Nineteen Miles

Today I ran nineteen miles. (I ran and am writing this on Sunday, but posting it Monday. I'm too tired to think into the future and change the tenses to match when this will be published and read.) It's my longest run to date. It was a lot harder than my seventeen-mile run two weeks ago. When I left early in the morning I was thinking a full marathon will be difficult but I can definitely get it done. By the time I hit mile eighteen I began to question that. I couldn't tell if I was hitting the wall or if I was simply hungry or thirsty. I cursed myself for choosing a route that had an uphill for miles fifteen through seventeen. When I checked my stats later, though, mile fifteen was one of my fastest; I don't know what came over me. I have a twenty-mile run in two weeks. I guess I'll see what happens when I keep ploughing on for one more mile.

The Marine Corps monument (pictured), also known as the Iwo Jima monument, is eleven and a half miles from our house. This is the second long run that I've passed it. It's the finish line for the marathon. It's an inspiration. I like stopping for a moment when I get to it to have my snack and contemplate what others have done and why I'm out doing this.

I've mentioned before that I'm raising money for Soldier On, an organization that provides services for homeless veterans. I need your help, guys. I'm six weeks out from my marathon and I'm going to start annoying everyone to donate. Click here to do so. Thinking about helping this great organization has been helping me through the tough miles. Thank you so much for helping me.

Back-to-School Edition

Ahem.

We moved to the Washington, D.C., area. We are still surrounded by boxes but the place looks a little more put together every day as each box goes out. Mike started his job. Muffin has started school. I've started two volunteer jobs and a part-time job.

I'm still marathon training, slowly but surely. I have to run nineteen miles this weekend, my longest run ever. I ran seventeen miles two weeks ago and I have no reason to believe I can't complete a marathon in, what, seven weeks? Six weeks? I'm measuring my time by days between long runs right now. Nineteen miles, ten miles, twenty miles, ten miles, etc., for the next few weekends. It looks like the heat has broken, so that's something. There were many miserable miles run this summer by me and others and I'm ready for some cooler weather. You can still contribute to my fundraising for Soldier On, if you'd like. Click here.

Muffin has been in public school in Virginia for all of two weeks and we are dealing with a kind of culture shock. I feel like we have to be on top of everything to keep politics, gender stereotypes, and helicopter parenting at bay. I feel like we are definitely the weird parents with the weird kid because I don't care that Muffin pokes around in the dirt at the bus stop (other parents don't let their kids play before school) but I'm concerned about political parties handing out leaflets on school grounds. (I posted about my encounter with that on Facebook -- in the near future I'll modify it for posting here.)

I've got an idea for NaNoWriMo this year, too. I'm researching and planning right now. More to come on that later, as the event grows closer. It starts two days after my marathon. I'm a sucker for long, slow, arduous tasks, apparently.

And that's about it for now. How are you doing?

You Don't Really Train for a Marathon Alone

I'm not going to lie. Running has been difficult the last few weeks. It's hot. It's humid. It's downright Bamako out. Friends in the Northeast, friends in Texas, friends in London -- we are all struggling to run right now. I guess that's how the summer is for everyone who's insane enough to train for a marathon through these months. We accept it because we got ourselves into this and we'll get ourselves out.

On Saturday morning I snapped this picture just before starting a thirteen-mile run. I wanted to remember appreciating the beautiful scenery when the miles go tough. Sunrise on the beach. Early morning surfers. Folks out for a stroll with their coffees.

The beautiful scenery barely pulled me through the first mile. My friends did, though. I met up with Running While Mommy and a few others. We were all running different distances but stayed together for a few miles. I would have given up much sooner if it hadn't been for my friends. I wanted to think of my goal. I wanted to think of all the people who have things so much harder than I do but perform amazing tasks every day anyway. I wanted to enjoy the beachfront. But I couldn't. I was too hot and too tired. My mind was a blank. But I had footsteps beside me and as long as I was accompanied by another runner I was going to keep going. Slowly but surely.

Since we all ran different distances we finished at different times. We caught up with each other by group text later in the day. Everyone was happy to have the motivation of meeting other people to get the run done. We were happy to have the run finished for the weekend. We probably all would have either skipped it or run shorter if we'd been on our own. It felt good to check in with my support system like that.

What made me feel great all over again was when the official Marine Corps Marathon account liked my image (to the right) on Instagram yesterday. It's a screenshot of the alarm on my phone going off at five in the morning with a caption of how I'm meeting my friends for the long run on what was the hottest day of the year so far. That little thing, that "like" from the organization that's putting on the marathon boosted my spirits immensely. It made me feel like I'm part of something big and they are recognizing every mile that the runners are putting into their training.

The marathon is less than a hundred days from now. My daily runs aren't as long as I'd like them to be, but I'm getting out there and doing something almost every day. And I'm confident that as long as I complete the long run each week I'll be able to complete the marathon.

Remember to check out my page for making a donation to Soldier On: Click here. Thank you to everyone who's donated so far to help me raise money to support homeless veterans.

I Want to Give Back. And I Need Your Help.

I had a mild cold and the weather was so hot and humid I put off my long run until something gave in. Fortunately after two days of rest, my sore throat and exhaustion cleared up. The weather, however, remained oppressive but I had no choice. This morning I was determined to do the long run. Only eleven miles, I said to myself. I'd done twelve milers the two weeks in a row before so eleven was practically an off week.

Mike had had a lot of our outdoor gear shipped from Bamako ahead of our main shipment so I sweated in the shed yesterday pouring through boxes for my CamelBak. I hate running with water (I don't like carrying stuff) but I knew it would be a necessity. This morning I geared up, forced a smile for this photo, and took off.

The water sloshed. I'd forgotten to press all the air out of the bladder. I also wondered if it had something to do with the ice cubes, too. I didn't want to stop and undo it all to press out the water on the road. I sucked it up and hoped the sloshing would stop bothering me.

For the most part the sloshing did stop bothering me. I had a lot on my mind. The heat. The traffic. Where it would be best to adjust the route to make it eleven miles instead of twelve. Muffin's upcoming birthday party plans. Our upcoming move. The constant sloshing mostly became background noise and my need for the water far outweighed my annoyance at the sound it made.

As I the miles wore on and I became more tired, the noise bothered me more. Then I passed a building with the flag at half-staff. And another. And I remembered that far more horrible things are happening in the world and my life wasn't so bad if I was on a voluntary run with water sloshing on my back. I sucked it up, ignored the water, and finished that eleven miles.

I'm giving back to those who have endured things more difficult than I have. I want to say "Thank you" for their sacrifices and hard work. I'm using my training for the Army Ten Miler and the Marine Corps Marathon to raise money for Soldier On. Soldier On helps homeless veterans by providing temporary housing and transitional services, eventually leading to permanent homes. I'm asking for your help. I have a fundraising goal of $2,500 by October 30, the date of the marathon. Every little bit helps. With all the headlines in the news lately it's easy to forget that other groups are struggling as well. This is something I can do to help. So can you. Visit my CrowdRise page to donate. I'll be paying the CrowdRise user fee myself so that all of the donated money will go to Soldier On. And please share.

Thank you so much.

Book Review: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami

After you've read something, please consider leaving a line or two on Goodreads and Amazon. The authors appreciate it!

Here's my review as it appears on Goodreads.

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I’ve never read a Murakami novel before so I had no idea what to expect from his running memoir. I’d seen it on the bookshelf of a number of runners so as I started training for my first marathon a few weeks ago, I picked up the book as well.

I loved most of it. I found his philosophy with both running and writing to be similar to mine. There are many things that someone who’s not an endurance athlete can’t understand so maybe this book speaks to a narrow audience. But I’m glad to be a member of that audience. I found myself nodding along. I’d read a free sample on my Kindle, then found a used paperback to buy so I could underline passages and make notes in the margin. I loved this book so much I penciled it up.

Now that I’ve seen this glimpse into his mind I want to try his novels, too.

I would not say this is “equal parts training log, travelogue, and reminiscence,” as the book description does. It includes all those things, but not in equal parts. It’s a series of essays that he wrote, mostly during his training for the 2005 New York City Marathon, but the memories take him to other races and other periods of his life, and on a whirlwind tour of his stomping grounds across Hawaii, Boston, Greece, and Japan.


View all my reviews

Quiet Support

After a chat with Muffin about the very few times it's
appropriate to write in a book, I found this heart penciled
in the margin of my Murakami paperback.

It’s Monday morning. I’ve run. I’ve had my smoothie (greenish). I'm sitting down at my laptop to write.

I’m not here to be your cheerleader and tell you how amazing I feel. I don’t care if you drink smoothies or not. I happen to like them and adding a few leaves of spinach isn’t too bad. The truth is, my motivation is personal and yours is, too.

I started reading Haruki Murakami’s memoir, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, this week. I pretty much want to underline every sentence, there’s so much of it that I relate to. If you really need motivation for this morning, go read this book. (I’ll be writing a more formal review of it once I’m finished.) “Writing novels and running full marathons are very much alike. Basically a writer has a quiet, inner motivation, and doesn’t seek validation in the outwardly visible.”

This is why I keep my daily mileage on Strava, where everyone who’s there is because they are interested in that, rather than Facebook. This is why I don’t post my daily word counts to Twitter and rarely use the #amwriting tag. (If I really am writing, I’m not on Twitter.) I support my followers and those whom I follow in their running and writing endeavors. I know several people training for races and working on writing projects this year and I’ve got your backs. I do pay attention to what you're up to.

I’ve been drinking my smoothie every day for a week but I’ve forgotten to do my plank most days. I've done all the running I've needed to do. I've written some days and some days I haven't. The world has continued to turn despite my not following a plan and not documenting every moment of it for public consumption.

I'm only accountable to myself.

(I stared at this post for hours once I finished writing it without a title idea.)