Thursday, August 30, 2018

The Key to Happiness and Guess Where I'm Going? (hint: it's 8,241 miles away)

The theme for this month (okay, well it's almost next month, so the theme for next month) is...

LETTING GO

Yeah, so damn cliche.

But, it is truly the key to life and eternal happiness. Because if you can start to let go of the way you think things should be and accept how they actually ARE, you will be infinitely more content.

Letting go does NOT mean giving up. They are two very different things. It's more about acceptance than it is about apathy and laying down and becoming a total victim of your life.

Case in point. This injury of mine. It was making me crazy. Every single run has been a sufferfest of frustration because I am not progressing fast enough. Or, I am not where I used to be. Or, I will never be where I used to be.

Every run felt sucky, not just physically, but also mentally. If fact, I had a slight temper tantrum on the trail on Saturday because nothing felt good and everything felt like shit and I was hot and tired and people were passing me and it felt like I had to work for every.single.fucking.step (only Ken witnessed the tantrum, so I'm not sure it really happened). As I continued to climb up this small mountain at a snail's pace, I thought, "Screw this. I'm done running for awhile. I need a break. Maybe running just isn't my thing."

Well, we all know that's not true.

Coming down the mountain once my heart rate wasn't 300 bpms anymore and my leg wasn't screaming, I re-thought my idea to quit running. Instead I thought, "NO! That's not me. I don't give up. I'm going to continue to recover from this injury like is my JOB." I'm pretty dramatic.

What I ended up doing with that mess of emotions is this. I LET GO. This week I've been holding back when I run. I have been running slower and at a pace I can sustain without walking. I've accepted that right now and as I recover I'm slower. But I'm still a runner, dammit. I decided to be kind to myself about this. Maybe my speed will come back, maybe it won't. But, I want to love running and I don't want to be frustrated every single time I go out.

And, guess what? Not only have my runs felt really good (my leg still gets tired but that's not going to kill me), I am running at faster paces without even meaning to. Once I accepted being slower, it was a breakthrough somehow. MAGIC.

This is me running my new slower pace, which allowed me to run for 3.5 miles without stopping.
MAJOR milestone from where I was just a couple of weeks ago.

My lesson for today.

#1 - Stop trying to control something that is making you crazy the more you try to control it and the less it is working

#2 - Be kind to yourself

#3 - Accept where you are and where things are. Sometimes this means being willing to let go of your expectations of how things SHOULD be.

#4 - Realize everyone struggles, no matter what your social media feeds say

I love running again. I'm happy.

Oh, and guess what? I'm going to Thailand for 12 days in November!! I'm going to play with elephants! I'm going to eat street food! I'm going to get $10 massages without happy endings! I'm going to meet a Buddhist monk! I'm going to make sure my son is still alive! I'm not going to hang out in caves! I'm not going to drink the water and get giardia and diarrhea!


Tell me one thing you're hanging onto that you're going to let go of this week (magic will happen, I promise)

Last place you traveled to? Nevis/St. Kitts

Dream vacation? Thailand and going back to Greece. Morocco.


SUAR

Thursday, August 16, 2018

Coffee Date (With a Side of Alcohol)

If we were having coffee there would be many things I would want to share with you. Probably the most fascinating things you've ever heard. First of all, the new season of STDs in Paradise (aka Bachelor in Paradise) has begun so that's breaking news for sure. If you've never watched show you are: 1) better than me, and 2) not missing out on anything.

Moving on. If we were having coffee (I'd prefer mine with a splash of Bailey's) I'd tell you how post injury running is going. It's going to hell. My trail runs feel the best with the variety of terrain and ascending/descending, but the flats on the road/path suck. My left leg still doesn't want to join the party, i.e., it's weak and temperamental, but I press on. I still have not brought myself to run on that very short stretch of road that I fell on. Maybe it's PTSD, maybe I'm a pussy or maybe I'm just superstitious, but that little part of the road by my house is off limits right now. It's a dangerous black hole of misery and destruction.

From Saturday's trail run. Perhaps I shouldn't do this if I don't want to tear another hamstring.

If we were onto our second cup of coffee (+ ounce of Kahlua), I'd tell you another great fear I now have are chocolate chip cookies. This may sound innocent enough, but while eating one on Sunday, this happened.

#missingtooth + #ropeyneck = sexy

Granted the cookie was hard and frozen, my crown snapped off (tooth and all) and plummeted to the floor. Heidi swooped into eat what she thought was part of a cookie and I had flashes of me going through her fecal matter for the next two days to fish out my crown (then having it put back in). I freaked out and pushed her away, safely taking the crown to higher ground. I don't know why but I started crying about all of this (probably because my family could not even look at me without bursting out laughing). I just feel so accident prone. In the past year I have:

Been head butted by a dog, resulting in this (October 2017)




Fell on a run severely tearing my hamstring (May 2018)

That is not grape jelly


Knocked out my own tooth eating a frozen cookie (August 2018)



What the hell is next? Impaling myself on some rebar? Is this what the 50s are like? Don't answer that.

Anyway, all of this is requiring a tooth extraction, implant and new crown. And it only costs $3,000!  That's 30 race entries or 15 new Garmins or 30 pairs of new running shoes or 3,000 GUs! Dentists and insurances are crooks.

If we were having coffee with a splash of Baileys (hold the coffee) I'd tell you that Emma's first day of senior year is today!!

New Vans - check. Hydroflask - check. Holey jeans - check. Must be a teenage girl.

And, Sam leaves for a semester in Chiang Mai, Thailand on Tuesday. Holy fuck. I guess that means I need to get a life. My kids are moving on and so should I. In fact, Sam will spend his 21st birthday in Bangkok (cue all the cock and prostitute jokes as well as the humming of "One Night in Bangkok". I've come up with several renditions of that song that I sing to Sam regularly. Mostly the songs involve him not getting incarcerated, not impregnating a Thai girl and not going for any "happy endings.")

If we were finishing up our whiskey concoction (did I tell you we had moved onto Irish coffees?) I would tell you that I am doing a 10k on Labor Day and I'm positive it will be the slowest 10k of my life. I am also thinking of a doing a half marathon trail race in Crested Butte, CO in September. Sure, I'm not really in race shape, but the trails feel good to me and I need something to perk me up besides singing "One Night in Bangkok."

One more thing before I drain the last bit of this cup 'o joe. So, I love the blog Pinch of Yum. She's real, her recipes are good. I got curious last week when she posted a recipe for vegan queso. Queso, by definition is hot cheese dip. This recipe involved putting cashews, water, green chilis and taco seasoning into a food processor 'til smooth. Then it would apparently and magically be queso. I had to try it because it sounded so weird. And, weird it was. I would not call this queso. I would call it ground up cashews with green chilis and taco seasoning (dog poop). Don't be fooled.

Well, that's all I got.

Tell me something you'd share if we were having coffee/alcohol together?

Ever been to Thailand (Chiang Mai)? Where should we stay/see if we go?

Do you have a fall race planned?



SUAR