They Had Strobe Lights: The Last Day of 40 Miles in 48 Hours

The first two days of our trip the sun blazed like it thought it was the height of summer, but overnight the weather changed to a cool autumn. Summer had broken like a fever.

I didn't really feel like running on the third morning. My muscles were holding up well but I was just tired. Weary. A bit used up. The running had diminished my appetite so I didn't have much in reserves and I was feeling it. Falling asleep in my chair during dinner probably didn't help either.

So I donned the shirt I wear when I require Super Powers and put one foot in front of the other, waiting for momentum to kick in. Instead of listening to podcasts, I listened to music and the songs lifted my knees higher and put a wind at my back. Everything loosened and the day cracked open for me like a geode.


This is it. Home free. Finish line in sight. Only 13 miles to go.

The dew steeped the oak leaves and iron-red earth just enough to let loose the smell of a California Foothills autumn. Dried weeds, gold, wet acorns, and rust.

I swear I am in this photo.

Anyone who has read this blog knows running with music is basically a religious experience for me. I let that music float me down the path like a cloud. I imagined all the gunk of the past 40 years kicking off my heels with each stride. Tiny pebbles of hardened regret slipped off my fingers, my wrists, and dropped without sound into the soft dust. Me, a lizard shedding layer after layer of used-up me. Me that no longer fit. Me that outlived its usefulness. I shoved my chest forward into all the good times, and let the wind blow away the rest.

A little bit of forgiveness for myself. Loosening the white knuckles of a clenched fist.

It felt quite spectacular. I mean, I was happy. To-the-bone happy. I was that asshole running with a smile  on my face. I felt grateful for just about everything.

Of course, it's times like these when my old lousy habits like to bitch slap me right off my unicorn.

And bitch slap they did-- in the form of a group of runners coming up behind me.

I'd seen this group the day before. Some of them were younger than me--okay, they were all younger than me (I still forget that if you're in your thirties, you're younger than me). I'd passed them on the trail-- and by "passed" I mean I came up on them while one of the guys was taking a pee break. I thought the trail I was on was going in the opposite direction from where he was; turns out it switchbacked me right down to him.

Awkward meeting for sure.

That night we camped downstream of them and while I was busy falling asleep in my dinner, I noticed they were all standing upright,  playing a game even, laughing, not looking the least bit tired. Sky had spoken with the river guides rowing their gear and found out they were on a commercial raft-supported running trip, doing similar daily mileage as me, running with two guides.

Basically, this was them. And yes, strobe lights followed them.

The next day while I was running in my blissed out state, I heard a man's voice behind me and turned to see this thirty-something coming over the hillock, followed by eight more runners, all decked out in the latest running gear, complete with fancy hydration vests. I stepped off to the side to let them pass, said hello but didn't receive much in return except for a few glances.

That's when the little knock came at the door, the little "scritch-scratch" of a fingernail on the roughened wood. And then, of course, those tiny voices in the back of my brain:

"Ahem, excuse me, but did you see how bad ass they were? I mean, those girls looked like serious runners. I wonder what they thought seeing you yesterday in your Old Navy running shorts with your gas station water bottle in your hand... well, never mind, I know what they were thinking... and let's not even mention your circa 1980s headphones...".

In mere seconds, instead of thinking of how great my life is, I was imagining how pitiful my stride must look to them, how very "mom runner" I must look, how slow and plodding. Embarrassed by what I thought they'd surmise to be my shortcomings. 

I passed the group again at Flora Dell and then spent the next twenty minutes looking over my shoulder, nervous about not knowing when they might pass me again.

Preoccupied with Them. Wondering what They  would think. Not enjoying the sunny, victorious, best-smelling autumn day in all of 2014.

My hottie support team

"Wait, wait, wait...  you're really going to do this in the next 40 too?" I thought. A louder voice this time; a grounded voice. "That's what you're going to take with you from the last 40?".

Nope, not a chance.

So I flipped a switch and chose better. Literally refused to walk down that path any longer. With as much effort as I was exerting to propel my body along that trail, I pushed the Crap Thoughts out of my head too.


It had just been a beautiful day-- and it still was that beautiful day! The only thing that had changed was my perception. And I could change it back.

Choose my thoughts.

Be an author, not a recipient.

I took off my shirt, let my "momness" out to play in the sun, and started enjoying the rest of my run. 

 40 Miles. 46 hours. Done.

I missed a link back to the trail and ended up here at the end-- oops. I got to run by some awesome cows though.

This is the real end to the trail, directly across from the gate. Mission accomplished.

P.S. As of this writing we have enough to build the 6th grade classroom! To afford the teacher's salary, it looks like we'll be applying for a grant. But we welcome anyone who still wants to be a part of the action. Go to: https://www.crowdrise.com/40Milesin48HoursforEducation/fundraiser/amystewart1

What's It All For?: Day Two of 40 Miles in 48 Hours

It's safe to say the Rogue River is a member of our immediate family. Both Sky and I spent years guiding there, we fell in love there, we took friends and family boating on it for our pre-wedding celebration. When my son, River, was one-and-a-half-years-old, his first multi-day river trip was on the Rogue. From then on, it became our yearly pilgrimage; the refuge we could always count on to settle us back  into our roots as people, partners, parents. Even when my daughter, Azure, was six-months-old, we still went-- I hiked on the trail with her strapped to my belly and met up with the boat at lunch and at camp. One of the top five reasons we moved to Ashland was to be able to be on the banks of the Rogue in less than an hour.

At three-years-old, Azure has been down the Rogue four times. At eight, River has been nine times (we went twice one year). Over the course of those trips, we have littered that corridor with hundreds of memories that make that river valley one of the most precious pieces of earth in the world to me.

So though Day Two should have been a whopper (I haven't run more than 15 miles in a long time, let alone 15 after running 13-plus twelve hours prior), the truth is the run was actually pretty enjoyable. It's hard to have a bad day when you're running through the last nine years of delicious memories.

 I can see little one-year-old River parroting his dad's sweeping foot movements as Sky levels a spot in the sand for us to sleep.

There we are, hanging our heads over the side of the raft, trying to spot tiny turtles sunning themselves on rocks.

There is Sky and River in the crisp morning sunlight as they watch a doe and her fawn foraging for breakfast inches from the toes of our sleeping bags.

There's us doing cartwheels on the sprawling lawn of the Rogue River Ranch.

 
There is Azzy--the one who eats like a bird, the one who has been on constant weight-watch with her doctors since she was an infant--opening the "snack box" yet again, thank God, to grab another goodie with her two-year-old fists.

There is eight-year-old River rowing our loaded gear boat through his first Class II rapid.

There is baby Azzy in the front of my Ergo, head tilted back and her little milk-glossed lips relaxed in sleepy open "O" as we hike the trail.

There is one-year-old River, falling asleep on me in the longest rapid of the trip. 

There we are in a meadow of wild irises, Azzy still tiny in my belly.

There are the rocks where Azzy and River learned how to jump into water.

That's the bridge on which we mark the kids height each year.

One of the best aspects of our Rogue trips is that they exist outside the realm of "Shoulds." When you become a parent, there are so many Shoulds. The ones with the capital "S"s. Your to-do list explodes because suddenly you are not just responsible for one person, but multiple people. And underneath the rattle and hum of all the daily routines and bone building, is this gnaw of "What's all this for? What are we creating? What are we trying to create?"; there is a desire for some sort of mission statement, piers to hopscotch on through the foggy valley.

Sky and I actually did that once online--made a mission statement using some annoyingly detailed yet somehow too general web program for such things. Later we forgot not only our passwords to get into our mission statement account but also what the site was even called. The irony of that is not lost on me.

But being out there on the trail with 15.6 miles to contemplate all the crumbs of "Us" we have left in that river corridor made me realize we have always had a mission statement, passwords or not. We created it oar stroke by oar stroke, dusty footfall after dusty footfall. It is a messy, scribbled on mission statement. It bears chocolate stains and dirt smudges. It has creases from being folded and shoved into back pockets too many times. It's not snappy, or concise, there is no logical flow, and there is a lot of blank space at the end for additions. It goes something like this:

Get dirty.
Open your eyes under the water.
Embrace. Embrace. Embrace.
Get stars in your hair.
Open the snack box.
Protect the little things around you.
Feel the sun warm your skin.
Know kindness as an activity.
Get callouses. Get cut.
Find church where you are.
Offer your open hands.
Notice the music around you.
Watch the water for clues.
Ask questions.
Listen.
Laugh deeply and often.
Let nature sustain you.
 

 The other day on the way to soccer practice River asked me "Do you believe in God?" as nonchalantly as if he were asking me if I liked potato chips. He always busts out with these Big Questions when I am elbow deep into cleaning a toilet or halfway through a grocery shopping trip.

"Well, what do you mean by 'God', what's your definition of God?" I volleyed back. We talked, back seat to front, about our views on God and religion. I told him my mom always taught me that church could be anywhere.

"I know what you mean, " he said, "because when I'm in the woods, that's when I feel most at home."

Sounds like he has seen the mission statement too.

So If This Doesn't Make You Feel Good...

Got an email from Nicole of Buiga Sunrise School today...

Yeah... it's okay to smile. 

There's your ripple, folks. Imagine how many times it might circle the globe.

GOOD JOB!!

WE did it folks.

Every Breath You Take; Day One of 40 Miles in 48 Hours

When I was in my teens, my mom was an ultra-marathon runner. She ran 30-plus mile trail races and paced for people who did the Western States 100. She got up at five in the morning every day and ran ten miles on dark country roads before I even woke-up.

My mom, back when you had to develop photos!

A "good time" for her was going out into the hills to run all day long with a group of girlfriends, mountain lions be damned. I watched those strong women return with salt crusted to their brows, a muddled white line drying on the backs of their shirts, at the scoop of their necklines. Their calves were dusted brown, and when they took off their socks the line left at their ankles was as precise as an architect's pencil mark. They organized benefit fun runs, trained for 50-milers together, and laughed over post-run coffee and apple fritters. My mom ran 20-mile sections of the Western States trails at night to guide exhausted (and often delirious) competitors towards the finish line.

This was before Gu packets, Camelbaks, and specialized electrolyte replacement tablets. Your options were Lemon-Lime Gatorade and oranges. I remember when a small, start-up company named "PowerBar" asked if they could put their product in the goodie bags of the fun run she was organizing.

I watched her go for those long runs and thought she was nuts. Running for fun? I could not wrap my brain around it. I preferred soccer and basketball, writing and swimming.

At some point, for kicks I hopped on the stationary bike she had bought for cross-training purposes. I started setting goals for myself about how long I could stay on the bike. I didn't always love it, but I liked how it made me feel: strong and capable, and I found I liked the challenge. Soon I started running with my mom, and then on my own.

When my mom dropped me off at the starting line for my first marathon, she had tears in her eyes. I don't remember seeing her cry when I graduated from New York University, but she cried when I opened that sedan door in the predawn dark to run 26.2 miles by myself. Years later I asked her why she cried that morning. "I just knew the challenges you were about to face and I wanted to make them easier," she replied.

And herein lies the blessing (and sometimes curse) of parenting... your kids are always watching you. You are always teaching a lesson through your actions (and you thought "Every Breath You Take" was about former lovers). So what my mom couldn't see that morning was that she already had made it easier. I wasn't going out on my own that morning, I was running with a tool box in my back pocket of all the things I saw those ladies exemplify: that it isn't about how you look, or how fast you are, or what anyone else says about you. You run for meditation, you run for camaraderie, you run for the sheer joy of pushing yourself past self-imposed limits.

I saw them feel uncomfortable... and keep going.

I saw them want to stop... and keep going.

I saw them treat their goals with respect, their desires with importance.

And that's why, standing at the dusty start line to this fundraiser run, I knew there was no chance I wasn't going to make it to mile 40. I would endure, just like my mom.

I still smell good in this photo.

We started out late in the day because we wanted to watch our son's first soccer game of the season (this year-long challenge IS still about being a good mom while reaching for goals, after all). The temperature was set to reach 101-degrees that day. I didn't get to start running until 3:30. I sweat so much that it puddled in my ear canal, making my breath and words reverberate in my head as if I had been swimming for hours.

The first part of the trail is high and curves around promontories of igneous rock. The heat emanates from the plutons in thick waves. At one of the springs along the trail, handfuls of butterflies congregated in the cooler air, fluttering around me when I stopped to watch them.

Somewhere around mile nine, my abdomen started to cramp (damn you, Lady Time!). I am not a woman who gets cramps. But there they were, a little sinister snicker in my gut. I had to stop a few times, bent over in pain. Another challenge within the challenge.

I ended up making it to camp before Sky (he was rowing the support boat on the river while I ran the trail). I jumped into the river and stretched my limbs as tiny fish nibbled my toes.

Nature's laundromat

I don't think I've ever wanted a cold beverage more in my life. The liter of ice-cold sparkling water was unbelievably perfect. I drank the whole thing in about ten minutes.

13.2 miles done.

First day section complete.


P.S. As of this writing, we only need $400 more to be able to build the 6th grade classroom at Buiga Sunrise. Add your brick to the building!
https://www.crowdrise.com/40milesin48hoursforeducation/fundraiser/amystewart1

Join Me in My Greater Purpose

Now that I'm seven months in on this 40th year project, it's a good time to review the underlying premise of this challenge year:


The whole idea is to create for myself a life I am excited about and proud of, a life I am purposefully cultivating, a life that builds upon each year by aiming higher and trying more.

 A very large part of that vision for myself is something we'll call Greater Purpose. I refuse to believe the whole point to my existence on this planet is for me to do nothing but assure my own well-being and happiness.


That just doesn't pencil out for me.


Being a mom is a part of that Greater Purpose. So is being a good partner to my husband and being a stalwart pal to my friends. Sometimes it takes the form of giving a cold apple on a hot day to someone on the street; sometimes it's just a smile to the old man walking his dog on the bike trail.


I truly want to end up on my death bed--or my death skydive when I'm 90--thinking that I used my life to bring about a better, more caring, world. I intend to wring this sucker of all the good it may hold and let it sprinkle on a much bigger plot than just my garden.


So, with that in mind, imagine for a moment...


You are a parent in Uganda. Your child is lucky because for the last seven years, she has been able to attend a very special school--Buiga Sunrise School-- in your home village of Banda Kyandaaza.

You and other parents helped to develop and run this school. The
student-to-teacher ratio there is 20 to 1, and with your participation in their volunteer program, the schooling costs your family nothing. Your daughter not only received an amazing education there, but also got important immunizations at the school's medical clinic and two nutritious meals per day cultivated from the school's gardens.

But now your daughter has reached sixth grade, and the school in your village does not yet have a sixth grade classroom. For your daughter to continue her education, she has to go to the school in a neighboring village. You must pay the equivalent of two month's of your family's salary for her to attend, and your daughter must travel for miles on dangerous roads to get to the school (roads made all the more dangerous because she is female). When she gets to this new school, she'll share one teacher with as many as 100 other students, sit in rooms with crumbling walls, and likely not even get to look at a textbook as there aren't enough for everyone.


What would you do?


I know what I'd want to do-- I'd want to build a sixth grade classroom. That's what the folks of Banda Kyandaaza have decided to do. And we're gonna help. Here's how:


Me, you, and my rickety knees are going raise the $6,000 that will build and outfit the classroom and pay for the teacher's entire first year of salary.


Yes, I said $6,000. That's all it will take.

In order to garner your donations, I will run the Rogue River Trail in 48 hours, starting on September 20th. That's 40 miles total-- one mile for each of my years on this planet.


Your part is to dig into the lint in your pockets and donate what you can, ask your family, friends, and even your employer to donate, then sit back and soak in how good it feels to be a part of something huge. Something that will ripple out in gorgeous undulations for years upon years.


You can do that. You can be a part of it. Right here, right now.


(Plus, your donation is tax-deductible!)


Visit this page to donate:
https://www.crowdrise.com/40milesin48hoursforeducation/fundraiser/amystewart1


*********************************************************************


About Buiga Sunrise School:

I have been helping Sunrise with grant writing for almost two years. I am constantly amazed by what they are able to accomplish with such limited funds. Their operation is unique because instead of coming in with an agenda in mind, the community drives their own development. All of Sunrise's projects have grown out of a need the community has recognized first.

They have no overhead costs-- everyone in management donates their time-- so 100% of donations goes to Sunrise programs. And they are moving toward self-sustainability on all levels:

--The school's garden is cultivated by the parents and feeds the students

--The school's board positions are held by parents

--In 2011, they established a 2-acre coffee plantation which will provide coffee they can sell on the open market in order to further assure Sunrise's financial stability for years to come

This is truly a community-led, community- sustained endeavor.

Buiga Sunrise was started by Nicole Van Seters, her husband (Michael Mugerwa), and the villagers of Banda Kyandaaza. Michael was born in Banda Kyandaaza but has lived abroad for much of his life. On Nicole's first visit to the village, she was moved by the deep sense of community. Grandmothers and neighbors cared for orphans, and those with few resources willingly gave them to those in need. Yet people were dying of easily treatable illnesses and most families could not afford to send their children to school. She asked the community what they thought they needed to solve these problems, their answer was unanimous: help us send our kids to school.

With the help of donations from friends and family, Nicole and Michael built Sunrise School and enrolled sixty preschool students in 2005. Since then Sunrise has grown to include a primary school, a health clinic, adult literacy programs, job skills training programs, and income-generating projects for community members. They also perform health outreach services to more than 1,500 in the greater Mukono District.

Sunrise believes in nurturing a sense of local responsibility and providing people with the resources they need to make their own positive change.

Shirtless days

Today I ran in just my jog bra for the first time since I last gave birth.
It was warm out
but not too warm;
I just wanted to feel my skin meet the sun.

The extra skin on my belly, in its chicken-skin ways,
twisted with each step like a wet rag being rung.
Such are the signs of having spent 75 weeks of my life
as the first home of two humans.

My right knee wanted to tell me how I'd better not hike
   with my 3-year-old strapped to my back anymore.
I told it I would listen tenderly to its opinions while we ran.

There is something pure
and forgiving
and loving in locomotion.
So when the woman walking the short dog
shot me disparaging, star-thistled looks
I tossed them over my shoulder
and left them in my wake.
(Oh, the rancor we feel towards the woman who decides to fully inhabit her body)

There are parts of me that don't work as well anymore
and parts of me that work better.
My heart for one,
is a thick and brilliantly calloused organ
with its vacancy sign always lit a cherry red in welcome.
And my quadriceps continually beg me to let them stretch out long and animal-like
on never-ending roads.
They convince me I am seven again,
with pig tails streaming behind my head.

So I push this earnest body into the air,
like a bow bent to spring the arrow,
and enjoy every bit
of every step
of my no-longer-young torso
shining in the sun.

Do I Own My Life, Or Does It Own Me?

Stuff. 

For the past six months I've been viewing myself and my family through the microscope of the things we "own".

We have sorted, purged, had garage sales, made countless deliveries to the Free Store, craigslisted, and finally, boxed. So many boxes.


It is said that there is a fine line between owning things and your things owning you. When filling up a 26-foot moving truck, this aphorism becomes quite poignant.

Moving from a place and people where we enjoyed safe harbor for the last seven years-- albeit often begrudgingly on my part-- and dealing with all our stuff feels like ricocheting around in a tornado of our own making. There is no time to slow down, I'm just trying to find a handhold in the spinning chunks of air.

"I can see the finish line," my mother-in-law kept saying. Her optimism kept me scrubbing, painting, and packing long after I would have liked to fall on the floor in a puddle of what might formerly be known as "me." I couldn't see that finish line, but she was smart enough to know I'd believe it was there if she said it was there.

So here we are now, two weeks into our new normal. We're still dealing with boxes, but we've also swum in creeks, lakes, and pools nearly every day, gone hiking, tried stand-up paddle boarding, had more friends visit in one week than we've had in three years, and watched free outdoor music concerts with big, silly gratitude grins on our faces.

It is an act of courage and faith in the Universe to let go of your stuff. It's saying, "I trust you. If I ever really need any of this again, I trust it will be provided."

So too with our life choices. When we stand on that cliff of known solid ground, looking out at some dream we have-- taking the leap into parenthood, applying for a new job, finally deciding to speak our truth-- and we place that first foot out into that deep, cavernous air, we are saying, "Universe, I trust you." But maybe more importantly we are saying, "I trust myself. Come what may, I trust myself."

Knitting and Swearing

These are things that may be heard coming from my mouth when I'm knitting:

"Did I just knit or purl?"
"Oh crap! I did it again."
"What is blocking?"
"Does everybody take this long or just me?"
"In five minutes, I will not be able to recall what you just taught me."
"Wait... did I just?... damn it!"
"Is it supposed to look like that?"
"Shiiiiiiit."

I think it's safe (and charitable) to say that knitting doesn't come easily to me.

Most things that require visualizing the end product do not come easily to me.

Enter LIFE.

I'm damn good at making goals and working towards them-- for those I have an outline, a sketch, a calendar, and full-page blueprints. But when it comes to the big picture, I mostly follow my nose and see what happens.

Not having the propensity to see the end product could be why one friend used the word "sparse" to describe my decorating aesthetic, and why I failed to see how taking the cush writing job for that magazine in the Bay would have been a good thing for my career after college (career? ohhh, that). 

This long view blindness became painfully obvious recently when the whitewater rafting company I worked for interviewed me for their newsletter (http://arta.org/e-wave/e-wave-1). They asked if my life was going the way I'd always planned. My life... a plan? Errr, um, cough, hmmm... sure?

Enter YARN.

Prior to this hat-making adventure, I'd only made scarves--which requires no counting, no plan, just zone out and move your hands. I can make a bitchin' no-frills scarf because I am damn good doing stuff that requires little thought.

But when I started this project, my mom gave me a pattern to follow. A piece of paper that told me what to do and how many times to do it so my finished product would look like the picture on the website.

Take this strand of yarn and make it into something that stays together.

Maybe even something useful.

Maybe something... beautiful?

So I learned how to keep the yarn on the circular needles, how to envision them as two separate needles when really they are one. I learned a new knitting stitch. I counted stitches (swearing under my breath as I did so). I listened to others who knew more. I followed the instructions and tried to envision the end product.

Experienced knitters will probably need to avert their eyes.

This pattern happened to be missing instructions for a row in the decreasing phase of the hat. As we do in life, I cobbled together my own idea of what to do and--with some spit, swear words, and knot tying here and there (shhh!)-- I was able to finish the hat. There were other hiccups as well: how did those stitches get out of line with the others? Why is there a bit of a hole in the brim? Eccentricities showed up in the hat without me even knowing when or why they were happening.

Which is pretty much how life likes to work it.

We gather up the holes in the pattern and stitch a life around them. The holes make the threads count; the threads keep the holes together.

Imperfections make life interesting

Perhaps in my youth I had a grand vision of what my life would look like at age 40. But I dropped some stitches along the way, purled when I thought I was knitting, sometimes pulled the yarn too tight, sometimes left it too loose. Sometimes I forgot the whole damn thing out in the sun and didn't come back to it for years.  But damn, is that hat ever beautiful now. In its holey, sun-bleached, no-pattern kind of way.

It's quite wearable and it keeps my head warm.

The Return of the Gunk

"The ancients are right: the dear old human experience is a singular, difficult, shadowed brilliant experience that does not resolve into being comfortable in the world. The valley of the shadow is part of that, and you are depriving yourself if you do not experience what humankind has experienced, including doubt and sorrow. We experience pain and difficulty as failure instead of saying, I will pass through this, everyone I have ever admired has passed through this, music has come out of it, literature has come out of it. We should think of our humanity as a privilege."
                                                                                                                   ---Marilynn Robinson

Just when I felt I shed a heavy coat of gunk in this year-long endeavor to de-gunk, I chose to pick up the mantle of shit again and place it squarely on my shoulders.

Because the truth is, as much as I don't want to admit it, the gunk cannot stick unless I let it, so it really is me choosing the gunk as much as it is the world dumping it.

If there is one thing I am not good at it's letting the gunk roll away from me like water flowing off an oily road. I am more like the summer soil in a warm storm, ready to incorporate into my being all that happens to come my way.

What part of me listens to the criticisms? Which part of me believes they are right? Who is that person in me that is willing to believe the hurtful  things others say?

Someone told me I just need to not care. To shut it out, create a facade of joviality.
So I worked on doing that, and I kept waiting for it to be easy, for it to be second-nature to just shut-off my heart, like shutting off the ignition before you get out of the car.

But it never came easily. And I finally realized that for me, I don't want it to get easy.

I am going to keep sitting in my vulnerability. I am going to keep pulling back the bones shielding my heart. And when I am knocked onto the floor, I am going to keep getting up.

And up.

And up.

The world is full of feelings. Not all of them are pleasant. But they are all worth it. You can only decipher the highest high when you have the measuring stick of the lowest low. And far be it from me to judge which is which.

Completing the Half-Marathon Challenge (aka Oh My Achin' Coccyx)

“I didn’t even know you owned a car,” said a fellow elementary school mom. "I never see you driving."

I hear this a lot. But actually, I do own a car. I just don’t use it very often. 

If I’m going somewhere in town,  I’m usually doing it on foot. Most likely pushing a kid in a jogger. We ride bikes or run to school, the grocery store, the library, the park. I like what it teaches my kids: there’s a self-determination to it, an invitation to define their own limitations. I also like knowing I can get where I need to go through the power of my own locomotion, and I want my kids to trust that about themselves too.

Which is why, five days before the last half-marathon of my birthday month challenge, it was so not in the plan to pass out in the laundry room and have a seizure.

I regained consciousness because I heard a woman's distressed voice saying “I think she’s seizing! I think she’s having a seizure!". Turns out that was my mom talking to my husband. He was holding me in his arms, thinking (he told me later) that he was watching me die. 

I still don’t know what happened. I started to feel like I had to puke so I went to the bathroom. When I came out, I fainted, dropping full-force to the tile floor on my tailbone. 

May I say definitively and slowly: OOOOUCH. Pain in the coccyx feels like someone punched you from the inside out. The image that comes to mind is my tailbone rotting inside me like a damaged tuber.

It’s very strange to go from feeling totally and happily in control of your body, to feeling as if you are a mere backseat driver… a backseat driver who was just kicked to the curb. It is confusing and more than a little scary. Is this what it will feel like to get older? A slow relinquishment of control over this vessel that allows me to have experiences?

I had been feeling very good prior to this "episode" so I did lots of bargaining with myself, lots of wishing I could ignore it. But fainting is not usual for me, neither are seizures, so I went to the doctor and had some blood tests.

Nothing conclusive was found. Stress? Adrenal shutdown? The body is mysterious.

After four days with no reoccurances, I talked to my doctor and got the clearance to do the last half-marathon… under one condition: someone would need to chaperone me. And handstand practice was banned until further notice. 

Life as a whitewater river guide for thirteen-plus years taught me—perhaps a little too well—how to live with discomfort. I’m not gonna say my ass felt good running those final 13.1 miles, but I am still glad I did it. My husband biked the first three miles with me but ran the rest of it by my side. We ran on the National Forest road that winds through the oaks, madrones, and pines behind our house in California. I was s-l-o-w but that made it easier to converse with my man.  

 

Birthday Month Half-Marathon challenge= done. Insert high-kick here.

Lessons learned: 

1. My left knee doesn't really love running that far every weekend

2. My mind really does. 

3. My life is better when I have a solid goal in my life, but better still when I have solid people in my life. 

4. Being stubborn is a positive attribute when it comes to running.

5. Happy is a crappy running song because it just makes you want to stop and dance.

Getting help with the candles on my b-day cake

Being in competition with yourself

"You're not going to pass me now, are you?" he said with a tired smile around mile six. "This is a no passing zone." 
I had been gaining on this man for a little while, hoping his pace would eventually match mine and I wouldn't have to pass him, which is always a bit awkward. This was my third "halfie": the Rogue River Half-Marathon in Southern Oregon, the only organized run of my half-marathon challenge. It's what I'd call a community run; you can tell a lot of the runners know each other and probably live in the same small town. The happy energy in the air of organized runs like this always make me a bit giddy inside, so I pretty much smiled like a goofball the whole time.

"I think both of us have been lapped several times at this point, " I said jovially, nodding towards the runners on the other side of the road who had already reached the turnaround point and were on their way back to where we started. This was an out-and-back course: run 6.5-ish miles, turnaround, and run back to the start/finish. That means you get to see each and every person who is running faster than you as you struggle to just get to the turnaround point. A point they have already decidedly left in the dust.

My dedicated crew (aforementioned dude in left of frame)

I suppose this could be seen as demoralizing, but I love it. I was at 5.5 miles when the leader of the race passed me on his way back to the finish line. It never crosses my mind to be in competition with those folks, so I just enjoy them. They're fun to watch because they actually RUN: knees high, long stride (I like to say I "run", but I really do a moderately paced shuffle). Their legs form the top of a snappy "Z" at the start of a stride. It's pretty. And damn, when the first woman flies by there is nothing more fun than belting out a giant "woohooo! First woman!" in her honor.

I once heard a yoga instructor talking about not comparing your flexibility to that of your neighbor: "The only difference between tight people and the loosest of loose people is that the loose people have to go farther to reach the same edge."  Amen, Yoga Man.

So why do we worry about who is passing us, who clocked a better time, who looks better in their sports bra? I might use people in front of me as pacers to catch, but it's not because I want to pass them, it's because I want to pass my own expectations of myself. That day I passed a lot of folks, didn't stop once, and felt like my pace was faster than in any of my other runs. And guess what? When I checked my time days later, I came in third in my age group... out of three runners in my age group. HA! That does not change the fact that for me the race was a big win: I pushed myself, I felt great, and I had F-U-N. If I had been busy comparing myself with those other folks I would have felt slow, frumpy, and exceedingly flat-chested. What a waste of a good run. So I'm going to keep being in competition with the one person I know I can successfully challenge every time: myself.

This little guy was with his mom along the route, cheering the runners on with this sign and lots of cow bell.

How to run a half-marathon without noticing you're running a half-marathon

The two things you need to run long distances without really noticing are:

1. Music
2. A smidge of ADD

I am serious. Probably most things in the world could be accomplished with those two things. Or at least started with great enthusiasm and then abandoned halfway through.

Is there anyone who is not inspired by music? I dare anyone to don headphones, turn up the volume, and not move.

As far as being ADD, in normal life, I am not. But when I garden or run I am most definitely ADD. I cannot weed one full bed in the garden without abandoning it at some point because I saw a flower that needed replanting in another. It's the same way with running-- I'll be figuring out, say, what our down payment should be, then wonder what our grocery costs are for the month, then think about that documentary on the deception of the label "cage free", then wonder if my grandma liked the cows she owned, then "Hey look, a bird!".

I let my mind wander everywhere. I mull over relationships, fester about someone's Facebook post, think of things I want to discuss with Sky, talk to the horses as I pass their stalls, dream up endeavors like this 40th year challenge, solve the problem of world hunger.

Okay, not the latter one but I'm certain I'm close.  

Note to self: Pick up those knees!

When I'm not preoccupied with all those thoughts, I lose-- and I do mean lose-- myself in my music. I feel it in my very bones. I let it transport me anywhere it wants to take me. Depending on what tunes bust into the shuffle, it may go a little like this:

This Outfield song comes on and I imagine myself-- no, feel myself--playing the drum sections: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEXpwveBeC8

Johnny D. comes on and I am instantly seven years old, camping in the Sierra Nevada with my family, my forearms covered with pine needle dust that is so fine, it darkens even my pores. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maqNGA6axc8

When the Beasties come on I feel as if I have rockets attached to my feet, and I can't help but do my best karate chop during the Miss Piggy part (as evidenced in the photos, I don't really give a shit what I look like when I run). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9rnGp6_jHI

Then I get lost in the deep passion of the vocals and cello from Ms. Brandi Carlile: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3QLLhEwjHQ

Often I'll hear a song that reminds me of a friend I have lost, which will remind me of another lost friend, and for a few minutes it will feel as if they are right there, running beside me. And for those minutes, it will feel like everything will always be alright.

I like to call this one "Brrrrrrr".

At some point in every run, there will be at least one song that scoops me up above the trees, transforming me into a weightless kite attached to a divine string. My body tilts forward, and my heart leans into the world, which has become a fluffy orb of deep "Yes!". I am flying, and nothing, especially not shitty self-talk of the imported variety, can bring me down.

When I get to my turnaround point, I turn off my music. I notice how quiet it is, how the sunlight skips off the frozen twigs. I stretch my arms open wide and send out a silent thanks for being such a lucky little schmuck; lucky to have the time to run (dear God, two hours without anyone asking me for a glass of milk!), lucky to have a partner who cheers me on, lucky to have the privilege of feeling my muscles and joints work.

So my advice is this: saturate your iPod with music that wiggles a key into your heart and lets your best self out for a romp, let your mind join in, and put one foot in front of the other.