I Pray

A month out from the marathon I am recuperating from a week down and out of the game. Altogether it was only 3 days of absolutely no running/no training, but it might as well have been a month. Yesterday I did a slow 5 and today a slower 7-8. Where did my endurance go??

The fog that I succumbed to, which demanded healing on so many levels, leached the very energy from me, body and soul. I felt like a zombie trying to find my Self, as I wandered the empty roads in my head...scaring myself with the ghosts of the past creeping by who seemed mute to answer or awaken to me, or me to myself, a dim time indeed.

Today, it was solemn. The ipod is again on the fritz (how many does this make? I should buy Apple stock...)- so it was sans music and just the thoughts in my head as I woke extra early to head out. Storm clouds threatened- what else is new? and I kept thinking, all I need is to get caught in the rain again...a conspiracy to be sure. My dreams, which have been a stew of work and family anxieties, kept stirring around. Nothing felt right. The very idea of a marathon just seemed laughable. I was determined, however feebly, to get something accomplished, knowing I cannot take the trip back, the registration, the airfare, the hotel. If the plan is in place, I must show up. And only miles will put me at that start line.

I tried to focus. I took lots of little walk breaks. I prayed. I couldn't even find the words within for specifics, in fact it became a mantra in step with my footfalls, "I pray...I pray..." as I attempted one of my many visualizations which sees my physical body in line with the etheric and grounded into the earth, working together all of a piece...

One of my many books marked in mid-reading caught my attention post-run as it spoke about "getting ahead of oneself" and how for runners this is a particular irony; how do you get ahead when you are exactly where you are? I realized that I was ahead of myself all summer long- hoping by sheer will to stay on schedule as I visualized those big miles and the big race ahead. I got ahead of myself and my capacity, as I usually do, for many things, for the ability to sustain the work, the grief, the process and transition of so much change. Even the strong take a fall, and I fell. To pieces.

There were parts of the run that were reminiscent of good runs past. I almost felt normal a few times as my feet found the pavement and the rest of me 'zoned out' into the early sun which found its brilliant way through trails of clouds. The Equinox reminds me how much it always comes back to balance; finding that knife edge between handling it, accepting it, and moving it through....I am where I am. Starting again to build so many things. When I come to the line I hope I have everything I need to finish. But for now I leave it in the hands of the gods who have gotten me this far. I must trust, as always, that my best effort is matched with Their beneficent intervention. Can you tell me, how to sustain the courage to come to the moment, one more time?

Surreality

While the sun hammers hot through unimaginably clear skies (having nothing but clouds or rain for so long) I lay sick on the couch. How did this happen? Just over a month out from MCM...expect the unexpected seems the lesson at hand.

After no runs Mon and Tues, I ran 10 miles yesterday early AM, more curious to know I could, regardless of my physical state. I made it alright, but it seemed to bring on the cold/flu which was itching to come to the surface. So ok, no running today, probably not tomorrow either and the weekend, we'll see.

I dreamt last night of a school too big, that I could not find my way back to my room where all my 'stuff' was...while along the way I kept having to speak or intervene with someone or some group which was all well and good, but....I knew I needed to take care of me. DUH.

It's wierd to be passive when my will says otherwise. It's strange when my otherwise high-energy body succumbs. I never realize how strong I am until I'm not. But physical illness is a reflection of so many things, so I know it is a good thing to allow all the flotsam and jetsam from this summer to circulate their way through. It's always hard to believe when you're down that the upside is waiting. But we know the pendulum eventually swings over... the patience to work with process is an artform. Anything I can do to enhance my healing is underway. I know the love and support of my team would say so.

Seeking Serenity

So it only felt like 20....according to a mapping site what I ran this morning was 15....very hard to believe....felt like much longer.
But at least it didn't rain.

I woke with a sore throat but determined to get out there, pushing myself and my weary headedness to take on the challenge of the long Griffin loop out to University and back...(15?? really??). It wasn't pretty. And I walked portions. Guzzled more than my share of water, drinks, chews and gels...cramming enough electrolytes to get me through unexpected heat.

I felt suddenly without thought or ambition as if all the energy spent building and piling on through this year has been escaping through a slow leak like a tire going flat. My heart, which has been pitched about in storms of distress, demands and disappointments suddenly felt empty. It was an old ache, a realization of taking on my own road again, and telling myself it will be ok, I have the endurance, I train; I can take it this time.

But where is the serenity of knowing that deep solitude is bound by love? It is always back to the Source, I suppose and the wondrous imperative that keeps me forward-footed. I can only hope that the path They lay before me has enough surprises to keep me coming back for more as I weave my own notion of accomplishment, of dreams into the fabric of Their expectations. Be kind, Beneficent ones, and tell me, after all, it goes somewhere, leads to surprising love.

Caught in the Rain

I really didn't care what the weather had in store, I needed to get out on the road. As I cruised over the railroad lines, I could see the fates were set to test me; a low bank of gray clouds clung to the horizon blocking the dawn sun. Everything began to coalesce east and south of me as I ran ahead of a front, and felt the pushing winds develop at my back. I made it all the way to Griffin and Publix before it let loose...and stood way too long wondering when to head back out as it rained, and rained and rained....

I realize at odd times just how claustrophobic I can get. Before long a Brinks truck, a vacuum truck (to suck up what exactly?), and a knot of trapped shoppers crowded me under the store eaves. It wasn't looking good as I thought out my options. Go back the way I came to cut down Park, or continue west and cut through Emerald Hills, shaving a few miles off the 10-er I planned. I took a Publix shopping bag and ripped it open over my head, giving me enough cover on my core to keep the worst of the windy rain off. And with that, I slipped out and headed into the rain...

There is something surreal and comforting about running in rainy weather. The shock of nature closing in with its relentless elemental presence pushes me inward, and yet every sense needs to be focused on the road, puddles, sidewalk formations, rocks...everything that can trip up a runner that gets hidden in standing puddles of water. The cars sounded too loud. The effort to stay dry (especially my feet) abandoned. Once I rounded the corner at Emerald I was feeling amazingly relaxed. As I've been doing, I pictured running in DC and pretended this was fall weather. I felt my legs open up to the sudden decrease in traffic and quieting roads. The rhythm felt good. My shoes, though soaked, were not pooling water, so they were doing their job well. My spirits, which were crushed at the initial onslaught of rain settled down as the storm tapered off into drizzly patches, keeping me cool for the last push.

I know I wanted to cry; the frustrations and sorrow were there. But maybe the rain did it for me. As I came home along the park, I felt tired and serene. It was a big push that felt farther and longer, but just enough to get me away from the pressures of home. I run to find solace and peace. And so far, it has never let me down.

15 and counting

The weather may be creating some challenges to an outdoorsy holiday weekend, but so far it's been a boon to training....the rain has not developed until later in the day. The mornings are cooler, with more cloud cover and so much easier to endure even a few degrees less than before.

So yesterday, starting out after 6:30AM was still pre-dawn, and cool enough to feel refreshing. My left ankle has been acting up with the new shoes, so I decided to do a long beach loop on my own and just take it real easy. From start to finish, out my door and back, up To Dania Beach Blvd and down the Broadwalk, through Hollywood and home by Sheridan is 15 miles. What 'Coach' and I have been doing is an 11 miler....Out west, I can put extra miles on the Griffin loop. This would be good, though, to begin extending what has been within my comfort zone and see what going alone feels like.

Heading east into the dawn. On weekend mornings, the serious cyclists are out in packs, strewn along the big roads in their multi-colored tops and helmets, their gleaming bikes strewn like jewels shooting down the sides osf the road. They are all business, too. I was in a good stretch all the way up to Dania, and did not feel the need to stop at either Publix. On the bridge over the Intercoastal I saw a knot of cyclists hovering over a man down. Looked like they had it covered. The entire pack riding with him obviously hovering to help....I felt suddenly very alone, invisible...what if something happened to me? Where is my team, where is my support?

Odd how the mind wants to make a case out of thin air and circumstances to trip up our confidence and resolve. I was over the bridge and heading south on the Broadwalk after my first pit-stop at the rest area on the beach, and feeling beat-up but elated. So far it was going well, even with my sore ankle. I was dressed right, packed right. And I was in no hurry. The shelf of gray clouds hovering over the morning sun skirting the ocean's surface like a shroud, parting now and then for a ray of light to kiss the water. The democracy of runners was out and about, trotting, dragging, jogging, bounding down the path. I felt too close and ached for the open road again, skipping out before Hollywood to run down to the bridge away from the crowds and took the overpass in a long, hard climb.

At the bottom on the other side, the early morning old Hollywood neighborhood took me in its quiet embrace. I had a good rhythm pulling along the picturesque streets, finding my way safely through the threat of a thunderstorm to my pit stops before making it home. Did it take a long time? You bet!~ But I was on my feet and able to maintain. I pictured myself 15-18 miles in and knowing "there is still another race to go"...with 6+ miles to the line. I felt the pain and discomfort and kept going anyway. I knew, somehow, that when I needed it, I would have it; the strength, the courage, the capacity, even if I lose the initial comfort and confidence. Something will bring me into that line. Someone will be waiting. A lot of someones will be there, this time.

Mom was better yesterday, if compared to "i want to die"...and able to evoke a sense of calm in me I haven't felt in a long long time. For a brief moment I was able to let go of my constant worry for her. I felt the Universe holding her separate from me, on her own timetable with her own process at work. I took back my desire to give up and morphed it into a peaceable distance from the stress of everyone else's life. My mind, which was taken up on that open road, still found itself gratefully running down some singular, singing dream.

It's all Mind

I listened to the Phelipidations podcast today talk about a Finnish long-distance runner from the early 1900's, a gold medalist, and like all great people, a tragic and triumphant figure. Many many years before it became fashionable to think so, this guy felt running was all in the mind. We know, as runners, just how true that is, while we work incessantly at the very mechanics of our sport; the constant attention to food and water, training and goals, the gear, the goals, the times, the trials...yet the perseverance that makes all of us get out there day after day is a critical component. Not a lazy bunch. Not dependent on vast armies of support teams, we tend to be loners, solitaries, who revel in the privacy of the run, the sanctity of our inner life which no one can disturb as long as we keep on the move. The blessed relief from having to deal with anyone else's pain but our own.

I switched things up a bit this week. The new Brooks 'Ghosts' were so good as I began the week that I kept running each day, finishing out with well above 50 miles for the week after Saturday's very long loop. I continued west on Griffin this time determined to find a better way to cut down towards my mid-run stop at the Stirling Publix- and found one. Looping under the Turnpike and taking a left on Wilson, a beautiful country road took one amazingly long stretch past old Davie money houses set on the canal, as peaceful and beautiful a road as I've found in a long time; room to stretch out my stride and practice the opening of my body and mind before finding that store at the bottom corner. I was exhilarated and exhausted in the extreme heat and only halfway out. I looped back at Davie Rd and began the snake-like slog back through the Seminoles, over to the park which was my last pit-stop before the stretch home on Thomas, which was so long, sometimes so exhausting, that I completely forgot about the time.

Then came the visit to the cemetery, and the sad little marker, Mom's anxiety episode and refusal to get out of the car, and the few brief moments I had standing by the pads of grass that did not look as green as the rest to ask, Please Dad, please help. I'm all alone in this. Help me help her. And feeling that dull ache from days of feeling the unfolding of death with Ted Kennedy and the thousands of mourners who thanked and honored him compared to the mysterious dearth of company as we laid my fallen hero to his rest. Hardly time to leave the tiger's eye stone, to commemorate his courage to live, at all, through that last year of hell. To say 'I understand' to his isolation, fear, rejection and anger; understood because I was feeling it too. I was shy to talk, to say, to reveal my anger, my ache, my fear.

As we drove out of the cemetery I only wanted to get Mom home so I could go on to my own day. Sunday was a big blur of motionless emptiness peppered with chores, fattening comfort foods, and early bed. My expectations for today's run was zero. The prospect of training, of a race for christ's sake, a MARATHON seemed as unlikely as going to the moon.

So late out, with the sun already on the rise, I began slow hobbling jog over the overpass. All the way to my first stop on Griffin everything hurt, including my heart. I was determined to complete a normal 10 mile loop and had little heart before the podcast came on the the line "It's all Mind"...from the Finnish runner. I had to laugh to myself how the same old messages keep coming ad nauseum. At the bottom of every hole I fall into, the same few words are thrown to me like life-lines to remember, I can change, I can make it happen, I can change my mind.

It wasn't intentional, but by the time I crossed Stirling and began the long stretch down to Sheridan and my next stop I found a rhythm and was feeling strong. I picked it up again after my last Anderson park pit-stop and with one swoop down Park kept a pace and gait that I haven't felt in a long time, easy, comfortable (well, relatively speaking), and with as much energy as I needed to bring it in.

So maybe it was the chocolate chip cookies. Or the outpouring of emotions all week. Or maybe the mantra hits me just when I need it, the kernel of universal truth that unlocks the stuck door in my head. I trust. I try. I keep putting myself out there to test my every reserve. I don't know how others do it, how much they hide behind their hopes and ambitions. Maybe I have too, over other things. But this one thing, this running, has enabled me to put it to the test everyday. To declare myself a contestant in the race of life. Put me in coach, I can run it. I can make it to the end. For the first time today I thought of the marathon not as something I might be able to complete but as something I WILL complete, and pictured the full throttle excitement of crowds, friends, family welcoming me into their midst. I am so there. I am ready to go. I will be ready to run.

Welcome Home, Senator Kennedy

For my entire life I have come up under the shadow of the Kennedys. I was 13 when the President was assassinated and the subsequent death of Robert shortly after was a milestone event in my life. I was galvanized then, with MLK's death in the same era, to become the radical, non-conforming, anti-establishment lefty liberal progressive I am today. Amazing that I work for government, but maybe, like Ted I find my way into the heart of the beast as a system's buster. Which is good and necessary. It is Teddy and Robert and John, and Martin and the countless other martyrs who took a bullet or took on the hottest issues and ideas of our era who pave the way for the rest of us. I am in awe of the legacy they leave as we now begin to traverse a new time. As Sen. Kennedy passed his torch to the current President, we held our collective breaths praying for safe passage for this most radical of choices. The spirit of social justice nation lives on in our endeavors to change, change change the climate of fear, hypocracy inequality, injustice...

It may have been hot and unforgiving out this morning, but I knew deep in my heart that when I turned the news on something was happening. Don't ask me how I knew. I thought maybe a disaster, weather event etc. Little did I guess such a notable passing.

Welcome Home, Teddy, your brothers, friends, family and colleagues await you. Feel the rush of relief as earthly pains and tragedies melt into the satisfaction of lifelong accomplishment. Your legacy will live on in hearts like mine. Thanks and farewell.