The Small Stuff

When I am training for a marathon, I revel in sweating the small stuff. No detail is too trivial to be stressed about.  Should I feel guilty about cutting my 6-mile run to 5? Was my hill workout hilly enough? Did my post run-meal include a 4:1 ratio of carbs to protein? Or was it the other way around? Focusing on the minute stuff is part of the joy of being absorbed in a true vision quest.

B12 was the particular piece of minutia I was obsessing about last Wednesday morning, as I was driving to work on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. The nutrient – which is critical to metabolism– must be gleaned almost exclusively from animal sources, like chicken and red meat, and it’s hard to get if you don’t eat those foods. So I was baffled and stressed about how I was going to get B12 on that Wednesday or ever, and worried about what it would do to my metabolism and muscle function and yada, yada, yada.

Just as my internal monologue was reaching a fever pitch, I started to feel my back tires slide and pull as I was changing lanes. And then my car was spinning counterclockwise a full 360 degrees. And then it was plowing into a snowbank. And then it was in the direct path of a MACK truck that was too close to avoid me or stop.

“Alright then,” I thought as I saw the letters “M-A-C-K” on the truck’s grill getting bigger and closer. “I guess this is it.”

To say I got lucky is an understatement. (Thank you, side airbags, thank you.). All my injuries are healing; everything that was destroyed can be replaced. I’m going to look like Frankenstein and feel foggy for awhile.

But if those are my biggest complaints, I got no complaints.

Slowly, I am getting back to the gym. I am walking, and inserting five-minute intervals of running, exactly twice as slow as my marathon pace. I feel tentative and off balance, like I’m taking a jury-rigged jalopy for a test drive. I fight off frustration with the same mantra I use on race day: all you can do is give it all that you have.

Running has taught me the lesson many times: it doesn’t matter how far or how fast you want to go or believe you can go or did go in the past; you have no choice but to start where you are.

So even though my running has taken a quantum leap backwards (even before the accident, due to layoffs, I was running far off my peak), I refuse to get stressed about it. I savor the long sweaty vision quest, no matter what the ultimate object of the quest is. Each baby step forward – even if it comes after taking many steps backward – is bound to be packed of the kind adventure and joy and discovery that really define quality of life for me.

I haven’t been obsessing about the little things so much lately (although I’m sure I’ll be back to doing that again in no time). For now I’m just trying to enjoy this bird’s eye view of the big picture that an accident like that affords. I am so thankful to have the choice and the ability to push my body and mind to its limits (no matter what those limits are), and I am so grateful to have a quest ahead of me (though it’s not the one I had originally planned on). It is a privilege, and I feel lucky, indeed, to have it all.

Crossing to Safety

I pride myself on playing it safe. When I run before dawn, I stick to well-lit streets, I  wear a headlamp, a reflective vest, and my Road ID. Sometimes I carry a flashlight as an extra precaution.

Yet there I was at 4:05 a.m. yesterday, face down on the concrete, dazed and contused, a mess of blood, dirt, and tears.

Dodging danger had actually been a key motivation for getting out so early. With this late summer heat wave, and all the college kids returning, a super-early run promised breezy traffic-free miles. There is nothing as sacred as the peace of the streets before sunrise.

And in the cloak of darkness, I can dispense with any self-consciousness. I don’t have to worry about the fact that I look like a crossing guard. And I don’t have to worry about singing aloud; in fact I think it warns any oncoming raccoons, deer, or the pledges stumbling home from frat parties, to make way for the crazy runner.

So there I was, putt-putt-putting down the street, belting out the opening bars of Right By Your Side, (which, ironically, were “Give me two strong arms to protect myself”) when I saw an oncoming car, and lept to the sidewalk to get out of the way.

My toe hit the curb on the way over, and in a split second, I was airborne and pavement bound. On the way down, I jacknifed a metal waist-high bollard meant to prevent cars from veering on to the sidewalk.

OOF!

I sat there for a second, unsure of whether to get up or give up.

Heck of a way to start off the day. We always like to say that running really grounds a person, but this is not exactly what we mean.

The damage is pretty minor. Have some road rash and bruises on the arms, rear, and knees. Luckily I missed the face and the teeth.

Now I fall a lot. I excel at it. I can trip over anything – pavement, rocks, roots, dust, air. Coach Bart Yasso has warned me repeatedly, in an I-mean-this-in-the-nicest-possible-way kind of tone, “Jennifer you are NOT a trail runner.” He is right. At the JFK 50-miler last year, I went down twice on the “easy” rails-to-trails section. The day before training started for the San Francisco Half-Marathon, I sprained my ankle while running in the woods, and couldn’t run for two weeks. Lesson learned: just stick to the streets.

Hmm. Guess this incident serves as a good reminder that no running plan is ever fail-proof or fall-proof. And with the changing seasons – shorter days, longer runs – perhaps I should have brushed up on our rules of the road.

Or maybe I should just stick to the treadmill.

Stay safe out there, folks.

Lost in Translation

When my husband proposed a 27-mile paddling adventure to circumnavigate Gardiner’s Island, I said yes without hesitation.

Long distance running, I figured, had equipped me with all the skills and experience I’d need for the task. After all, I can cover 26.2 miles on foot without a problem. Four a.m. departures are routine for me. I know how to stay fueled enough to keep my energy levels steady without getting into bathroom trouble. And even if nature calls, I am a master at squatting wherever I am and taking care of business. Most importantly, perhaps, I am at complete peace with my pace. I start slow and finish strong. It’s comfortable, it’s conversational, and completely sustainable for hours and hours upon end.

But some things, I learned, don’t translate so easily from land to sea.
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“PICK UP THE PACE!”

The sound was faint, but my husband’s directions were clear as day. When someone levies this command, there’s no mistaking it.

“I’M MOVING AS FAST AS I CAN!” I screamed.

We were aiming for Cartright Shoal, a sandbar four miles from shore we’d designated as our first rest stop. The cross-current was tossing our kayaks like salad. The forecasters had vowed that the winds wouldn’t get stronger than 3 mph, but now, at 5:30 a.m. they were gusting strong enough to drown out the sound of my huffing and puffing.

I glanced at my Garmin, in search of a lift. I’d brought it along for moral support, figuring that seeing the miles accumulate would provide a steady flow of positive feedback when the going got tough.  After all, it worked for running.

One mile; 28 minutes.

Not the news I was hoping for.

I watched my husband’s red lifejacket disappear into the horizon, and sighed hard.

I was accustomed to letting the race pack speed ahead without me, but this effort felt like a nightmare:  I was pouring every ounce of energy and strength I had into moving towards a destination that never got any closer, no matter how hard or how fast I tried. I was going nowhere. I needed a little positive self-talk. I leaned on what had worked in marathons.

You’re not in pain. You’re not injured. Just keep going. It doesn’t matter how fast you’re going. It just matters that you’re going. You’re a runner. You’ve done way harder than this. Just keep going. Don’t give up.

An hour later, I crashed into the sandy beach and emptied myself out of the cockpit, sideways.

I dusted off the sand and the seaweed, bit hard into a cheese stick and grumbled softly, trying not to get too worked up about how little distance we’d covered and how exhausted I already was.

Apparently the muscles that had been training for all those marathons hadn’t been on speaking terms with any of the other muscles in my body.

How could I be so out of shape? I ran the San Francisco Marathon last weekend. I ran 17 miles yesterday. I can’t believe I ever considered myself an athlete. I’m supposed to be training for the Toronto Marathon. How am I ever going to finish that?

I had learned from running never to seriously entertain any doubts, fears, or urges experienced before the halfway point. For better or for worse, we were still three miles from the starting line, then it would be another 27 miles around the island.

Peter had landed 20 minutes earlier, and had already cased the island. He was snapping photos and cheerily chirping about his findings.

“We could totally paddle out here and camp out,” he said. “Who would know?”

“Yup,” I grunted, stuffing back tears.

I turned back to Garmin.
Four miles; 90 minutes.

If I was running 27 miles today, I’d have covered 10 miles and only have 17 to go. I barely made it to the rest stop. What was I thinking?

Rattled, and unsure of how I would make it another 30 miles, I stopped at an abandoned lobster trap and used one of the few remaining skills I still felt confident about.
I squatted and peed.
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Peter stared hard and long at me and sighed. He was fresh off of completing a course to get certified as a Maine Kayak Guide. He’d never taken the test to get the actual certificate, but after spending a lifetime on the water –on surfboards, rowing shells, canoes, kayaks, and sailboats – (his vanity tag says “WATERMN”)- he was confident on the water and I was confident in him.

Now he was worried. And so therefore, was I.

He gingerly explained that my conversational pace could turn us into sitting ducks in the face of aggressive fishing boats or a squall.

My  slowness – an asset on the ground – had become a liability at sea.

He reviewed the safety protocol for me three more times.

“When a boat comes toward you paddle directly into the wake,” he said. “You don’t want to take the wave broadside. You could capsize.”

“Got it,” I said.

“Now repeat it back to me. What do you do when you see a  boat?”

I repeated his instructions verbatim.

And we shoved off.

I tried not to panic, knowing that it would only steal energy I’d need to paddle.

Don’t worry about how fast you’re going. Before you know it, it will all be over.

Indeed, it was sooner than I knew.

Shortly after we shoved off, I saw a menacing black flotilla barrelling towards us at top speed. I figured it was a fisherman, eager to get the first catch of the day.

Man they’re aggressive, I thought, as the protocol we’d just reviewed escaped my brain.  Runners are so much nicer.

Unsure of what to do, I held up my yellow paddles in an “I surrender” gesture as he pulled up next to us, sending our kayaks bobbing about like weeble wobbles in his wake.

“Are you in distress?” he demanded.

“No.” Peter said.

“Well you’re trespassing,” he yelled. “You will be arrested. This is private property.”

Ah, right. Security.

Gardiner’s Island is private property. It’s been owned by the same family for 400 years, and apparently they weren’t taking visitors.

Oops.

“You’re being watched,” he continued. “There are security cameras all over the island.”

He was wearing no uniform, but definitely took his job seriously. I expected him to take out a gun at any minute. “We’ve taken down your license and your boat numbers. You will be arrested.”

Security cameras, where? In the sand? In the seaweed? In the lobster trap? Had my bathroom break tripped off the authorities? Did they have my bare buns on film?

“If you step again on the island,” he warned, “you will be arrested.”

“Ok,” my husband said. “Sorry. Thank you.”

We watched him speed off.

“There’s no way that we can paddle around Gardiner’s Island without stopping,” Peter said.
“We must abort the mission.”

I was disappointed, as I was looking forward to the bragging rights I’d earn telling everyone about our 27-mile paddling adventure. But I’d exhausted any excitement about actually paddling that far. There was a tiny part of me, I admit, that considered our near arrest somewhat of a bailout. Narrowly escaping a night in jail sounded way tougher than DNF’ing our adventure for lack of guts and gusto.

We forged on to explore some of the other areas of the bay. Without the prospect of a long-distance endurance test hanging over our heads, my mood lifted a bit, and I felt, for the first time that day, energized. Nevetheless, I continued along at my pokey pace. After all, we no longer had to worry about finishing the journey before sundown. Why rush?

As we reached the next spit of land, 5 miles and 3 hours later, my husband sighed and stared at me, again, long and hard.

He pulled off to shore, and without a word, took out a rope, and tied my boat to his and started paddling. He was giving me a tow.

This was the nautical equivalent of a sag wagon, and I had no compunction about being on the receiving end.

If it was going to make him less miserable, that was fine by me, and it would likely make me way less miserable too.

It was actually kind of nice, just floating along, all of my strokes as value added.

When we finally reached shore, I looked at my Garmin one last time.

13.93 miles; 5 hours, 52 minutes.

As we dragged the boats and equipment out of the water and on to the car, I tried not to draw comparisons to the pain, angst, and energy cost of this 14 miles compared to its cost on land, but it was impossible.

I could cover nearly 40 miles in that time on land. No equipment to haul up, and no one ever hassles you about trespassing. I’m sticking with running. This water stuff is for the fish.

“Now that I think about it,” Peter said, “I guess it might have been better if we’d trained for this all summer and built up to this.”

Right. Blinding flash of the obvious. The fundamental principle of competition had somehow been lost in translation. If you want to finish and enjoy a long-distance sporting event feeling healthy and strong, you actually have to train your body and your mind for it.
And that takes time. What we had done was akin to jumping into a marathon without training.

“I refuse to feel badly about this,” I protested. “We went out on an adventure. It wasn’t the adventure we planned, but we were out here for six hours and 14 miles. Beats the heck out of sitting in the suburbs talking about it.”

“You’re right,” he said. “It was a beautiful day.”

Best of all, maybe I still had enough time left in the day to go for a run.

Holy Yassover

I think I have a Yassover.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my Yasso 800s. I’d even get a bumper sticker that said so if there was one.

The workout feels about as good as fast can feel if you’re me. Getting my heart pounding while the music is blasting is a good way to spend a Wednesday morning, I’ve decided. It really takes the edge off. At this point in my 16-week program, the workout is long enough to offer both speed and distance training. Was able to get what few fast-twitch fiber muscles I do have firing and log 8ish miles for the day. Cooled down and showered, satisfied. Plus, since Yasso 800s are famous for predicting marathon finish times and preparing runners to reach their goals, they gets me psyched up about the race, which is important, since there are only 38 more days to go! (gulp!) 

But now, 8 hours later, I’m craving a pillow, two aspirin, and a lot of water. I’ve eaten two meals but I’m already hungry for another. It’s like a hangover, but different. I know that you burn through carbs much faster during speedwork than you do on shorter or slower runs, so maybe I didn’t eat enough recovery food after the workout. 

In any case, I’m not complaining. Nothing seems sprained or strained, and as far as I can tell I didn’t lose a lung. In the universe of good and bad pains, these, I know are the hard-won fruits of my running labors.  I’ll drink, snack, pop some aspirin and get over it. 

And next Wednesday, I’ll gladly take a Yassover again.