Tag Archives: running

Indian Summer Half-Marathon 2011

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“Telesphore spoke about running barefoot up and down Rwanda’s hills. ‘We call our country the land of a thousand hills,’ he said, his face lit from the inside as if by a flame, ‘and I believe I have conquered every one.’ He talked about the lure of the Olympics and a feeling like flying that sometimes filled his body when he ran.

“Jean Patrick raised his hand. ‘Did you say sometimes?’ he wanted to know. ‘What about the rest of the time?’

“‘Smart boy,’ Telesphore said, and he chuckled. ‘I will tell you a secret. Sometimes it is all I can do to go from one footstep to the next, but for each such moment, I make myself remember how it feels to win.’”

from Running the Rift by Naomi Benaron

As I mentioned last week, this past Saturday I ran the Indian Summer Half-Marathon along the Columbia River in Richland, Washington. This was my second time to run a half (the first was in China, and you can read about it here).

Per my usual, I wasn’t in it to compete with others in my age category. But for the first time in a race, I was dead set to beat my previous time. Usually when I’m running 5k or 10k, I go into it somewhat hoping I’ll miraculously be faster than before — but I don’t really work at getting faster during my training, so I don’t know why I expect a different outcome. This time, though, I’ve worked hard to get faster over the past few weeks.

Over and over, other runners will ask me my pace, and they’re shocked (or at least mildly surprised) to hear how slow I am. Some people are polite in their reaction. Others have outright told me that it’s ridiculous for someone my height, weight, and body shape to be that slow. But I’m a naturally lazy runner, so slow is to be expected.

During the lead up to the Badger Mountain Challenge this past March (read about that here), my friend Erin encouraged me to pick up the pace a bit and gave me a few tips for running faster. That change in mentality has stuck with me, and this time in preparing for the half-marathon, I did a better job at training for speed, not just distance.

I got off to a bad start a few moments after my friends dropped me at the starting line last Saturday morning. “I’m leaving my phone in your car, so I won’t be able to contact you ’til you get back,” I told Jane and Andy as I shut the door to their car. They were going garage-saling for the next couple of hours while I ran, and they planned to be at the finish line to greet me on my return.

Several minutes after they left, I realized my iPod was also with my phone in their car. So much for the playlist I’d worked on the night before. I would be running this race in quiet, with only my thoughts and the sound of my footsteps and breathing. Immediately, I determined not to let this mishap get to me. No headphones for 13.1 miles would be hard, but I would just have to buckle down and do it. No point in worrying about it or being frustrated with myself because of it.

It turned out not to be a big deal at all. It gave me a lot of time to think and pray and enjoy the morning, and my music might have distracted me from that opportunity.

As far as my performance goes, I still wasn’t competitive with the others in the race, but I won a huge victory by whittling down my time by 10 minutes. For the first time at a race, I saw a significant improvement in my ability to run faster. That’s what I’d hoped for, and it was an amazing feeling. I’m still elated at the thought of it. I’m not an emotional runner — I’ve never once cried before, during, or after a race. But on Saturday, I did. I’m not sure how I had the extra fluids to produce tears after 13.1 miles, but I did. My legs and feet had been cramping for the last 3 or 4 miles, and once I stopped running I couldn’t walk without a limp. But I felt amazing for sticking with the training schedule and running fast enough to lose more than 45 seconds per mile off my time. (Thank you, Jane, for crying with me — and with every other runner that crossed the finish line while you watched!)

A little more perspective on how much I’ve improved — I keep track of my runs on the Runner’s Log app on my computer, and when I entered the info for the Indian Summer Half-Marathon, the app notified me that it was my four year running anniversary. I looked back, and sure enough, four years earlier, on September 24, 2007, I started my journey as a runner. I ran one mile. And it took me 15 minutes. I think I could walk backwards faster than that now.

It’s been a long journey, but here’s to many more miles!

(Sorry about the Kickstarter widget in the sidebar — I don’t know why it suddenly started looking so weird. Only 4 more days for it to be on this page!)

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Training in U.S. vs in China

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I’m 5 days away from my second half-marathon, and with all the hours I’ve been running lately I can’t help but think of how different it is to train for a race in the U.S. than it was to train in China.

In China, I lived in the tropics, so I had to contend with rainy season and try to work in my runs when the clouds looked just right — still didn’t stop me from getting caught in a downpour at times. Here in the Tri-Cities, we’re in the middle of a desert, and people are constantly running their sprinklers and watering the sidewalks. Depending on the temperature and time of day, I either dodge the sprinklers (55 degrees at 7am is a bit chilly to get soaked) or I run through them to cool off.

In rural China where I lived, very few people ran along the streets. In the early morning or evening, elderly folks might go out to exercise, but usually they would run backwards and/or whirl their arms like a prop plane while exercising. Sometimes soldiers would run in ranks in the street, so a lot of people associate running with the military. Because of that, along with the ubiquitous stares and shouts of “hallooooo,” I would sometimes get jokers who would yell at me like they were counting my steps, “Yi, yi, yi er yi.” Here, no one stares or shouts. I take that back — no one shouts, and if anyone stares, it’s not because I’m white.

Other differences might actually be more related to doing a different job and having a different schedule. I’m still contending with working around a travel schedule while trying to keep to a training schedule, though. In China, I would have to count various activities as cross training when I was out of pocket and couldn’t sneak in my long runs — like hiking in the jungle in Laos or biking several miles to villages. For this race, my cross training has included hiking in Idaho and carrying my 50+ pound niece uphill on my back in downtown Seattle (I’m nominating myself for Aunt of the Year for that one).

I’ll leave you with a blurb I came across in an old blog post about a race sponsored by Mountain Cafe a couple of years back, a 10k that our language helper Adam joined us for. Another difference between running in rural China and America — not everyone can just go out and buy new shoes to train for a race, and when it comes down to it, it’s the runner, not the gear, that makes the difference.

“Adam made a good showing by getting second place among the men, despite having shoe issues before the race. He didn’t have shoes appropriate for running, so a teammate gave him a pair of his runners that were a couple of sizes too big. Obviously, those weren’t ideal, so another teammate let him try a pair of hers that ended up being a half size too small. I gave him a pair of mine to test out before the race, and Goldilocks/Adam decided that pair fit him just right.

On race day, I didn’t come close to finishing in the top three among the women, but my shoes placed second among the men. (For the record, I wear a size 8, which is average for an American woman. Apparently, it’s also average for village men in SE Asia.)”

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Revitalized

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When I last posted two-and-a-half weeks ago, I was taking a break from social media and blogging, in order to focus on starting my new writing project off on the right foot. It has been a wonderfully creative time for me, and I’m trying to make the benefits of it continue into the future by not going back to the same place as before — namely, the place where I am spending way too much time each day trying to keep up with Facebook and blog reading. I don’t hang out on Twitter all day anyway, and I think the benefits of my writing two or three regular blog posts per week outweigh any time constraints I feel from them. But reading blogs had begun to eat away at my mornings, and Facebook was something I found myself turning to several times throughout the day, when I had two or three minutes here or there, which always drags out to ten or fifteen minutes. Not good.

Honestly, I haven’t missed most of the blogs I stopped reading these past two weeks. A very select few (I’m talking less than five) still pique my curiosity enough that I check them every couple of days. But I am not missing the 25 or 30 others that I’ve taken off my regular reading schedule. Most of those are related to publishing, writing, freelancing, etc. I know it’s considered good practice to stay up on industry news through blogs, but I just can’t do it any more, not every day, not in those numbers.

So, what have I been up to in all the wonderful and glorious time I’ve inherited by making this decision?

* I’ve been on a lot of long runs. Running is one way that I am able to get my mind loose and relaxed so that I can think through things — and this past couple of weeks I can really tell that it’s helped me feel healthier (both mentally and physically), which also helps me feel more creative. On a side note, all this extra running has led me to start training for a half-marathon at the end of September.

* I have stared at the living room ceiling a lot. No kidding, this is a great way for me to come up with ideas, lying on the floor, being still and quiet and just thinking. Last week I came up with a name for my new project by lying on the floor for about twenty minutes — and titles are one of the more difficult things for me to write. It sounds crazy, I know, and if I ever get a roommate she’ll probably think I’m nuts when I explain that this method can be part of what I mean when I say “I work at home.”

* I’ve read a lot of books, particularly ones from the publisher I’m interested in for my young adult novel. Reading is the best thing I can do to improve my writing. (Note how I cut down on reading blogs in order to read more books. A good trade off, I firmly believe.)

* I made first contact with above-mentioned publisher. A big step for me. And now the waiting begins.

* I’ve done a ton of research on successful Kickstarter campaigns. I’ve read articles, looked through successful project descriptions, watched sample videos, analyzed successful reward offers. If I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it right.

* And I guess I’m going to do it, because my project was approved by Kickstarter. Now I’m writing my project’s narrative, editing my video, planning rewards for my backers. More to come on this in the next couple of weeks. Lots more to come.

* I froze the blueberries I picked at Bill’s Berry Farm, and I picked a bunch of peaches at Ray French Orchard. Fresh fruit in season is one of life’s greatest pleasures.

* I bought a gorgeous hanging basket with verbena and petunias and ivy from Selph Landing Nursery. Flowers on my patio are another of life’s greatest pleasures. I bask in that pleasure each day now, as I water and snip at and admire my huge basket of flowers. It’s equally as relaxing as running.

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Badger Mountain Challenge 2011

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There was sweat, there were tears, thankfully there was no blood. 34 degrees and foggy when we started the race — technically, that’s not freezing, but I personally was freezing.

Two hours and four minutes later, when I finished the 15 kilometer (9.3 mile) race with a cumulative elevation gain of 1,900 feet on Badger Mountain in Richland, WA, my fingers were so numb I had to have help tearing the perforated paper to hand in the bottom tab of my race number at the finish line. My friend Erin had to peel my orange for me to eat, and 30 minutes later I still had trouble controlling my thumb enough to push the button to unlock my car door.

That evening at dinner, when my fingers had thawed out but I was walking rather stiffly, a friend asked, “Was it worth it?”

Definitely. And I will do it again.

This race, my first trail race, though the hardest of any run I’ve ever taken part in, was by far the most rewarding in the end. I ran a half marathon a couple of years back, and the feeling afterwards is similar. Rather than thinking, “Done! Check that activity off the to-do list,” I had a strong sense that this is only the beginning.

Part of the attraction is the feeling of accomplishment when it’s over, but part of it is the experience of working hard to get to that feeling of accomplishment. The knowledge that I put in a lot of long runs on cold, windy days, that I bundled up and went out to hike up that steep path on Badger in January and February when I would much rather have been sitting by the fire at the library with my coffee mug and a book — there is just something right about working hard. Some things in life are better, sweeter, richer because I earned them than they would be if they were handed to me.

Especially considering how lazy I truly am. My natural tendency is to not exert myself. I didn’t start running until about three years ago for this very reason. And here I am, three years later, still not running very fast. Not because I can’t, but because I just haven’t tried. Becoming faster requires more work, requires breathing hard enough that your lungs hurt, requires kicking into a higher gear when I’ve already run several miles. And like I said, I’m lazy, so none of those things sound appealing. Especially when hills are involved. Man, I’ve always hated hills. They totally ruin a nice run outside.

But Erin showed up a week before this race and made me do a bit of training for speed. In just a week’s time, I saw that I was able to run faster on the last mile on race day — usually I’m dragging in at the finish line, just happy to be done and not to have over-exerted myself. But this time, I was passing people in the last mile, people who I had been behind for miles. That never happens! And it was a wonderful feeling. Not because I wanted to beat those people, but because I had the energy and the desire to finish strong as I never had before.

Those are good life lessons that I need to learn, on and off the trail.

Now, when I say that this is just the beginning of trail running for me, I do not at all mean that I’m going to start running these 100 mile ultramarathons. The 15k at Badger Mountain was the short race for the event. As Erin and I were sitting in the grass after the race, eating oranges and attempting to stretch, we heard the crowd begin to cheer and cowbells begin to jangle. The 15k racers were still trickling down the mountain, but a guy carrying a CamelBak was blasting his way past them. The 100 mile racers began 24 hours before we did, and we got to see this guy come barreling into the finish line. It’s quite an impressive accomplishment, but one that I don’t have my eyes set on. The race website said that the cumulative elevation gain for this 100 miles would be 19,000+ feet. I did a little research (thank you, Wikipedia) and found that from base to summit, Mt. Everest has a vertical rise of 12,000 feet and Denali (a.k.a. Mt. McKinley) in Alaska has a rise of 18,000 feet. So these ultramarathoners at Badger Mountain, well, they did a lot of uphill running at this race.

On my last mile into the finish line, I thought about the fact that if I were going 100 miles, I would basically have to do what I just did 9 more times. No way. But then I also wonder, do the 100 mile runners feel 10 times as elated at the end of the race?

(The photo above is of Erin and me and the neighbor’s blurry dog, early in the morning before the race.)

 

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Trail Run

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Trail running — it’s not something I ever imagined myself doing, but it seems like such a Northwest thing to get into. So, I’ve signed up for the 15k of the Badger Mountain Challenge, enlisted a friend who’s flying in from the East Coast (I love that I have those kind of friends!), and been adding on the miles to my long run each week. This week I’m up to 7 miles for the long run, which is only 3.7 kilometers short of where I need to be by March 26. Piece of cake.

Piece of cake, except for the trail part of this 15k trail run. I could run 15k on the road at the end of March, no problem. But I’ve never run off-road before.

So I added one workout per week at Badger Mountain to my training schedule, just to get the feel of the trail and to condition myself to the hills. I’ve always sort of hated hills (who doesn’t?), which has worked out for me in Texas and in the town along the river valley where I lived in China. Pretty flat in both of those places.

The first couple of times I went to Badger Mountain, I walked the whole way up and down the trails. I walked fast, but I didn’t put any pressure on myself to run. Just took in the landscape, enjoyed the quiet, and tried not to freeze by the time I got back to my car. January can be pretty windy and cold on top of a mountain in the desert.

Last week I decided to test out my legs on a downhill run on the trail. I was timid at first, a bit worried about breaking an ankle or blowing out a knee, and I put on the brakes to keep myself from going too fast. Then I decided, you know, gravity’s pretty strong, why work against it? So I let off the brakes and picked up speed. Soon I shifted from second gear to fifth and flew down the mountain.

I felt like a kid — I had a huge smile on my face — did everyone else see how much fun I was having? Exhilarating, to run so fast without feeling like I was making any effort except to pick up my feet. Especially exhilarating for me, typically a pretty slow runner.

Instead of thump, thump, thumping along pavement, my feet crunch, crunch, crunched on the gravel. The texture of the tiny rocks, the packed dirt, then the loose dirt under my feet kept things more interesting than the hypnotic sidewalk I’ve become used to.

I understand why people prefer to run on trails. No cars, only dirt and sagebrush and the other Saturday morning hikers and their dogs. I whooshed past them. I so seldom whoosh — really, it’s the best way to start a Saturday, or any day.

Next time maybe I’ll try running uphill for a ways. Maybe. Maybe not. No promises. Well, only one promise. I promise I will not be whooshing uphill.

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Doing Work vs Having a Job

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When I went to Wyoming for raspberry harvest last fall, I got into a discussion with one of my coworkers about doing work versus having a job. She’s a rancher, a few years younger than me, runs her own place by herself, gets up at the crack of dawn to feed all her animals and do all the other chores that need to be done on a ranch. To supplement what she makes from her place, she does odd contract jobs, like sorting raspberries during harvest. I mentioned to her that one of my goals for the coming year was to find ways to earn money as a writer so that I wouldn’t have to get a job.

“Yeah, I know, having a job really cramps my style,” she said.

It’s not that she doesn’t want to work — her daily schedule at the ranch proves that she enjoys hard work. It’s that she wants a lifestyle where she doesn’t have to get a permanent 8-to-5 job.

Same here, in case anyone is wondering. And don’t pretend like you’re not wondering. I’ve had enough people ask me in recent months, “You’re a writer, and you don’t have a job — how exactly do you have money to live?” So I know people wonder.

Inevitably, when I tell people that I am writing full-time, or that I travel as much as I have over the last year, I also get comments like, “Oh, that must be so nice, I wish I could just quit my job and travel and write.”

I’ll admit, I am fortunate to be able to do what I’ve done. I’ve seen some amazing places, and I’ve spent a lot of my time visiting friends who I wouldn’t get to see if I had to be at work in an office everyday. I am thankful for that. And I’m thankful for the generosity of so many friends and family who have helped make this possible.

But at the same time, I want it on the record that I work. A lot. Sometimes more than people who have that 8-to-5 job. I am not on a semi-permanent vacation.

Every morning I keep a regular schedule of working on my novel in hopes that it will be ready to send out to agents or publishers this summer, and I spend the rest of my work time doing writing or marketing for my freelance business. Some days writing is a chore and other days it’s great fun, but either way, I love doing it. I love that I get to do work that oftentimes doesn’t really seem like work. (Also for the record, I felt the same way about my previous job.)

I also love getting to make my own schedule. If it’s sunny outside and I want to go for a run at 2pm, I go for a run at 2pm. Or if a friend calls me to go to coffee, I go. And then I come back and work an extra hour or two after dinner to make up for that time, and I’m happy for the break in my day.

I don’t have a job, but I work.

(Next post: the difficult side of not having a permanent job)

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Jen’s Journey and a Challenge

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My good friend Jen, who I’ve mentioned on the blog before, celebrated her 39th birthday earlier this week. She has set a goal to get into the best shape of her life this year and is training for several races and triathlons, along with making plans to hike the Inca Trail in Peru to celebrate her 40th birthday. To document the year, she started a blog, Jen’s Journey to 40, where she will be posting about her training progress. I’m pretty excited for her — welcome to the blogosphere, Jen, and best wishes on the journey!

I’ve decided to take up a challenge of my own, though not quite so monumental (I just have a regular old birthday this year, for one thing, and why do something monumental on a regular old year?). Last weekend, the lady I’m staying with showed me the trail at Badger Mountain, about 20 minutes from her house. I saw a notice posted on the board at the trailhead for the Badger Mountain Challenge at the end of March. It’s a trail run with 15k, 50k, and 100 mile distances. 50k or 100 miles sounds absolutely ridiculous for anyone to do ever — EVER — but 15k is doable. I have two months to train and should have decent weather most of that time, which is much more reasonable than when I started training in rainy, cold, windy Kotzebue last summer, a month before their half marathon. I quit after only a few days, probably the smartest thing I’ve done in a while.

But this race is shorter, and the website says the 15k distance of the Challenge is for running or hiking, so I won’t feel bad if I have to slow down for the uphill parts. Plus, 15k is only a mile longer than the hike up Guadalupe Peak last October, and I didn’t train for that at all.

I think I can do this!

So, now I’m off to write up my first trail run training schedule…

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Half-Marathon Volunteers

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Quite a few cold and rainy days back, I said here on the blog that I wanted to run the half-marathon in Kotzebue.  Well, that race was last Saturday, and I participated but did not run it.

My excuse for not running it is that I didn’t have enough time to train properly and didn’t want to push myself too hard.  Honestly, this just wasn’t a good time for making myself run.  If it were sunny and delightful outdoors, running would be a good way to let off steam after being cooped up indoors in front of the computer.  And there were a few days like that over the past few weeks, but there were more days of rain and wind and chill.  I ran one day for 50 minutes in the rain at 46 degrees, but that was truly the most I had in me.  I couldn’t muster the discipline to continue something so unpleasant right now.

And I’m totally OK with that.  I’ve been very disciplined with my writing, which was my main goal for these weeks in Alaska.  I’m in very good shape to reach 30,000 words on the first draft of my work-in-progress by the time I head back to Texas next week, and I’ve also revised and submitted a couple of articles to online magazines while here.  I feel good about this progress and don’t at all feel like I missed out by giving up so quickly on the race.

I especially don’t feel like I missed out because of the gale force winds the day of the race.  A couple of friends and I volunteered to help at the race—all for the sake of getting a windbreaker jacket that says Mosquito Haven Half-Marathon—so we got to experience the freak weather conditions without the extra joy of trying to run against that wind.  It was hard enough trying to stand upright in it—I can’t imagine trying to run against it.

Our job was to take photos of the event, and we spent the day cruising around on a 4-wheeler stalking the runners and walkers and bikers at various points along the route.  I started out with a scarf tied over my hair to keep it from blowing out of control, but that only lasted an hour or so.  The rest of the day I looked like Medusa, and that evening I had to use half a bottle of conditioner to work my hair out of the one huge knot it had tied itself into.

I will say, though, that being the event photographer was way more fun than working at a water station, which was our original plan for getting a race jacket without running the race.  We borrowed a fancy expensive camera which we could barely figure out how to use—but no one knows that when you’re walking around with it hanging on your neck.  One guy came up to me before the race and said, “Hey, that’s a really nice camera, what kind is it?”

I looked down at the brand name on the neck strap to check.  “Umm, it appears to be a Nikon of some sort.”

A few minutes into the race I jumped in front of a group of walkers to snap their photo, as per the instructions of the race coordinator who wanted shots of all age groups, all modes of transportation.  One of the guys in that group asked me, “Am I going to be in USA Today?”

We rode back to the finish line on the 4-wheeler to document the order the runners finished in.  It turns out there were only two female runners, so I would have been guaranteed a third place finish if I’d run—but would that be as impressive as my first place finish as the only female runner in the half-marathon in Jinghong a couple of years back?

One of the slower male runners lit up a cigarette within a couple of minutes of crossing the finish line.  At a half-marathon in conjunction with a health fair.

Ah, arctic Alaska.

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Other People’s Thoughts: Rewriting

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“I don’t like to write; I like to have written.  But I love to rewrite. I especially like to cut: to press the DELETE key and see an unnecessary word or phrase or sentence vanish into the electricity.  I like to replace a humdrum word with one that has more precision or color.  I like to strengthen the transition between one sentence and another.  I like to rephrase a drab sentence to give it more pleasing rhythm or a more graceful musical line.  With every small refinement I feel that I’m coming nearer to where I would like to arrive, and when I finally get there I know it was the rewriting, not the writing, that won the game.”  —from On Writing Well by William Zinsser

I spent several hours rewriting an essay recently and was reminded that much of the time I, too, enjoy the process of rewriting more than writing.  The word count on Lydia’s novel goes up and up as the days in Alaska go by and by, but as I reread short sections to refresh my memory on the previous day’s work, sometimes I cringe at how bad the writing seems.  I have to remind myself:  this period of time in this book’s life is not for rewriting and polishing and beautifying.  It is for exploring the story, getting the basics of the book out of my head and onto the page.  The time for rewriting will come later.

(Side note: I also think that the first sentence of today’s quote often works with running, as well.  I don’t like to run; I like to have run.)

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Goals

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Lest anyone think all I’m doing up here in Alaska is 4-wheeling on the tundra, I thought I’d give a little report on my writing.

After a few days of getting settled in Kotzebue, catching up with my friends, and recovering from the July 4th holiday, I have been keeping a daily schedule of working on Lydia’s novel each morning.  I read that a young adult novel should be around 60,000 words in length.  From the interviews and notes I did with Lydia before leaving China, I think I could do a series of three to four novels for teenage girls.  I’ve made a very rough outline of those possible books and a more detailed outline of the first in the series.  It’s that first one that I’m hoping to finish this year, revise, and send out in search of an agent.  Now that I’m in a writing groove, my goal is to write 1000 words each morning, 6 days a week.  As of this morning, I have 5300 words.  You can do the math to figure out how long it should take me to have my first draft.

Last weekend I set another (much crazier) goal for myself, out of anger at how badly I did the first time I went for a run here in the arctic.  It had been a while since I ran, and I guess I was fooling myself that the past few weeks of using a stationary bike were actually helping me keep in shape.  I came back to my friends’ house frustrated and embarrassed and made the impulsive decision to run the local half-marathon in the middle of next month.  I think I have about five weeks to train.  I may die in the attempt.  But I’ll get a cool t-shirt.

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