Running

Finders keepers, losers weepers?

/ Outrunning my demons / 2 Comments

A couple of years back, I found a wallet alongside the road while I was running. I had a couple of choices of what I could do. I could keep running. I could take the money and run. Or I could take the wallet home and try to find its owner.

I have never been the kind of person who does nothing, so that option was out.

As for option number 2, I am not the type of person that steals things. Although there was that one time in 2nd grade. There was a boy that sat in front of me in class. He had this miniature soda can that would look really good in my doll house. He would sit at his desk and pretend to slurp out of this little can like it contained the best sugary substance in the world. A can that I thought would look great in Barbie’s hand while she entertained Ken in her kitchen.

One day while the boy was leaving his desk, he bumped the little can off his desk. It rolled underneath my desk. Finders keepers, losers weepers! I took that little soda can home to Barbie. For years, I felt guilty every time I played with that little toy. Five years later, I decided to return the toy that I “found” in his locker. I wonder what he thought when he saw it. Maybe he forgot all about it, but I certainly didn’t.

I don’t think that I could live with myself if I chose the finders keepers, losers weepers option. There was around $200 in the wallet.

So I chose to take the wallet home and do a little detective work to find the owner. First, I had to pick up all of the credit cards that were strewn into the ditch. The first thing that I saw was a driver’s license. Great, I had a name and an address. I rummaged through the wallet for a phone number. How many people do you know that carry their own phone number in their wallet?

I snooped through every inch of that wallet without turning up any more clues. The whole time taking guilty pleasure in searching through someone’s personal belongings.

When Paul got home, he took a look at the wallet. He said that he knew the guy that the wallet belonged to. He was able to find the man’s number and return his wallet to him. Coincidentally, we ended up running into that same man later on in the week at a local restaurant. He came up to me and thanked me for returning his wallet. He also gave me $40 that I didn’t want to take. He refused to leave unless I took the money. He said that if I hadn’t returned the wallet to him that he would be out $200. Plus he would have had to get a duplicate driver’s license and cancel all of his credit cards. What a hassle that would’ve been!

One thing I can say about this crazy running hobby of mine is that it often takes me on some interesting adventures. 

Easter, turning 40, and candy in the light fixture

/ Outrunning my demons / Leave a comment

Now I officially feel old. This last week my younger brother turned 40. 

I don’t remember feeling old when I turned 40. Maybe it was because I spent the first few waking hours of my 40th birthday in the ER. Having a sick child really took the little joy left out of turning 40. Everyone took turns staying with Arabella so I could have my special day. I felt a little selfish about that. 

I bought a 1970’s vintage outfit that I was going to wear out for my birthday. I had to go all the way to Chicago to find something exciting to do on a Monday night. There is certainly no nightlife around here on a Monday. But with a sick kid and other children that refused to go anywhere with me dressed like that, I wore normal boring clothes. I am such an embarrassment. Seriously, it wasn’t as if I was going to go out wearing my birthday suit.

My friends did take me out a couple of weeks before my birthday. I didn’t feel old. They convinced some people that they were taking me out for my 21st birthday. It was kind of funny when people came up to me and asked me how it felt to finally be old enough to drink. Really? What are you talking about?? Believe me that looking like I was 10 when I was 16 really did pay off later. LOL. 

But now I feel old. I ran 15 miles the day after Matt turned 40. It was really difficult for me to do. My inner voice kept telling me how old I was and doubted I could do anything. Sometimes I want to tell my inner voice to shut up and summon my inner child instead. 

How does Matt feel about turning 40? He feels great! Being autistic, he really has little concept of aging. He is starting to get the tire around his waist like all the older men in my family seem to get. Still he has no worries about his weight. There was a time in his life when we worried. At 5’7″, there was a point where he barely weighed 90 lbs. He was very sick to the point where we thought he would die. So a little gut is not that big of a deal.

 Yesterday the whole family went bowling for Matt’s birthday. Matt loves to bowl so we go every year for his birthday. I really don’t like bowling. I find it boring and I suck at it. Matt loves it though and he even beat my score. We bought him a huge balloon bouquet that was a lot harder to fit into a car than you might think. We almost got it tangled in the ceiling fan when we got to the bowling alley.  

After bowling, we all went out to eat. My dad went somewhere else. I am not sure if that had to do with senility or miscommunication. After supper, everyone wanted to come over to my house for games. My dad started driving home until my mom reminded him he was coming to my house. Then he turned the car around after swearing a bit and came to my house. He dropped off everyone in his vehicle and sat out in the car. 

Today my whole family met up at church for Easter with the exception of my dad. My mom is a devout Christian and my dad is an atheist. No, it doesn’t work well. I was surprised to see my brother Mark in church and dressed up to boot. I thought that the only time that I would see him go to church was on his wedding day. Boy was I wrong. His new wife said that she wasn’t going to church by herself. Now Mark is a church goer. Maybe he thought a little about all the times that my mom went to church alone. I was happy that he went. He always sided with my dad. I was wondering if he would choose to go to church with his wife or stay home with my dad. I was surprised my dad didn’t give him a hard time.

The church was having some issues with its organ. Apparently they asked my dad to come fix it. My dad said that the last time he went to church it was working okay. I said it was true that the organ was working just fine in the 1980’s. I told my dad that it would have been nice if he came to church today with his family to at least view the condition of the organ. Oh well! At least he was wearing clothes today. He wore red plaid pajama bottoms with a Packer shirt. He didn’t match or even shower lately, but at least he wore clothes. Baby steps!

After eating ham at my mom’s, everyone started their journey back home. Mark and Luke live several hours away while I live nearby.  

I had the kids do some work while I hid their Easter candy. Alex is good at finding things. He found his sisters candy before they did. So this year I hid his candy in a very difficult spot. I unscrewed the light fixture, then hid his candy there. Brilliant spot, he did find it though before Arabella found hers.

I hope everyone had a great Easter! 

Acting like everything is alright 

/ Outrunning my demons / 1 Comment

I am sorry things did not go according to your plan. When you asked me why God did this to you, I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to fix things for you. I wanted to make you happy again. Instead I just listened. I asked when you would rather know, now or later. Maybe God has a better plan that we just can’t see right now.

You said that you were a great actress. You went to play practice with a smile on your face. Then you came home and cried. The odds weren’t in your favor this time. Out of the hundreds of talented kids that auditioned, you weren’t in the handful of those selected for the musical theater program at the college you will be attending. You cried even more when your brother told you that they didn’t know what they were missing. 

The truth is that your musical theater talents are lopsided. You are a phenomenal singer, great actress, and below average dancer. Even though you have the shape of a dancer, your body fails you. I am so sorry that you seem to have my lack of gracefulness. 

I was the little girl that they laughed at during the dance recital because I danced to a different beat then everyone else. I was the scrawny little kid that was always picked last on the team. I was the little girl that had to do extra credit to pass gym class. I had to write about sports because I couldn’t do them. While other kids could do flips and splits, I remained rigid, tight, and inflexible. Why do you think I am a runner? It requires grit, the only thing I have.

There is one gift that I am happy to have passed on to you, your voice. When you sing, people feel the emotions you are singing about. A happy song puts everyone in a good mood. A sad song can change the audiences laughter to tears in a few sweeping moments. When you auditioned for the vocal performance program, they complimented you on your voice and told you that they wanted you. I know that you will find a home there. 

I know it is hard right now. You have been eating, drinking, and sleeping musicals for so long. I am impressed with your optimism despite a few minor road blocks. 

It does not mean that you can never audition for musicals in the big cities. This is your journey now and I am excited to see where it takes you.

Hard to tame

/ Outrunning my demons / 2 Comments

Once, a very long time ago, I lived in wild and rugged terrain. I had an important job. I kept vigilance. I watched all day and sometimes at night too. Every little sound would wake me and cause me to take guard. I noticed every little detail in my environment for any change that could signify a problem. I noticed patterns.

I was a protector. My vigilance never stopped bad things from happening, but it may have forewarned others of danger or prevented them from being hurt. I wasn’t allowed the distraction of feelings, sensitivity, caring, or warmth to distract me from my post. A lot of other people had that job, but not me.

Then for a short period of time, I was removed from my post. I found myself alone. I thought that maybe I could finally be like everyone else. I wanted to be trusting like everyone else. But I couldn’t.

Then I found myself in an entirely different terrain. I was like a wild prairie dog trapped within the safe confinement of a zoo. I resumed my old post although I was no longer needed. No hawks circled. Few dangers threatened nearby day or night. But I found myself vigilant at my post. I was told that I wasn’t needed anymore, that I should take it easy or relax.

But any attempt to relax my guard caused me more anxiety. So I ran marathons around the inside edges of the wall. I paced back and forth so often that my path was beaten down. Even though I was no longer standing guard, I still felt like I was watching.

Then something else happened. I no longer wanted to be like everyone else. I found that being vigilant had purpose and meaning. My distrust protected me and those I care about.

Even in times of peace, a few people are needed to keep guard. Someone still needs to have a discerning eye to protect others from danger. I am that person.

Some animals are hard to tame.

My 1st transition from biking to running

/ Outrunning my demons / 2 Comments

It was a warm spring like day. You know the kind. It was mostly cloudy with temps in the 40’s with a light breeze. The warmest day predicted for this week. Perfect day to try out my new bike and learn a few lessons.

The first thing that I did was find an old helmet. Then I dressed like I was going to go for a run. That was mistake number one! I put on a hat underneath my helmet. I sure looked like a clown. I didn’t notice that any neighbors took off of work for the occasion. So, who cares?

I decided to go for a 6 mile bike ride to break in my bike. Everything went great, except that I was absolutely freezing. I had forgotten how much of a wind biking creates. I felt like I was running against a 25 mph wind on a cool day. The faster I went, the colder I got. My hands became red and swollen. Was that a little frost bite coming on? Even though I budgeted an hour and a half lunch break, I was off on that. I had to stop indoors for a few minutes to warm up. My ears were cold and my fingers were tingling.

After the 6 mile bike ride, I decided to transition over to a 5 mile run. Running was rather interesting. After getting off of the bike, I felt like I couldn’t walk straight. Almost like I spent the day sailing. My equilibrium felt slightly off. Watch out, dizzy blonde runner! I felt like I had a couple shots of whiskey after roller skating for a couple of hours. It took about a mile to retrain my body to run like normal. I had to tell myself several times that I know what I am doing since I have been running for years. I was able to complete my run like normal, but it was a slow start.

I probably won’t be doing too much biking in the next couple of weeks. My main focus right now is getting ready to run a marathon in May.

***Note to self***So far on my first transition I learned a few very important lessons. First, dress a lot warmer than I would if I was running. Second, it make take longer then an hour and a half especially if I do not dress right. Third, I have to retrain myself mentally to run.

 

 

 

Cabin chaos, part 1

/ Outrunning my demons / 2 Comments

image

Back in 1950, my great-grandparents bought a double lot on a quiet lake. The lake has been built up quite a bit since then and is not as quiet as it once was. But it is still beautiful. They built a cabin on the lake. When I was growing up, the only running water in the cabin was two sinks in the kitchen. We had an outhouse with a garage located between the cabin and the outhouse. There was also a boat house, a fish cleaning shack, and a screened in cook house with a long redwood table.

My family originally built a concrete retaining wall with stairs going down to the water in the center. It has since crumbled and shifted over time. The boat house was in bad shape and was torn down when I was a kid. The garage was the next building to go. The roof caved in and it housed bats. Every time that I had to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, the bats would swoop down at me. I turned on the lights outside in an attempt to keep them away. When I had the lights on, the guys across the road would see me running to the outhouse and whistle at me. It probably didn’t help that I was screaming and flailing about while in little summer nightgowns. If I could make it past the bats and creepy guys, my next fear was always the wasps. How did people survive having to use an outhouse all the time??

Eventually the garage was torn down as well. There was a lot of junk inside. There also was an antique car from the early 1900’s that was in rough shape. A lot of times my family was too cheap to buy new stuff for the cabin, so they took up mismatching plates, silverware, etc..

This summer I am planning on swimming across the lake to prepare for the tri. I will probably not be biking or running up north though because at this time we do not have an easy way to bathe. I am afraid that stinking would be frowned upon and my family would no longer support my crazy fitness habits.

This is going to be a very short series telling some of the funniest stories.

Trying to tri

/ Outrunning my demons / 4 Comments

I bought a road bike today. There is no turning back now. I have to tri.

A few weeks ago, I got together with some running/tri friends. Compared to them, I am very inexperienced as a racer. I told them of my grandiose plan of running 20 miles every weekend. They asked if I was crazy. Yes, of course. Do you want to get hurt? No, I don’t! I decided to listen to their advice and scale back a little. Between the trio of triers, they have at least 50 marathons under their belt, multiple half irons, and an iron. So their advice was very credible. 

Guess I will have more time to write, right?

After finishing my first marathon in about six hours, I felt like a failure. I went into it with too high of expectations. I thought that I might qualify for the Boston. I got the crazy idea that if I train harder for this marathon, I will do better.  My friend said that she thought I had it in me to finish in under 4 hours if I train right. I think that might be a little too optimistic. However, with the exception of the marathon, I have been consistently finishing within the top 7 to 10% in my age category. I did my first half in 2:05 in less than ideal conditions. So maybe.

It didn’t help hurting my ankle 3 weeks before the marathon. 

It took me about two months to recover from the knee pain that happened during my first marathon. Maybe I was trying to overcompensate for an ankle that wasn’t totally healed. To be honest with you, I am a little nervous about running another marathon. Running has been going absolutely great, until this week. I have been feeling so stiff and my joints have been aching. I feel exhausted and seem to lack motivation. I have been keeping to my newly revised running schedule though. It has been a mild winter, so I was able to get outside and run a total of 24 miles this week. That’s good because my treadmill is starting to groan just as much as I am. I find running anything over 16 miles at one time to be excessively grueling. 

I guess I will have to run with it and see how my second marathon goes. 

This season I am signing up for a 5k, 10k, half, and full marathons. I am also signing up for my first tri. I am not sure how long I can keep going at this pace. I want to diversify a little so that I am able to keep exercising for the long run. The marathon will be my first race this season. Last year I spent the whole summer training. This summer I want to be like everyone else when they are not working. I want to sit on the beach, sip craft beer by the camp fire, and be out on the water. 

Oh wait, I just bought a bike. Now what did I get myself into??

Whatever motivates you to run…lol

/ Outrunning my demons / Leave a comment

Remember the mess that we returned to after our vacation in January? Maybe you need a refresher?? We sure would have liked things to be fresher! We came home after our vacation to a big mess. Our pet sitter gave her mom our garage door code so she could  feed our pets and let out our dog. Except that she decided to overfeed our dog and not let him out. So we came home that night to piles of puke, dog crap, and rings of pee. Not to mention that her mom went rummaging through all of our things. Yes, even my underwear drawer. Gross!

This week our old pet sitter turned 18 and moved out of the house. After all that happened, we have a new pet sitter now. Today while Paul was at the grocery store… What? Yes, my husband does the grocery shopping. Yes, he likes to cook. Oh yes, I know I am lucky! Yes, he probably is a better cook than I am. Okay, he is. Well, let’s just get back to the story..

While Paul was walking into the store, he saw the old pet sitter’s mom coming out of the store. She seemed shocked (embarrassed?? guilty?!??) to see him. She started running full force in the opposite direction with her cart full of food. All I could think was… my gosh, I hope she wasn’t wearing my underwear….

Whatever motivates you to run…lol.

The travel diaries, Denver

/ Outrunning my demons / 2 Comments

**Please be advised that this post contains adult content**

image

Ah, Denver…I really had a love hate relationship with this city. Paul and I attended a conference in downtown Denver a little over a year ago. We arrived in town on a Friday evening a few days before our conference began. After checking into our hotel, the first thing that we wanted to do was get something to eat. I was really looking forward to trying new craft beers and reacquainting myself with some of my favorite Colorado beers. The two beers pictured above are some of my favorites from breweries in CO. We were in CO in October, so I was really excited about having the Pumpkick beer since it is a seasonal beer that is hit or miss to find at home. But no such luck. I was very disappointed in their beer selection and the food in the city was nothing to write home about either. But I guess nowadays they specialize in other things…

Our first experience in the city happened while we were sitting in the restaurant. A man came over to the window and peered at me from outside. He smiled and waved excitedly at me. He was a nice looking man with shoulder length brown hair. I smiled and gave him a small hesitant wave back. Then he held up a sign that read smile if you masterbate. Gross! I think I threw up in my mouth a little bit. Once he saw my expression from reading the sign, he laughed disturbingly reminding me of Jack Nicholson in The Shining or One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Not the greatest first impression for a first time visitor.

After supper, we walked a couple of blocks down to a historical Methodist church where we bought tickets for a pipe organ concert. The people selling tickets seemed surprised that their online marketing worked when I explained I found out about the concert online and that we just got off the plane and walked over. Paul and I were the youngest ones there. The concert itself was magnificent. I jumped out of my seat a little when The Phantom of the Opera was playing. My favorite instrument is the pipe organ which makes going to concerts anywhere a little challenging.

The following day there was a Zombie Crawl downtown. This is another event that I knew about but wanted to view as an outsider. It was really awesome going downtown in the morning seeing everyone dressed up for the occasion. They even had a 5k. It was rather sad that I saw runners having to stop for traffic lights. Personally, I would be upset if I had to lose so much on my running time. At home, they shut down streets but leave the traffic lights running.  I would’ve probably ran out in front of traffic in CO. It was probably a good idea that I did not run this race. The race participants didn’t seem to mind though. They seemed to be having fun. We stopped in a couple of shops and took a stroll down to the park.

image

I feel like I should have been wearing the outfit above while at the park. The park was very reminiscent of what I would imagine the 1960’s was like. Young college students were sitting around in a circle on the grass.  Lol.

image

I had to have a picture with the above sign as well. As I have said before, I don’t exercise while on vacation. That is a total lie. We walked all over the place. I was stupid enough to just bring dress shoes and sandals. Sunday we walked down to the Museum of Miniature Toys. It was a lovely little place. What really interested me was the old doll houses. They had some of the old toys that Paul and I played with as kids. What a fascinating trip down memory lane. Walking several miles there and back in sandals was a bad idea though. Note to self, bring athletic shoes next time. On a side note, I did wear in my new running shoes in Orlando. That was not a good idea either.

image

Unfortunately, Paul and I both got arrested at the zombie fest. Uh oh.

image

The zombie fest was downright exciting. People roamed around the streets in torn clothes dripping in fake blood. There was a guy full of blood laying down in the street. I am still not sure if that was real or not come to think of it. It was one big street party. They had all kinds of things to see in the streets such as caricature drawing. People crawled around the streets dressed like zombies. I felt like I was part of the Walking Dead cast. My favorite part was the large truck that had huge speakers playing dub step music. Paul and I had a great time dancing until somebody started squirting fake blood into the crowd.

Then our friends started arriving for the conference. A large group of conference goers wanted to check out the pot dispensary. We went to a place by the mall. It was very strange. To get in they scanned your driver’s license like you would a credit card. It was almost like a museum in there with tons of info about everything you would want to know and then some about different varieties and strains. What I thought was interesting was a young man in his 20’s obviously with his baby boomer parents excitedly taking pictures together. Kind of like a parent child bonding session. What a strange world we live in!

Joe also talked a group of people into going to one of the scariest haunted houses in the country. I am not into haunted houses that much, but I thought what the heck. We ended up being the last tour group to go through. It took about a half an hour to go through the whole place. It was very scary touching on all of the key elements that people typically fear. Tight spaces, yes. Rickety old elevators, yes. Spiders, yes, yes, yes. One of the scariest things happened when we got out. The haunted house closed for the night and we didn’t have a ride back to our hotel. Now that was scary! The haunted house was in a dark warehouse type district. Not a place I would want to walk through at night. We ended up flagging down someone with an extended van to take us back.

Then the conference started. After the first full day, one of the vendors threw a huge party with a DJ and open bar. I mean completely open bar including top shelf. The party lasted 6 hours. By the end of the evening, people were dancing on the tables, spilling drinks, and breaking glass. After the party was over, we weren’t quite ready to call it a night. Joe suggested going to Coyote Ugly to make a bra donation. The clasp on the back of my bra broke earlier that morning, so it seemed like a good idea. I was going to throw it out anyway. When I got up on the bar at Coyote Ugly, I was a bit nervous. I was five feet off the ground on a small bar. I thought I might fall. She had me do a couple of squats then toss up my bra. It is probably hanging up there like a bat in a cave to this day. After I got down from the bar, Paul introduced me to our biggest competitor in our state. Hhhhmmm…

After that night, I earned the reputation as an attention seeking adventurous life of the party type which is funny because that is not the way I am at home.

I will always think of Denver as a drug city which has little to do with the legalization of MJ. I saw pills passed out on the street. I saw a man strung out on meth or something. He was muttering to himself and seemed to be very frightened by something only he could see. His body was contorted and twitching. It was the worst I have ever seen. Addiction is awful. I worried for his safety. Oh, his poor mother. There were a lot of young unkept able bodied men carrying signs of will work for pot, etc. I found it to be very disheartening.

We had a great time in Denver, but by the end of it all we were ready to go home.

My soles are worn thin

/ Outrunning my demons / Leave a comment

It seems I haven’t gotten too far on my travel series yet. Maybe tomorrow..

This past weekend I shared with you a dream that I had about having to run a marathon I am not ready for. I think the marathon symbolizes the second half of my life. I looked down to see that my soles on my shoes were totally worn out. The reality is that the first half of my life is over. Then I noticed that at the beginning of this marathon I was wearing shoes that fit but they were on the wrong foot. I don’t want to start the second half of my life on the wrong foot. I request a new pair of shoes, this time they fit but they are uneven. I won’t be able to run the race very long wearing these shoes. I think this is symbolic of parenting. My children will start leaving the house in a few months, things won’t be the same (uneven), and soon I will be actively taking these shoes off. The last shoe brought out is the most comfortable but it doesn’t fit yet. Ah, retirement and living without the stress of working and actively parenting. But it is going to be a long time before this shoe fits me.

I took comfort early on in the dream marathon that Gu and broccoli were at the beginning of the race. I chose to go down the path of exercise and healthy living. Not only does being an exercise fanatic ward off my depression, anxiety, and stress. It makes me think that I will live longer and healthier. Because if I really think about it, which is something that I try to avoid doing, I am terrified of death. We are not going to exist forever like we do now. Even though I have a firm faith in God, I am still absolutely terrified of my own demise. What if I am wrong? What if there is nothing out there? Forget the physical pain of taking your last breathe. What if there is only an empty void? A void like the one before our existence. I just can’t bear the emptiness of that. I want to think that I am going to see my loved ones again, even if I am wrong.

When I started this dream marathon, I saw people wander off the path before it began. I went to sleep that night worried that my neighbor in her mid 40’s was not going to make it. She did pass away during the night. She was one of the people that left the race early before it really even began for her. Another thing that I noticed was that the path looked straight and the weather was fine. I seemed to have the tools I needed to run the race but I couldn’t see very far ahead of me. I needed to figure out what shoes to wear, what my role is going to be in the second half of my life. I wanted to wait to start the marathon before I figured that out, but I ran out of time.

I suppose at this point it is pretty obvious that I was a psychology major in college. LOL