Running Into Joy

Happy Monday, friends! A quick content warning: this post deals with some body image issues. Lately, I've been thinking a lot about my "why" for running. What keeps me lacing up my shoes and hitting the pavement or the trails week after week. The "why" is something we talk a lot about when we get into the mental aspect of running, and it can shift for each of us from day to day and year to year. For a long time, I've told my "falling in love with running" story as the day I ran my first 5K. The atmosphere of a cheering crowd, a sense of camaraderie as we ran as a pack along the closed-down streets of Evansville, Indiana. Never before had I done anything like this, where simply by putting one foot in front of the other, people cheered me on with handwritten signs, and I felt connected to strangers in friendly competition as I passed them or--more likely in those days--they passed me. And yet... 2020 is the year with no races. Without the forma...

Happy Tuesday, friends. Running a little late on the post this week because we're transitioning back to working from the office, so I'm back to a morning commute.  As you know, last week I ran the Sports Bra Squad 5K I’ve been training for since April.  The Badass Lady Gang is rolling right into the best your best 5-mile challenge. I was too late to register officially for this one, because commitments mid-August are hard for me as someone who works in higher ed.  Still, I plan to build strength and race my 5 miler twice along with everyone to see if I can beat my best time. On top of that, we’ve got the “Running from My Problems” 7 miler in September, which is possibly my favorite name for any race, ever (you can still sign up for that one here ). This new distance should fit very nicely into training for (drumroll please) my virtual half marathon. After a week of reflection between the cancellation announcement and the email to switch our registrations, I made the diffi...

Happy Monday, all!  On Saturday, July 4th, I woke up at my usual workday time of 5am so I could get ready and out the door to run the Sports Bra Squad Day 5K before it got too hot here in Pittsburgh, where we're experiencing what I'm told is likely a record-breaking heatwave.  I have been training for this 5K since May, and the journey has been unlike any other. For starters, I've never really followed any sort of strict training plan for a 5K before. 3.1 miles is, in this body, a distance I can manage in one way or another without much conditioning.  But, like so many of us, I've struggled with the stay-at-home nature of most of 2020. Not because I crave people--no, my introverted socially anxious being is a little too comfortable not seeing many humans face to face. Rather, what I needed was a goal,  a sense of forward momentum, something I usually find in working with and helping the students I serve in my dual roles of Student Affairs professional and adjunct fac...

Hello, my friends. Many of you know that in 2019, I had to defer my entry in the Flying Pig Half Marathon as I worked through some mystery symptoms and found my way to a diagnosis for my chronic illness. When I made that choice, a vague fear of not making it to the starting line in 2020 lingered. Would I get injured again? Would my symptoms worsen to the point that training became impossible?  Never in any of my anxiety's wildest predictions for my 2020 race did I imagine a pandemic would see the race deferred not just for me, but for all of us. The running community is full of posts asking how to keep up the motivation, how to move forward, when your race has been cancelled or pushed back. It's beginning to look like the rest of 2020 might be a Year without Races.  I have mourned the lost opportunities with my running friends, but my relationship to this twice-deferred starting line is a bit different.  In truth, I was relieved to get that email.  ...

I write to you from the hazy fog brought on by a string of heavy symptom days with occipital neuralgia. For the last few months of 2019, I enjoyed blissfully low to no symptoms and, in truth, felt very much like I was "better." And then... the tense headache warning of what's to come. So, as much as I love a crisp new planner and the start of a new year, I'm struggling to find optimism. It's hard to feel like it's a fresh new year when I'm carrying over the same old chronic pain that met me in August of last year. In spite of this, I carry the lessons with me that going for a run will actually improve symptoms, not make them worse. And so, as the year of my half marathon (fingers crossed) begins, I'm continuing my training plan. Yesterday, I met a challenge that feels both distant and familiar. My symptoms were heavy, shocking pains coming frequently and a tell-tale tightness in my right neck muscles. I debated skipping the day's 45 minute ru...

This week, I've been following a new training plan provided by the amazing Kelly Roberts of She Can & She Did and Run, Selfie, Repeat. I never, ever thought I'd be the kind of person to break outside my normal routine of "try to survive running a few miles" but here I am adding speed work and hill repeats. When i saw those two words "hill repeats" on my schedule for Thursday, I strongly considered setting the whole thing aside. Thursday was not a day built perfectly for a new kind of running workout. The First Year Writing class I teach starts at 8:30am, and I had plans to stay over at my boyfriend's place, which meant extra commute time. Not only that, but the forecast was 30 degrees and snowy. As a naturally clumsy person, I avoid running outside with even a hint of ice because I'm convinced I'll hurt myself, majorly. Running up and down a hill? Not a chance. I tried talking myself out of it. Amanda, you'd have to get up so so earl...

This past Thursday was Thanksgiving here in the US. The Turkey Trot race is a growing trend, where people get together to run a race before heading off to their respective holiday feasts. Bonus points seem to be awarded for turkey costumes and/or pumpkin pie shaped hats. I've wanted to do one of these races for a while now, and since I didn't have to travel this Thanksgiving holiday, it was perfect timing. I convinced Andy to race with me, signed up, and prepped for the race.  The training plan I've been following is an 8-week plan designed to work up the strength to run a full 5K. I was about half way into week 6 when race day came, but I woke up feeling strong and decided to give running the full 5K a shot. After all, I had past evidence that it was a distance I could handle, since I ran the Superhero 5K without stopping to walk.  Race morning was a little chilly, but warmer than years past for the Pittsburgh Turkey Trot, so I'm told. Andy and I stayed in the ...

Last week, I got a heck of a cold. If you recall, I had a cold back in September when I ran the Great Race 10K, so I was not at all happy to wake up to a scratchy sore throat and congestion again. I can remember when I was in high school and college, how I would be the last woman standing even as various plagues swept through my classmates, taking them down one by one. Ah, the immune system of my youth. Taking a day off scares--taking an entire week off feels like tempting fate, like asking to be a quitter all over again. But the after effects of running the Great Race 10K with a cold were fresh on my mind, and I knew my immune system needed rest. So I took off Monday. And when Wednesday found me feeling worse instead of better, I took that off, too. Finally, Friday rolled around and I still could barely breathe, so I decided to make it a round week off. Something like this would have derailed me a few years ago, and I still don't fully trust myself. When I went to bed last nig...

Hello, internet people! Yesterday, we here in Pittsburgh got our first big snow of the season, which means the ground this morning was coated in little patches of ice. Being of the clumsy variety, I've fallen down enough times just trying to exist in the world, so I don't take chances when it comes to running outside in icy conditions. I love running outside, so the shift to the indoor months is always a bit of a struggle. I woke up this morning, check the temperature and took a peek outside, and almost immediately started trying to talk myself out of my morning run. "You can go after work," my brain said. I didn't want to go the extra mile of driving myself to Planet Fitness, didn't want the monotony of the treadmill. I almost gave in, but then I remembered--I'm 5 weeks into this training plan, and I promised I wouldn't quit on myself. I shrugged into gym clothes, grumbling in my head the whole time, and drove myself the exactly 5 minutes it tak...

Happy November, friends. I've been working my butt off these last few weeks of October, as I've not only continued with the Run, Selfie, Repeat 5k training plan, but also participated in the Potterhead Running Club's all-out mileage extravangza, Quidditch. And now that November has come around, I've decided to set myself yet another challenge--I'm using the NaNoWriMo motivation to write 50,000 words of CNF this month. But this blog post isn't about the crazy writing and walking challenges I've set myself recently. It's about running. Or, as Kelly Roberts would say, maybe it's about "life with a side of running." The past couple weeks of training have honestly felt amazing. That's not to say there weren't runs where I struggled or days I had to really talk myself into going out the door. Of course there were. But the thing about not being able to run for so long is that I really appreciate the opportunity to get out there now...

-cue Eminem's "Without Me"- Guess who's back, back again? After running the Great Race 10K proved that my body can, in fact, still do the whole running thing, I decided to work my way slowly back into a routine before starting to train in earnest for the Flying Pig Half-Marathon in 2020. I put my deferral code to good use and registered for the 2020 race. Friends, it was not easy. I felt fearful and futile and small as I filled out the form, not fully believing my body would let me be ready next May. Fearing that I would have to defer again, an endless loop until I finally let the race fees go to race and the dream die. But I did it anyway. Because that's fear talking. That's the old voice that whispers "You're a quitter. You give up. That's what you DO." Didn't we fight this battle back in 2018 with the whole "become a runner" thing? Yeah, that's what I thought, too. But so it goes--the same old cycle, our patterns ...

I have written before about how hard it is for me to sit still these days. I love taking long walks, doing yoga, just generally moving. And while I've been trying to cultivate more intentional stillness in my life, life had other plans: forced stillness. Oh, how badly I handle having my independence stripped away. This week, I've been dealing with knee pain that has left me crying on the couch because the act of walking is too painful to be justified except in extreme need. And I have been cranky.  It's amazing what we take for granted when our bodies are well and whole. Making our own dinner. Getting the mail. Running to the corner store for a snack. Taking out the trash. All of these things felt suddenly painful and difficult as my knee seemed poised to snap out of position with every step. Yesterday, I went to the doctor and got an official diagnosis on my knee. It turns out, nothing is ripped or torn or broken at all--it's just patellofemeral pain syndrome, ak...

I write to you from the couch, where my butt will be most of the day because, surprise surprise, I've got an injury! To say I'm frustrated would be an extreme understatement. Over the past couple days, my left knee has grown increasingly sensitive and unstable feeling, to the point where I'm now taking a full day of rest in hopes that it will feel better in the morning. Don't worry, I've got an appointment in with a doctor in case things don't improve. It's just that, with the recent experience I had in the medical system, I am not optimistic that doing so will really do much good with this kind of issue. The hours and dollars I wasted only to be repeatedly told different things about how to fix a problem that still hadn't been identified are fresh in my mind, and so I'm hoping this knee will handle itself. I am not good at being still. I love long walks, filling my weekend with the outdoors. I love running and yoga and being the able-bodied pe...

A week of training for my fall 10K is already in the books! I've already started Week 2 off strong with my scheduled 25 minute run early this Monday morning, so I'm feeling pretty good. Week 1 saw the first real, hot, muggy days of a Pittsburgh summer come in strong. Consequently, my non-air-conditioned post run life has been sweaty.  I got in a total of 5.5 miles between my two runs, and did some Runner's Yoga with Adriene on the off days to keep myself stretched out. Saturday's long run was planned for 2 miles, but I pushed on for a 5K because it's Fandom Running Club Racery Season! (more on that later). On average, my pace was around 11:29/mile. This may seem slow to some, but to me, it's right on target for my goal 10K pace of 11:30/mile. This is a conservative goal, looking at what I had hoped would be my Half Marathon pace in the Race that Wasn't earlier this year. In theory, I should be able to manage a bit faster for a shorter race--but I want...

Here we go again--I'm officially training for my next race! July 1st was supposed to be Day 1 of my training cycle for my first 10K of the year, The Great Race 10K. However, my past two weeks looked like this: Go on vacation, hike Mt. Marcy, drive 10 hours home, work three days, spend the next weekend in a cabin with 14 other humans, drive home to immediately meet up with my Dungeons and Dragons group for several hours of gameplay. I can count the hours I've had to myself over the past two weeks on one hand, which in introvert terms means I am running on E, big time. Plus, when you're on vacation or in the woods with friends or hanging out with your DnD buddies, the 9pm bedtime tends to go out the window. Needless to say, when my 5am alarm went off on Monday morning, I had zero left to give. I chose sleep instead of my first training run. And man, did I beat myself up about it for the next two days. Day one, how could I be failing at this already ?! The guilt is, ...

I've mentioned before that 2019 was originally supposed to be the year of my first half marathon. But ah, life--how often it has other plans for us instead. Now that my injury/ongoing issues with my hip/shoulder/back are (mostly) under control, I've been settling back into my fitness routine. This mainly includes doing yoga every (or almost every) morning and going for a run every other day. For the past year and a half, I've pretty much always been following a training plan for one race or another. But, since my half marathon plans fell through and my next race isn't until September, I'm in an in-between, a lull. It feels weird. I'm so much better about running consistently when I have a schedule, a plan, to stick to. Yet, I think it's important to take a little time to remember why I fell in love with running in the first place, let my body call the shots for a little while.  So, I've been running again, usually for about 30 minutes three t...

Hello, internet people! I'm currently cozied up in my warmest hoodie at the coffee shop, because the university where I work got a snow day ! It's in the single digits with a negative wind chill here in Pittsburgh, so it is cold. As much as I try to embrace winter, I can't help but ask "why do I live here?" any time the temperature gets below, say, 30 degrees. But instead of complaining about the cold, let's talk about those 2019 goals and some of the reasons behind them. First: run a half marathon. More specifically, run the 2019 Flying Pig Half Marathon. As I mentioned in my intro post, 2018 was the year I became a runner. Since my first 5K in college, I'd been flirting unsuccessfully with the idea, running for a little while before giving up when I didn't see progress or when it got cold outside. I loved the way it felt to finish a run, but I didn't feel like I could be a runner. I expected to give up before I even started. When 2018 tim...