Your Basic Motivation Monday Stuff. And Dancing Frappuccinos.

Last Monday, 6:47 a.m.: It's going to be hot today but I feel ready for my eight miles. I can't leave until 9:00, after Muffin gets on the bus, so plenty of time for breakfast and more water.

During the run I struggled with the heat. For most of it I imagined a huge Midnight Mint Mocha Frappuccino dancing on the path in front of me.

It never occurred to me to search for frappuccino gifs before.

Making healthy decisions when I'm well-rested and well-hydrated it easy. Making them when I'm tired and hot is not so I'm very pleased with myself for not pulling out my phone and ordering a frappuccino to be ready when I passed the Starbucks near my home. Instead I made a mint mocha protein shake at home. It wasn't the same, obviously, but it wasn't bad and I know it was better for me.

I didn't get my eight miles, though. I barely got seven and the last mile was mostly walking along shady, tree-lined streets. The temperature rose twelve degrees while I was running. I think losing some of my fitness means I've lost some of my heat acclimatization. Burundi, India, Mali. Summers in Rhode Island, Florida, Washington, D.C. I'm a lover of heat and humidity. It's a lot harder to face it now, though.

This morning I had six miles on my training plan. I had to do a little shuffling around of workouts. Muffin was home sick last Friday when I'd planned on this six-miler. We had a busy weekend but I did manage a short run/walk while she was in karate on Saturday and she and I walked together on Sunday morning. (A walk at her pace does help me get my steps in and encourages me to drink plenty of water but it's hardly a workout for me.) Looking at the week ahead, today and tomorrow are really the only days I have time for significant workouts so I have no choice but to make it work. Six miles today and the climbing gym tomorrow, then whatever else I can squeeze in all the other days.

Despite temperatures falling a bit it was still hot and sunny out there this morning. I did my six miles. I did pull out my phone a quarter mile from home and order an iced latte with soy milk to pick up when I ran by that Starbucks. I came home and drank it with leftover roasted garlic and broccoli quinoa salad.

This morning I tried on a pair of shorts from last summer and they almost fit. They are the gauge I'm using rather than the scale. Maybe all the quinoa and ab workouts are starting to pay off.

This is the last week of school for Muffin. After that my schedule will be all out of whack and I have no idea what I'm going to do.

Expectations vs. Limitations

"You'll never be more than alive
You'll never do more than survive
Until you expect it"
~10,000 Maniacs - Few And Far Between

Yes, I've gotten to the point where I'm quoting favorite songs from my teen years for inspiration. (On that same playlist, "I think about the time, I kicked a boy 'til he cried," The Sundays.)

I've been loosely following a training schedule to get ready for my two ten-mile races. This is the first week where I'm feeling the craziness of trying to fit it all in. Mike's out of town and I have some volunteer commitments at Muffin's school. I can only run during her school hours anyway, which limits me if I have any other plans during the day. A couple hours of writing/working is nice to accomplish regularly. I also need to eat, and feed Muffin, which means I need to make time for grocery shopping and cooking. I'll let the dishes and laundry pile up for days, though. It's not as urgent as the eating and the running.

My weekday runs this week are supposed to be a five miler and an eight miler. Yesterday I planned to run but when I woke up I wasn't feeling it and went to the climbing gym instead. I'm perfectly happy with that decision because I felt great by the end of the day and I woke up ready to run this morning. With my IT band acting up, though, I was hesitant to commit to eight miles. Generally I tell my body, "Run X miles," and my body does it without questioning me. I think that's how I got injured in the first place, however, so I need to rethink that strategy.

Part of me really wanted to get the eight miles over with because this morning was the only time I have until next Monday to fit in a long run. The me of two or three years ago would have said, "Fuck it! Run the eight miles and care not about the tiredness and injuries. You'll bounce back!" But the me of right now really doesn't want to be in pain if it can be avoided.

I chose a route that put me at Metro stations at mile five and mile eight so I could gauge how I felt along the way and decided when to bag it and head home. I kind of knew I was only going to run five miles but I didn't want to rule out eight until I'd honestly assessed how my IT band felt.

Things felt not great. Despite rolling and stretching, my quad was tight and there was some tenderness in my calf. Between miles three and four I had a running dialogue in my head between younger me and current me about stopping at five miles or not. Older, wiser, lamer, safer current me won. I detoured off the path and around a small park before arriving at a Metro station at 5.1 miles. It was absolutely the right choice. By the time I'd gone through the turnstile and gotten onto the train platform, my left calf had seized up in what I assume is anger at having taken it out running. 

Four days of walking and yoga should prepare me for a longer run on Monday. I've trained for enough races to know that I still have plenty of time to get those eight- and ten-mile runs in before the first race at the end of July. I'm still trying to figure out my new limitations before I can tell my body what I expect from it.

Glutened!

I've been gluten-free due to celiac disease since 2003. For the most part I've been awesome about managing it and the gluten-free market has improved so significantly since then that I sometimes just stop in the grocery store, staring in disbelief at all the choices that didn't exist ten years ago. I've lived in and traveled through several countries without major incidents. I don't get to eat every delicious food that crosses my path. I give up a lot of treats just because I can't be certain. I always remind myself that my health is worth more than that one amazing dessert.

I had gluten once in Bamako, in July 2014, within days of my arrival. I knew what I'd done; I recognized the pattern of my gastrointestinal distress as what happens when I eat gluten. As a precaution I went to the doctor to rule out parasites and food poisoning because I was in a new country with different food safety practices and germs I hadn't been exposed to before. They treated me for dehydration. I lost several pounds. It was a shaky start to my time in a new country but I recovered.

The culprit of the gluten was unexpected but quickly determined. Beef brochettes at a pizza place. There was so much flour being tossed around the kitchen with abandon that it covered every food inadvertently. And thus the psychological aspect of celiac disease set in. In a place where I already felt isolated by being an outsider, I couldn't frequent one of the most popular expat restaurants with my friends. One time I tried drinking a glass of wine while my friends ate but it was hard to smell the pizza and the grilling meat and watch everyone else enjoy it while I couldn't even eat the inherently gluten-free dishes.

For almost three years, all over France, Mali, Austria, Kenya, and the United States, I avoided gluten until a few weeks ago. There are two pizza places in our neighborhood and they both do a decent gluten-free pizza. I still prefer the one I make at home but sometimes I want to have pizza in a restaurant with my friends and family so I've come to rely on these two restaurants. I ordered my usual gluten-free pizza for pickup to take to a friend's house for dinner.

The pizza in question.

 By the time we sat down to eat I was so hungry that I ate two slices before I realized it was too delicious to be a gluten-free pizza. I'm not going to lie. After the initial horror of discovering it I was tempted to eat more since I was going to get sick already. But I didn't. I did finish off Mike's beer, since I hadn't had real beer, other than an occasional tiny sip, in so long.

Then I anxiously awaited the pain in the lower left side of my abdomen that usually signifies gluten poisoning. I barely slept that night, wondering if it was the gluten causing my sleeplessness or the nerves of waiting for the symptoms that caused it. By the next morning my stomach was still fine and I began to question everything that had happened. It wasn't a relief to not be sick. It was more nerve wracking than usual, knowing that I'd eaten gluten but my symptoms weren't manifesting in their usual way.

By about noon I realized what was going on. Inflammation. I'd never had it before but I knew it was a common symptom for many people. Full body ache. Exhaustion. Skin so sensitive I recoiled when Muffin tried to hold my hand. My plan had been to bring my pizza leftovers back to the restaurant to find out what happened with my order. By the time Mike got home from work I could barely get off the couch without great discomfort so he took them back for me, explaining to the manager that I was too sick to go myself.

To the manager's credit, according to Mike he was horrified. My receipt said "gluten-free" on it and my crust was clearly not their gluten-free crust. He looked up the name of the person who prepared my order so he could yell at him. He refunded us for the pizza and gave Mike a gift card for fifty dollars. He told Mike he wanted the chance to make it up to me personally, once my appetite for pizza from their restaurant returned. Two days later the manager called me to see how I was doing.

I was much better, gluten-wise, by the time he called, but the gluten weakened my immune system enough that the horrible cold Muffin had had, that I'd thought I'd successfully fended off, moved on in. I was still on the couch, although from a chest cold and sinus infection rather than inflammation.

And the thing is, unlike when I have the gastrointestinal problems from gluten, I never lost my appetite, even for pizza. Again the psychological games spring up, having to rebuild my trust with that restaurant. But a week later I was at the other restaurant enjoying a pizza while the waiter talked about how they recently changed to a new gluten-free crust that customers said was tastier than the old one. (It was pretty good, as far as gluten-free crusts go.)

Mainly I'm angry because it was one more setback after a winter and spring of injuries and illness. One more week that I couldn't run as much as I wanted to. A few more days that I couldn't do any kind of workout. It was while I was sick on the couch that I signed up for the two ten-mile races for later this year. I'm tired of being sick and injured and I really want to stay on track.

Cutting back on Social Media

Several weeks ago Muffin was home sick from school with a bad cold. As she snuggled on top of me on the couch, warm and sniffly and sleepy, I was pretty much immobilized so, like many parents in my situation these days, I picked up my phone to scroll through Facebook to pass the time. By the second day of that routine, I was done. I realized how bad Facebook was making me feel. I was a member of several groups where it is apparently no longer enough to simply be a nice, polite, person, you have to wear the badge of exactly what kind of feminist, gluten-free, stay/work-at-home mother you are. It's not enough that I support women breastfeeding in public. If I let slip that I didn't enjoy the few times I did it with Muffin, I've become a horrible mother who doesn't support women. In a discussion about childcare options, someone made a comment that having family watch your child "never works out." I called her out on it, saying it's a very good option for many families, even if it doesn't work out for some, and suddenly I'm perceived as a privileged bitch with free childcare. (I don't have free childcare. I have a good public school and the generosity of family members when they happen to be here visiting us or we happen to be other places visiting them. But I've learned that Facebook groups are not the place for details and nuance.) Even friends I agree with on many issues were so vehement about their opinions that it became tiresome. It was no longer enjoyable to be bombarded from all sides.

So I stopped. For several days I stayed off Twitter entirely and I took only very quick peeks once or twice a day to check in on specific friends and family members on Facebook. I asked Mike to stop telling me whatever the latest Facebook news was. I left a bunch of Facebook groups. I turned off my notifications for Facebook and all my news apps. I chatted with friends. I read the news ad-free and comment-free on my Kindle. I listened to podcasts. I was still connected. I just took out all the tiresome social commentary.

And I was fine. I had more free time to read things that I find more enjoyable to read. I didn't miss any major news. After a few days I expanded my time and my group of friends I wanted to check on and stay in touch with. On Twitter, I created a list of about twenty people who I want to interact with regularly. I don't plan on turning my alerts back on. I control when I check on Facebook and Twitter. I won't forget they exist just because my phone isn't chirping at me every few minutes.

I'm choosing to control how I use social media in order to avoid some of the negativity. I'm not ignorant of what's going on in the world.

And I fully realize the irony of sharing this post on Facebook and Twitter.