The Six Pack of Running Winos

Here we are at Demae's wedding in July of 2006 (can't believe it's been that long). Little did I know that the running bug would somehow catch on, and this year, we'd be planning on running the Santa Rosa Half Marathon -- in a matter of months.

Out of the girls pictured to the left - it's me (note the horrible tan line), Demae (bride), Rachel (next to her), Tam (scrunched 2nd from the right), and Heidi. There's one more runner, Harmony, whom I haven't met yet - which will make up the six pack. The only "real" runner of the bunch, Heidi, will probably do the full marathon, while the rest of us will conquer the half marathon -- a whopping 13.1 miles -- in a beautiful wine country setting. I hope I can make it without taking any detours into my favorite wineries for a mid-run refreshment.

So, the training has officially begun. Rachel has put together our training schedules and while they seem reasonable, I found out today that four miles seems substantially longer than three, and it's only going to get longer from here. You'd think the one extra mile would be easy peasy but no such luck. Of course, I picked the hottest part of the day to take my run and thought I might die from heat stroke on the way up the back trail to the house with the "finish line" in sight. Would be mortifying if my neighbor had to come over on his ATV to hoist me back up from a collapsed state. He already rode over once to save me from a chipmunk that got into the house -- and the sofa. But that's another story altogether.

My goal now is to get into half marathon running shape while somehow not giving up wine in order to do so. I need something to live for during this "training" period.

Trail Running

Living in the country presents a unique opportunity in the form of miles upon miles of fire roads that seem to go on indefinitely. This provides ample running (and exploring) terrain to cover with the not-so-new trail runners. The picture to the left is the end of my property and the other direction is nothing but open dirt road -- which is a lot easier on my knees then the gravel/paved road around the neighborhood loop which is usually my route of choice.

Usually when running around the loop, even on a not so dry day, all that has to happen is for a car to pass by and, if they're not feeling rather neighborly enough to slow down to a crawl, they'll end up throwing up enough dust to stop you in your tracks until it clears. I doubt when this happens that the culprit even sees me give them the finger - just due to the smoke screen.

Dust bowls created by cars (or jacked up trucks as the case may be) becomes an non-issue when running on the back roads. This was enough to make it a tempting lunch time route and off I went - into the wilderness. It was nice jogging where the chances of running into another human is slim or none -- solitude at it's finest. But this can create another set of issues - what if there is some unabomber type mountain man that's living in a shack deep in the woods? What if there are a whole pack of them? What if there are wild animals who are coming out of hibernation and haven't eaten since last fall? What if I hear banjos?

The solitude of running, without a phone, GPS, or flares, bring these types of thoughts to the forefront of the mind. Not to mention I'm already tired from running by the time these speculations start rolling through my head, so if something or someone jumps out from the bushes and yells "boo," my chances of a fast get-away doesn't look good. I'm slow with a few extra pounds on the old backside that weighs me down.

This, of course, leads to "running protection" options. Other than packing heat -- and let's face it, I don't think they make a running pack that's equipped with a holster, I need to find another "just in case" weapon of choice. I wonder if someone can make an iPhone application for that.

Lucky for me, I'm not the only person with this need. At the local store today we found mace - in a nice pink case small enough to tuck into any pocket or even my hand. I don't know if I should be happy (or concerned) that the local store sells this type of stuff, but it will give me a little more peace of mind when I'm out in the great wide open running around where no one is in rescue distance. Unabomber beware. Now I just have to remember to spray downwind.

Stress - the Final Frontier

They say everything happens for a reason. I have to wonder what the reason for certain events could possibly be, as some "things" just seem to rear their ugly heads 1/ when you least expect it, 2/ when you didn't ask for it and 3/ when you seriously don't want it. Just when I think I have it all figured out, the wheels fall off of my apple cart. This creates - stress, a lot of it.

Not a big fan of stress - not that most people are but some do thrive on drama (I know a few of those types). I, on the other hand, don't handle it well and I try to avoid it at all costs. Some stress, I have now learned, cannot be avoided. So, how to combat it and try to be the windshield instead of the bug? 

I've tried most of these stress-relieving techniques in the past couple of days, to no avail. The stress is still there. In fact, I can hear him in the next room. No matter how much I ignore it - it won't go away. Meditation might work, but right now I only resemble Buddha - I can't quite sit still long enough and quiet my mind to meditate like a monk.

Since I haven't been running in over a week - due to stress and simply not feeling like it - I decided that today, no matter what, I would at least get a 5k under my belt and try to kick off some of those endorphins, also known as a runner's high. No excuses. There must be a way to get out of the funk other than mass quantities of wine, and hopefully this is my answer. Although never underestimate the healing properties of mass quantities of wine.

Off to the treadmill I went. Turning up the Podrunner podcast, I completely lost track of time - 3.5 miles under my belt (instead of 3.16 -- 5k) - yeah for me. Prognosis: Feeling much, much better.  I'm back at it tomorrow at lunch time. No matter what - and again, no excuses. Little endorphins are my friends.

And now I'm off to try stress relieving techniques 4 & 5 -- friends and laughing. Oh yep - and my own technique that Oprah somehow missed, wine. Not mass quantities, mind you. That would lead to a headache and headaches are stressful. I'm boycotting all things stressful from here on out or at least until tomorrow. From here on out, I plan on looking through my non-buggy windshield and moving forward in more ways than one. Onward and upward.

Commitment vs Interest

“There's a difference between interest and commitment. When you're interested in doing something, you do it only when circumstance permit. When you're committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results.”

Packing my running shoes to take a run while on a business trip in Chicago proved to only push the weight limit of my bright orange American Tourister (that my ex-boyfriend deemed as the "widow-maker" due to its weight) over the airline's happy scale. Bastards. It's bad enough that they charge you a baggage fee, but based on weight I am doomed. It's all about the shoes.

So, to make it cost-effective to take my new trail runners, I figured I had to run while there, even if only once. Knowing what happens at these events, I knew it was a long shot, and it went a little something like this:

Day 1 - hanging out with Irish girlfriend Liz who owns her own bar. It was lesbian night. Enough said.
Day 2 - Ran into Canadian friends who drink a lot -- at 3 p.m. Downhill from there. Enough said.
Day 3 - hanging out with Kiwi and Canadian friends who drink a lot. Seriously, I don't know how I survived this day and am contemplating a new career.
Day 4 - Having tied good ones on three nights in a row, my body finally gave out. I felt pretty good - so off for a run by Lake Michigan I went early in the afternoon. Work - schmirk.

Started out at the hotel and headed for the lake - a mere few blocks. Of course, I was spotted in my running attire going out of the hotel by someone in a suit who was going to a meeting (even though I did my best to sneak out of one of the more remote areas) and am now probably deemed a serious slacker, not that I wasn't before this little eye-spy event. I am allergic to meetings at these kind of functions, by the way, and deem myself there for Public Relations purposes only.

Running by the lake was rather nice and I could see the museums up ahead. When I passed Buckingham Fountain it was at the two mile point and I hadn't realized I'd run that far. It was about that time when the skies opened up and it started pouring. Not just a little bit pouring, but a lot pouring. The kind of rain where you need to take shelter under a big tree, or the nearest bar.

Contemplating what to do, and without a bar in sight, I weighed the options in my head. I could take a cab back and be ridiculed for pulling up in running clothes to the hotel in a cab (read: sissy) or I could suck it up. By that time the rain was coming down in a steady stream and let's face it, I have my mass amounts of "do-not-get-wet-under-any-circumstances" gadgets to think about -- so I decided to just do what was best for them and cab it - the whole two miles back. I'd just have the cab drop me off a little early as not to get spotted -- as if that ever works under any other circumstance -- or just suffer the consequences.

Imagine my shock when I pulled everything out from my iPod carrier and figured out - while the rain started to come down even harder than before - that I had no emergency cash on me and no phone to call one my allies for help. Not that they wouldn't have laughed at me anyway.

Twenty minutes and two soggy miles later, I was back at the hotel, looking like a drowned rat. I wasn't spotted though - added bonus.

Before I set out on this jaunt, by the way, I mentioned to a group of guys sitting at the bar (of course, where else would we be?) that I wanted to go for a run but it was raining. One announced, over his beer, that if I were a "real runner" it wouldn't matter if it were raining or not, I'd just go anyway. This is, apparently, the difference between someone who is committed to running and someone who is simply interested in running. Therefore, I blame this little event entirely on him and will get him back by spiking his drink with Pepto next year. Maybe more than one of them.

So, if we go by this commitment theory, I believe that this running incident makes me committed and not just interested -- even if only by force, lack of planning and many, many killed braincells. Kudos to me. Oh, and I blacked out on Day 5 and the remainder of the trip is simply a blur....... definitely an occupational hazard.