Sharing my marriage with running

If you judged my marriage based on my facebook posts you might assume I was a.) madly in love and walked around with butterflies flitting around my head while blue birds chirped on my shoulder, or b.)   full of shit and overcompensating for the fact that we actually scream and throw plates at each other during dinner in front of our horrified children.

Thankfully, neither is true. I just tend to lean towards positive posts on the FB and I am married to such a cool guy that I have no shortage of goo goo gaa gaa thoughts in my head. Also, he works in 12 hour shifts so I have the opportunity to miss him a lot. The second he isn't hanging out with me his sweetness shines.

I realized, though, that I don't often feel compelled to post about the long arguments we have about nothing. Or how we temporarily fall out of love and become angry teenage boys fighting in the locker room.

How we are both always right. We are both smarter than the other. We are both trying to teach the poor other dummy something.
This results in some animated and loud debates about a variety of topics. Spirituality and religion used to be the regular, but more frequently these days- it's running.

So it's a little of both. We are in love. We do lapse into disgusting conversations about how lucky we are to be sharing our lives when it seemed so unlikely until it happened. We marvel at how perfectly suited we are for each other--we both play guitar ( he is much better than me, but I'm pretty OK) and sing badly (I insist that he's slightly worse than me), we both love to live as enthusiastically as possible, being happy, and laughing and making fun of each other and the people around us (usually our kids), and we both love to run. I didn't know I loved it until recently. He always let me know running was a talent of his. I was never in real shape and couldn't appreciate what that meant. I just tucked it away in my mental file of Mark's Cool Points.

When I did get in shape and began experimenting with running, Mark naturally joined me. At first I was the eager student, asking him for advice on everything I did and taking it all to heart and following it to a T. I thought about his advice while I ran every run as fast as I could through the hood. I did my first 5k on his 'training'. It was a small race, and I didn't run fast -but I lucked out and got to be the first female. It was a very exciting way to run one's first 5k, but I was left feeling guilty for running so timidly. After that race I started doing research on how to train for 5k and began to realize Mark's advice was not ideal (to be polite) and he wasn't even following it! He ran a PR for the same race and was really vocal about it. I felt sulky. He hadn't shared his interval training with me. It would have helped immensely to have practiced running fast while tired to prepare for how the end of a race feels.

Now, he wasn't trying to give me bad advice.  He just didn't know what worked for me, like I hadn't learned what worked yet either. I was a complete newbie learning how to run. I just have the bad habit of trying to compete with my husband. It's completely involuntary. I know I'll never run as fast or be as strong as him, but I want to be as close as possible. That won't ever change. I think it can even be a good thing. We make each other want to be better. However, as a hormonal woman, ( I think 30's are the worst, as my remaining fresh eggs are demanding to be used) when I feel like I'm being taunted by his superiority, ( like the time I ran half of a local 5k ecstatic to be in third place overall and Mark passed me with 1 mile to go pushing OUR KID IN A STROLLER)  it incites anger and desire to conquer the unconquerable.

When I asked him how he trained in high school I learned that he ran cross country, but his success was in the 800. This is where I decided he was a terrible coach and we went off on our separate running ways. We have been arguing about different training methods ever since. Sometimes at the dinner table. In front of our poor confused kids who probably think a sad grown up world awaits them where all there is to do is fight over who's better at practicing something as simple as running.

He pretty much only runs hard workouts. I run hard and easy. He's fearless and will literally run until he sees stars. I am conservative and only let it all hang out when I feel strong enough to. Usually after a lot of preparation. Our mileage is much different. As are we.

It's also a constant time battle. We have to take turns running since we are parents and if workouts go long on a weeknight, it can cause tension. He runs fewer days, but his warm ups last forever and he can be out there for two hours. It makes me crazy. While I understand he's having fun, I want him for myself sometimes. Of course the next day when he's fully available-I have to get out there.

But, after we go in circles about how best to prepare for whatever or who has been gone the longest- we make up. We point out how much time we can waste arguing about nothing and we re-align ourselves back into the position of allies. Before running came along, that's how we dealt with the relationship problems of two people building and starting a life together (complicated by the fact I left Austin and my family for a small town in SETX) being new parents and newly wedded humans. Ultimately, that's what will keep us friends as long as we both want to be. Two people who share a life and have very different personalities but very similar interests have to maintain and stand up for their unique perspectives. It's his easy going but passionate approach to everything that my maybe too-diligent personality loves. We fight because we know our differences are interesting and without them we would stagnate and not learn from each other. Which is ultimately what happens. The learning. I'm loathe to admit it, but I do try to apply some of his crazy advice sometimes, and I secretly attempt to be more open and loving because it looks so good on him.

Now that we've both gotten in a kind of groove and I've built a bit of an aerobic base, we can run together and enjoy it. Previously he would run too fast and I would quietly suffer out of pride and then pick a fight with him afterwards about not sticking to our pace plan. But I can keep up better now that I run twice as much each week.
He still runs way less, but much faster :/

In the groove. At the same time! :D
Photo by David Lisenby 

Constants

Throughout my life, there have been few constants. I moved around a lot growing up, so my family and friends are scattered through Texas. One of my best is in L.A. My parents, my sister, and now my husband and children are the central themes of my life. Also on the short list of constants is music.
As a young girl, I loved Neil Young and the Beach Boys. I had Michael Jackson's Black and White album on cassette tape and I would dance spastically for hours in my room to it. I was at the mercy of my parent's almost decent taste in music until I hit junior high. Alternative music was blossoming and I was discovering how satisfying could be.
It began with Counting Crows, and continued into Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, Fiona Apple, Weezer. Then in 8th grade I went through a pretty serious 70's rock phase. Neil again, Jimi, Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, and of course, Led Zeppelin. Jimmy Page inspired me to pick up the guitar and make it sound the way he did. I'm still trying to figure that out, but he got the ball rolling.
I forced my dad to teach me chords and give me his old song books. When I moved to San Antonio in 9th grade, I would bring my guitar to school often. I attended a magnet school that emphasized creativity and learning in a group setting, so I was tolerated by teachers. Dumb boys were easy to get free guitar lessons out of, and by the end of the year I could play. The middle of that year is when I discovered Ani Difranco. Fifteen and license-less I plopped on the couch one Saturday night for a night of sulking and this slapped me in the face:




 


 She played other songs from Not a Pretty Girl and Little Plastic Castles with such fire and ferocity. I had never seen a woman play guitar as adroitly as that before. It was an instrument she pounded on for emphasis. She demanded that it participate in her storytelling as much as her voice. I was enthralled. I went to bed that night with my little chauvinistic mind blown. I wanted to write songs and share them with conviction like that beautiful chick with the hot pink braids.

I carried on through my teenage years. I lived, I loved, I wasted time wrapped up in dramas that were life consuming at the time but in retrospect made me look embarrassingly vapid and weak. To cope with the highs and lows, I did turn to my guitar and my pen. I followed Ani's music as she chronicled her versions of the highs and lows. I attended her shows when I could. The one I blogged about in 2006 while I was living in Austin, was particularly moving for me. I was a brand new young mother, and she played for us in the rain with her growing child in her womb:

Exerpt from my 2006 blog
Ani With Child
DateCreated 10/18/2006 11:58:00 PM
The opening act was a cute slight little man with military issue type glasses and an acoustic guitar who I promptly forgot about. The act after him was a poet who was very passionate and eloquent and entertaining and had me completely enthralled by his final piece. But I can't remember his name either. Rain begins to pour towards the end of his set and the crowd pushes forward straining to huddle under the protectoin of the awning that comes out of the stage. The lights do a little dance and Ani pops on to stage smiling and beautiful with a reddish tint glowing around her curly hair. She launches into Knuckle Down which couldn't be a more fitting opening song. Her guitar hides her swelling belly. She is as energetic and charismatic as ever and yes, she glows. The only evidence I can see of her delicate condition is her arms. Normally sinewy and taut with the muscles that she has grown due to years of intense guitar playing, the muscles jump around a little deeper under her skin. My arms were the first to suffer when I was pregnant too. She quickly makes a reference to her pregnancy. She mentions things are different for her now, and asks all the mothers in the audience to show themselves. I am already jumping around like a chihuahua reunited with her mistress and I jump higher. Not many others do. She continues through a very satisfying set playing many songs from 2005's Knuckle Down. She gets into some oldies though with Done Wrong, Anticipate, Fourth of July (which she revealed was inspired by our own ATX), and Shameless. She throws in a heavy dose of more recent songs like Manhole, Studying Stones, Paradigm, and Recoil. She took all of my favorite songs from Knuckle Down and played them so well. Her right hand was wrapped in an ace bandage-I presume as a result of her bout of tendonitis-but the tatooed fingers of her left hand danced expertly along the fretboards of her many guitars. There were a couple of drunken idiot girls in front of us hanging on each other for balance while dancing/humping each other and bumping into everyone. They weren't paying attention to the woman we were all there for and they eventually pissed off a big chick near us and came within an inch of getting thier asses beat. They skulked away so I ended up about two people away from the stage. The best spot ever. I had to pee so bad it hurt and I was dancing with reverence and a desire to keep from pissing on myself. But that spot was so worth it. Ani joked with the audience about her big pregnant lady pants and her swollen tits. She donned a pair of red suspenders volunteered by an audience member after her mention of her slipping pants. But she played so long and so powerfully. When I was as pregnant as she was, a trip to the grocery store was enough to put me in bed for the rest of the day. It was a damn excursion. And this woman is on stage belting out music and laughing with us when her baby kicks in response. She is my fucking hero. After she came out for a quick encore and closed with Hypnotized from her new album, an ode, no doubt, to her new love, I caught a beautifully candid glimpse of her face as she walked off stage for the final time that night. She exhaled as if to say " whew", but she was smiling faintly, like she knew she had put in a good night's work. I'm in love for LIFE. 


This woman and her music has been a constant in my life. We are all connected and I am eternally optimistic about the poetry of this experience we are all having. It does mean something and the universe is gently offering us guidance. I believe right now, I'm being led towards a place of balance in my life in which I can feed my creativity while seeking the peace that comes with running. Writing and creating is a necessary tool for processing our emotions and I've been avoiding it. Running from it? :)
The two can coexist and will complement each other. Time to jog the muscle memory of my hands.

Rungirl 13.1 race recap

Ahhh, rungirl. This was my second half marathon. My first was a spur of the moment, fly by the seat of my pants kind of race. I didn't know if I could run 13.1 miles. I was in good shape (thanks to Orange County Fitness)  but long distance running was not yet in my bag of tricks. Pull ups and burpees, yes. Running so long you rub your armpit skin off? Not yet. I made it, but it left me longing to feel like I had raced it.
I toed the line of this race after running consistently for a year, averaging about 25-30 miles a week. During my 'training' for the half, I upped my easy run mileage to six miles and my long runs to 10, 11, 12 and 13 miles. I still basically ran 5k specific workouts, but I got up to about 35 miles a week. I felt much more prepared for this run. However, I still lacked the experience to know how hard to push, or when to really try to push the pace.
This was the perfect run to gain that experience. The start was in a park and the course brought you out to a lovely wooded, winding road. There were rolling hills, but they were imperceptible. The downhills, on the other hand, were noticeable-and I loved them.
It was a two loop course and on both significant downhills I took the coasting opportunity to eat the fruit snacks I had stashed in my sports bra. The cool thing about this race being a two loop course is that you get a scenic stretch outside the park, and then inside the park (which covers about 3 miles)  you have constant support from spectators. This made the run go by quickly. It was a wet 39 degrees outside and that helped make it easier to keep the pace brisk. Like I said, I am unfamiliar with the nuances of racing this distance, so I kept it cool and comfortable but made sure my legs were turning over at a decent clip. I ran back and forth with some younger girls for a while, but lost them at one of the aid stations when they stopped to drink. I concentrated on enjoying myself and marveled at how easily that came. The quiet woods, the cold air, and the unspoken camaraderie laced with competition  among the women created the perfect atmosphere in which to experience those rare moments in running where you feel alive, present, strong, and free. There were uncertain times when I choked on water and cursed my broken iphone but the bulk of this race was spent in a happy cruise.  Before I knew it, we were on the second loop heading back into the park for the last 3 miles of the race. I picked up the pace slightly. There was a girl who passed me around mile 5 who I wanted to reel in. I knew she was motivated to do well because she looked at her watch like every 30 seconds. I began to let go of the tight grip I had on my pace.
Sadly, I have an iphone that is literally held together with KT tape and one Angry Birds bandaid. As soon as the race started I somehow hit repeat for songs as I tried to pull up my carefully planned playlist. So I was stuck listening to one song on repeat unless I wanted to fight with my frozen hand to slap the correct areas of the cracked screen in order to get a different repeated song. To add insult to injury, it was so cold outside that my frozen hand didn't register on the screen as belonging to a live human being until every 4th or 5th slap. After one particularly bad fight with my phone somewhere out on the wooded road, I gave up and listened to 'Work Bitch' by Britney Spears for the last 4 miles of the race. I know. It actually helped, though. There is one part that reminds me of running fast on a track and it felt great every four minutes when it would come back on.
So, as Britney chanted to me that I would have to work for the hot body I was craving, I ran the last 3 miles almost as I would a 5k. My style anyway; a careful, swift trot. I passed my husband, preened for him as he took pics, and with about half a mile to go I finally felt done. My body must have sensed an approaching finish line because my nose began to run uncontrollably and I'm pretty sure I was grunting. I got within sprinting distance of the girl I was chasing and in the process passed about 4 women. I never passed the faster girl, but I approached the clock and saw 1:50 and sprinted to beat the changing minute. Final official time: 1:50. 35th overall out of 832 and 8th in my age group. I didn't run as fast as I possibly could have, but I got a little more comfortable with the distance and closer to doing it next time. I started my Nike Plus watch a little late and it still had the course at 13.20 miles and my half marathon time at 1:48. While that time would have had me jumping for joy, I am ok with waiting for the next half to secure it officially.

After the race I wanted badly to meet up with friends and hang out in the festive atmosphere, but my sweat soaked tank top quickly had me shaking uncontrollably. I ended up hightailing it to the heated car.
All in all, this was a well run race that I will certainly do again. It provided the experience I need to tackle my next half more aggressively and taught me that 13.1 miles isn't a bad racing distance. It's actually pretty pleasant when you coast along at my pace. My goal is to make the next one suck from mile 8 onward and hopefully end up with a satisfying pr. I will post training info here when I begin my first-ever-real-deal-by-the-book training program for the Gusher Marathon, Half Marathon and 5k in March 2014 <3
                                     

This photo is called 'WTF are my kids?! As I notice my husband-who has our kids-is alone taking pics

I think this is the first race I smiled through <3 

                 

cruise

heading for the home stretch

I immediately lost my official photo booth pic

Negative splits! (kind of)