to the mornings. I wanted him to be happy.

To work for this company means leaving my beloved Pacific Northwest and heading below the mist into the golden state. At first I was devastated I’ve made Washington my home in many, many ways. Then I realized we are what we make of our surroundings and our actions. California is where the job is. It doesn’t mean we have to stay there forever and it doesn’t mean we had a choice in the matter. We would have loved to stay in Seattle or Portland but we go and do what we can and what is best for us as a couple. My husband is a great man and I will always stand behind him, just as when I need it, he will stand behind me. A move is not the end or a beginning. It's just change. This move will be our first as a married couple.

This morning I went for a run. It was dark, even with my head lamp. It was chilly, even with my layers. There was no wind and no sounds. I began running and let my mind flood with emotions and thoughts and worries and everything else. Those four miles became 40+ minutes of pure mental flow. At one point I looked up at the sky. The clouds had parted and there was nothing but stars above me and my feet pounding below me. My layers melted away as my body warmed up. I ran and I ran until the sky lightened, my brain was happy and  my view on the move shifted.

Panting, I was stretching out next to my car when I noticed not only my breath steamed and dissipated in the cold but my whole body steamed, radiated and flowed out into the universe. It was as though my soul was exhaling. I smiled.

The Dreaded Track Running

I injured my knee in June. I kept running through my physical therapy though I had to limit my miles and change my scenery. They suggested the most dreaded type of arena for any runner. They said I need to run on a track. Gone were the rolling hills, uneven, scenic trails and pet running. I was Nascar, around and around I went. Circle after circle. Repetitive left turns. I’m sure when I was given this news my face (which has never mastered the art of hiding my feelings) resembled that of a person who was just told the neighbor’s dog peed and massacred their garden. I was horrified and frustrated. It was like community service for something I didn’t do.

The first time I “hit the track,” which was not nearly as enjoyable as “hitting the trails” or even “hitting the gym,” it was hard. It was monotonous. The only thing moving me forward was my music because it certainly wasn’t reaching an imaginary finish line at the end of a trail or road run. At least if I was running on a treadmill at the gym if I got bored I could do something else or change the TV channel. With track running there was no escape, no challenge.

Over time I started to enjoy it. I was able to truly turn my mind off. I was able to really turn inward. Other than counting my laps I didn’t have to worry about hills or mud or the person next to me at the gym breathing heavily and going faster than me. I was just running for the joy of running. My joints and muscles loved me for the soft surface and my knee began to heal even though I was running.

I started running early in the morning with my friend. The air is still crisp, cool even chilly at 5am. You're exhausted but the air catches you off guard and opens your eyes. The track is eerie with mist and fog and silence. So much silence. Maybe a rooster crows or a dog barks but the stars are out, the moon is staring at you and you run. You run in the dark and you feel the earth change. You run in a oval over and over and the sky lightens. The clouds cling to early morning rays, the grass to dew and you breathe deeply and exhale fully and you run. You’re not thinking, just running. It’s very Zen.

What track running has taught me: Pick a track with concrete stairs. I walk the stairs as a warm up but they’re also good for intervals or if you get super mega bored. The aluminum stairs SUCK very slippery when wet, very not sturdy. There are “regulars” at a track, just like at a bar. You’ll see them if you go the same times during the week. They will run or walk or stretch, but they’ll be there. Over time you will be able to greet them and they become kind of your soldiers. You rely on them without thinking. On days where you go alone to run, they’re comforting.  Your muscles and joints will thank you even if your brain will think you’re a hamster in a wheel. Sometimes, especially when you’re healing, it’s not about the challenge it’s about the doing.

I’ll Never be THAT Person

******Warning I’m still (hopefully forever) on a health kick so this is a exercise post not a post about me realizing my dog obsession or my husband obsession makes me THAT person******

When I first started running, I always said I would never be THAT runner. You know the one. The one that runs in the pouring rain. The one that runs on a busy road for all the world to see. The one that runs up hills and blows a neck vein.

Can you see the fear?

These people were obsessed, crazy, stupid. Why, would you do that? I would watch them from my car as I drove by, poor schmucks. Hitting the pavement in the rain. I could almost see their neck veins straining up that hill. Idiots, all of them. I would watch. I would look at the ladies who needed better sports bras, the men who were taunt, I would study their form, pass judgment and say, “THAT will never be me.”

I am a self conscious runner. The reason I went from the treadmill to the trails is because I don’t like people SEEING me run. There are things moving and sometimes my form is off and let’s just say I am a nervous wrecking ball and I usually batter myself against myself until I fall down.  Running brought out a lot of insecurities about my body image, my looks, my facial expressions, my running form, everything.

This is why, when I ran my first 5K race, I bombed it. Everyone could see me. The woods are my time to be alone and carefree and people were all up in my personal bubble. However, I worked with myself and on myself and 2 weeks later I was able to run an entire 5-mile road race with an average pace of 10 and a half minutes per mile and I smiled almost the whole time.

Can you see the joy?

Last night, it was a typical Pacific Northwest evening full of gray clouds and falling rain.  As I laced up my running shoes and put on my windbreaker, I hoped the drizzle would remain a drizzle. I walked almost a mile down my hill. While stretching, I sighed, so much gray. I started running through downtown Kingston then out onto the highway then humped it up a gradient hill I kept trudging and huffing and puffing and slowing down and speeding up. I did loops and turns, hills and descents. At the end, I ran four miles in the rain on the side of busy roads, up hills. I had become THAT person and not just THAT person but a person who then walked almost a mile uphill to get home.

As I was running, my legs still store from my 5-mile race 3 days earlier, I thought about all the cars passing me. All the people that could see me. They could be criticizing my form, making fun of me, shaking their heads in disdain. They could be doing all the things I used to do when I saw someone running on the side of a busy road. Normal Leila would have let her crazy neurotic brain take over and make her turn around and go home. But Runner Leila, Runner Leila had an epiphany.

They can stare, they can honk, they can click their tongues, laugh and shake their heads. The bottom line is I am doing something to better myself. I am doing something either they can’t do, would like to do or wish they could do. Let them criticize. I may be wet, sore and tired after my run but I did it with only myself and my motivation fueling me up that hill or in that rain or where you can see me. Bottom line, I’m awesome and I know it.

5K Bomb - The Joys of Running

When I first started running, I got hooked very easily. There is a lot out there now for beginner runners. Marching to the beat of my own drum, I made up my own training regime and worked towards a 5K trail run 3 months away. I started on the treadmill but then quickly moved to trails once the weather got better. I like trails – no car exhaust, no one could see me, I can even sing out loud and bring my dog without fear. A few weeks before the run I was racking up serious miles – from 5.5 miles to my shortest runs which were now 4 miles. A 5K seemed a piece of cake, a walk in the park, easily accomplished. The day of the race approached.

As true Leila style, I arrived almost too late. Missed warming up and just went for it. For a girl who actively avoids people SEEING her run the race was honestly a nightmare for me. I had a running partner but before the first mile was done she was gone, ahead of me by leaps and bounds. I couldn’t control my heart rate as people passed me. My pace slowed, I saw their steely determination and clenched jaws, I freaked out. My heart pounded in my chest to the point it hurt and I was gasping, wheezing and no matter what I did – lowered my arms, focused on my breath, unclenched my fists, concentrated on deep full breaths – the hammering would not stop. About half way through the run I stopped, walked, shook, almost broke down and cried. I was better than this. I could run 3.1 miles on my WORSE days, 3 miles wasn’t even my short running days anymore.

I started running again but another mile into it a panic attack set it and I stopped to let what I considered “better runners” pass me. The runners were not friendly, they did not say thank you, they didn’t try to encourage me to continue they just glared at me and ran on. I knew my running partner had already finished the race and all I wanted was a redo or at least to be finished. I walked most of the last leg, only beginning to run again when the trail leveled off and I had a good distance between myself and the people in front or behind me. My running friend returned to my side when she saw me near the finish line. I was struggling. I was losing it and the last few feet to the finish line I almost got pushed out of the way by a guy in tight breathable running attire.  

It was embarrassing, it was a defeat and it scared me. It messed with my head. Correction: I messed with my head. All the encouragement in the world is not going to change the fact that I ran a horrible race where my mind took over instead of my capabilities. When you train for something for 3 months, when you attempt to do something YOU KNOW you can do well because you have worked so hard for so long at it and you watch your mind butcher your skill and your training into chopped liver, it’s mentally exhausting. It is a slap in the face.

There is always the easy way out – I could make up excuses. Instead of admitting that the race/ME freaked me out and got in my head, I could throw out excuses. I didn’t sleep the night before, I was dehydrated, I didn’t warm up or stretch, my foot hurt, etc, etc. But that is not what happened.

Instead of letting myself enjoy the run. I forced myself to see it as a competition where everyone was passing me and staring at me and judging me. Instead of enjoying the beautiful sunshine, Pacific NW trees and streams, I tortured myself focusing on the miles to go and how far I’ve gone and if I was done yet.

This race honestly scared me so much I toy with the idea of not running anymore. I loved having a set goal to work towards. The 5K was a great tool to keeping me motivated. However, since races apparently cause me to mentally shit myself, other than setting personal goals the only motivation is me and to be honest she is being a shaking child in the corner who just saw her dog get hit by a car. 

Right now, I feel a lot like my Tutu (grandmother), she fell about a year and a half ago at the age of 89 and broke her hip and had to get hip replacement surgery on her 90^th birthday. She got back to walking very quickly and still walks and swims. She confides in me she is terrified of falling down again and she’s shied away from walking.

Yes, I am over thinking my run, yes I was over thinking the run while I was doing the run and yes I scared  myself. However, the mind is more powerful than the body and no amount of encouragement or “but you finished” is going to change the rule mind over matter. If I have a mental block with running there is no fix, there is no cure, there is no miracle drug or stretch that will work. I can run and tell myself the entire time to enjoy it, but I won’t believe it.

Defeat is a luxury, it is a choice. I’m allowing myself to choose defeat for my first race, but I am holding strong to the belief that I won’t allow myself to quit. I quit too many things out of selfishness and sloth. I refuse to quit something that is healthy for me, something that I enjoy. My plan? To run. Perhaps by myself for a bit. Perhaps I’ll run that same 5K trail to show myself I can. I will sign up for another race. If it turns out I can’t mentally handle a race, then I just won’t do them. It will take me awhile to get my confidence back. It will take a lot of work to figure out why my mind has such a big role in my running. But I’ll get there; believe me I’ll get there, even if I have to run a marathon (by myself) to do it.