I'm Not Givin' Up*

Two events this week have caused me to do a lot of thinking about running and my relationship with it. The first is that I signed up for the Vanessa Marcotte Memorial 5K run. Vanessa was a runner who was murdered a Sunday afternoon in Princeton, Mass. Living in this area, her death had a big impact on the local runners, especially females. I remember how we had an influx of female runners at our store, looking for company because they were afraid to run alone. I remember hearing so many discussions of if they should carry pepper spray, when they should run, maybe they wouldn't run and so on. I have a previous post that talks about how I've taken these attacks on female runners and refuse to let it dictate how I will be as a runner, but it's hard at times. I decided to run this 5K because it is important 5K. It matters. Getting out there and showing that we won't be deterred and, until this stops, we will fight it, is an amazing reason to run. The other event was the passing of Gabe Grunewald. There have been many posts about her over the week since she'd died and I won't even try to put anything more out there, other than to say sometimes life isn't fair. It is a tragedy that she was lost (as it is that MANY are lost) but it is so inspiring to read how she lived and ran. I can only hope to be a margin of a runner and have an ounce of that determination if life ever throws at me what it did her. Which leads me to a last bit about my running this week. The 5K was not my best (although time wise not terrible). I walked which I haven't in a race in forever, not even my halfs and marathons, because I felt sorry for myself and everything hurt. As I write this, and even when I was done, I knew that was not what I should have done. I knew I should have fought and pushed, even if slower, than walk. When I think of Vanessa and Gabe, when I think of so many other people, who were forced to stop, I am now disappointed in myself. Yes, it IS just a 5K and there will be others and this is not reflective of me as a person, but it is a little bit. I want a do-over in that race because I want to show that, while I did not face their tragedies, perhaps I can face what I am thrown with a little more resilience and strength. And so, I am taking time to focus and heal, because I think I'm a little beat up. I am making the decision to skip a fall marathon and run smaller, shorter races. I am going to try and win wwere I can because why now? I am going to appreciate the fact that I can be out there day after day, running and being me. I don't want to neglect this gift that I'm given nor simply push through it. I want to embrace and enjoy. *No, not yet Even when I'm down to my last breath Even when they say there's nothin' left So don't give up on

Holding Out for a Hero

As tends to be the case, when I don't have a set plan I find myself wandering around a bit in my training. I am following my RunPlan that I have but it's not really geared towards anything so I'm at about 25-29 miles a week with a long run of ten miles. I have dialed back to only three runs a week because I tend to log two runs also at OT which are anywhere from 1.5-3.1 miles so can add up. I'm climbing a bit more, still only once a week, but I'm seeing some improvement so that's kind of fun. Not sure what I'll ever do with that, but it's a nice time to share with the husband. I do have a 5K tomorrow and I'm slightly wondering if I will be able to potentially when the women or, at least, my age group. It's funny because aside from an Arizona run I did and the Shrewsbury Turkey Trot, running has never something that I go into think I can win unlike some frisbee tournaments or skating competitions. So when I have a race that I think I can actually make "a name" for myself (as much of a name as that may be in a little 5K race) I find it's fun and exciting. I love competition. Always have and I probably always so it's fun to me when there is something more to a race than just the internal competition. The other thing that I like, though, is that I'm not expected to so anything so if I don't do what I think I can do, it doesn't matter. Unlike my other events, specifically skating, there was an expectation which made it stressful. Frisbee had a team component which made it stressful in another way (you had to rely on other people and people relied on you not to mess up). Here this is just me and, really, no one knows my thoughts about what I want to accomplish. In addition to just trucking along with no plan, is that thought that I don't know what I want to do next. After Providence I was so positive about running. I still am, but when I run as the heat and humidity have started to come back, I find myself feeling that exhaustion that I had last summer creep in. I don't know if I WANT to push myself through long runs in the summer or speed workouts after work in the heat. There is something so draining about this weather that is actually a bit of the opposite from what most people think about running. I sometimes just cannot handle this weather and it makes me super frustrated and disappointed in myself so I find summer running to also be harder than winter in the mental sense. So I don't know what I'm up to this training season. I think I may try to run some shorter races and also really try to PR in a half. I'll keep up my distances, but I'm not sure if there's a fall marathon in my future this year. I may lay-low and look to tackle Providence or another spring marathon with a little more vigor than I did this year.