5 Miles...Check!

Hello fellow bloggers and readers. It has been awhile, but I'm back and I'm still running. Only 9 weeks until the big race, but I'll get you caught up on that in a minute.

It would be way to cumbersome to catch you up on the two months that I haven't blogged, but let me just say that they were INSANE! I have been fighting with mother nature, I'll just hint at some of my adventures....14 ft alligator, Delphie's snake bite, frogs, spiders, roaches, Hurricane Earl, poison ivy & and an entire colony of Red Fire ants that attacked my feet. All in the midst of a very, very busy & exciting summer.

But now, we are home, and in the routine. School, preschool, work, and all the kids' activities, soccer, dance, Taekwando, and now we are trying to fit our regular running into the normal balance of life as well.

I have been keeping up with the running, by mid-August I had built myself up to a regular 3 miles (which was necessary to even begin an official Half-Marathon training program). So three weeks ago, we started the 12-week Hal Higdon training program for Novice runners. And yes, yesterday, Saturday, 9/11/2010, I RAN 5 MILES. And here's the crazy part....I felt good. My legs hurt, painfully actually, but my breathing felt good, and I really felt like if I had to I could keep going. I did it!

And yes, I'm all in, folks. I bought myself a water bottle belt (see picture), and I load with half water, half gatorade (gotta get those electrolytes), I've got my armband with my Droid phone that also plays music, as it uses the Endomondo app to GPS track my route, distance and mile pace. I've got my visor and my sweat-wicking shorts. I've pre-mapped all my runs. I am officially a ......... runner.

And that is beyond my comprehension. Life Lesson - never say never!

Overrun with exhaustion

Haha, just trying to use "run" in all my blog titles since I'm doing this running thing.

Side note: For those of you (2) that actually follow my blog, getting ready to overhaul it in the next few days. Had a major brainstorm of the things I really like and how they can be funny together. So stay tuned for the makeover. It will still include my brave and probably futile attempt at the half marathon, yet so much more about the real me.

But for now....went on choir tour last week. SO AWESOME! Totally a success after 4 years of not having one, think we helped everyone realize why they are so awesome. But on a side note, that meant about 10 days of no exercise, let alone my running. And I had SO built up to that solid two miles. So tonight was my first attempt back.....and I'm not gonna lie, pretty stoked on myself....ran two solid miles and ran half of the second mile at a faster pace than I usually do. (I'm a terribly slow runner). Now, as a note to would-be runners...I'm not a fan of the treadmill. I like goals like "I'll get to that tree and then walk" or "I can make it to the next street over and then it's downhill," but on the treadmill, it clocks every .01 of a mile you run so to me it feels like your crawling at a snail's pace to get to a larger goal. ("and leaving a sticky trail all the way behind you" for anyone who went to NOLA'07)

But tonight...the treadmill was the bomb. I conquered. I think b/c it was sooooooooooooooooo hot outside I knew the only way I could run was inside, so I just beefed up the music volume, watched the TV's in the gym (NCIS, I think?), and ran and ran. And I did it, I had the energy, I had the determination. Tonight's music of choice was J Roddy Walston and the Business....awesome running music if you don't have it. You can literally keep pace with it, 1st album Hail Mega Boys, next album coming soon, but you can get a 3 song EP on iTunes. I'm thinking next run, I'm gonna go for a Choir Tour Bus Dance Party Mix.

Final note, and I'm a little bitter about it....the fact that I had such good success tonight means that I must have built up some endurance prior to leaving for choir tour....which in turn means, UGH, it is time to increase to 3 miles. Glass half empty...Crap. Glass half full....hey, only 10 more miles to go after that.

It's all about the shoes....running shoes!

So, it's going to take me forever to try to backtrack my initial running, though I'm truly still in my initial stages. So here's the brief attempt:

• 5 weeks ago, started running. Couldn't run 2 full miles. But went out and got fancy "the real deal" running shoes. They even analyzed my feet & and I tried them on a treadmill in the store. Ok, so I have to stop here and expound some more b/c it was hilarious. I'm running...on a treadmill....in the middle of a store....in my jeans & cute tshirt! So she says "how do they feel?" And I'm like "compared to what?" She: "do they work well?" Me "I don't know, I don't know how they are supposed to work." She "Are they comfortable and do they stabalize your running?" Me: "I'm in a store on a treadmill in my jeans, and I'm not a runner, I couldn't begin to tell if they are remotely doing what they are supposed to be doing." I bought the shoes!
• First 2-3 times out, ran until I felt like I was going to die....about 1/2 mile. Walked a bit, ran a bit, walked a bit...liked the shoes. Note on long-term running....definitely get the motivation of cool gear like nice shoes.
  
• Accountability is good. Ran with family a few times, that pushed me...especially when Delphie is biking beside me. Frankly, it's a pain, but whenever we were going uphill, she would get "too tired" to bike up the hill, so even though I'm sucking in air like I'm buried in the sand, I'd get behind her and run while pushing her bike. Building endurance....building endurance!
• That worked. Finally about 2.5 weeks in, went for a run by myself with the old ipod set to my energetic playlist so cleverly named "Exercise," and ran the two miles on my own without stopping or walking! Success. It felt good, I felt proud. I could see the long-term goal ahead, could feel the endorphins flowing, maybe I'll end up loving this running thing afterall.
  
• Later that week, met my friend at the track to run together, again, had a good run. But as we were walking our cool down, we both looked at each other and said....great 2 miles, but really....13? No way.
  
• Been doing that 2 miles a bit now, feeling pretty good. Time to push myself up to 3. Got a head cold this week though, and my first attempt to run with it killed me. Didn't make it. Ugh. WWRRD? (What Would a Real Runner Do? in case you were wondering)
  

Haha. Thank God it's not until November. We'll see. Might have to get a new pair of shoes. I had totally underestimated the value of a woman's love for shoes in this running equation.

Too tired to blog about anything tonight, my running over the past three weeks, or my current thoughts on running, or life at all...so, I'll just say that I did get up today to meet friends at the track at 9:00am to run, and I did it, 2 solid miles. I'm telling you...I think aliens have kidnapped me and replaced me with a robot. Watch for other strange behaviors, and if necessary, please intervene for my rescue.

From that day on...I was runnin'.

Ok, so I've decided I don't really have a focus of anything to blog about. I'm not into using my blog as a journal of my life, that's what my journal is for, and I'm not trying to share all that with anyone and everyone. So far, I've just been really random. I really like blogs where there is a particular focus, someone trying to accomplish something and documenting it along the way. I'm sure there are tons or real "runners' blogs," and I'm not a real runner, at least not yet, but here goes. I'm going to blog about my attempt at running a half marathon.

And I'll still throw in some random movie reviews or other life stories along the way, but I'm going to document this interesting twist in my life.

So here's my back story. I HATE running. Always have. Have done it occasionally throughout my life for either exercise or weight loss, but never more than 2 miles, and never really on my own, always because someone else was trying to get me to do it.

But I'm surrounded in life by people that love to run, my husband, my best friend, other friends. Ugh. They've all done small races, 5ks, 10ks, some of them have even done half-marathons & full marathons. But I've no desire, really none. I don't even want to go for a jog.

Don't get me wrong I love to exercise. I love the painful stuff, weights, squats. I'll do 100 squats til I can't walk for a week, and love "the burn." But get me running 1/4 of a mile, and the cramp in my side will shut me down. I feel like I can't get enough oxygen in, my breaths are like last attempts to suck in air in a trapped coffin. Ok, so I exaggerate, but this has been the depth of my hatred for running.

So for several months now, my crew has been talking about running the half-marathon in November.....and how I'm going to do it with them. Whatev. I ignored, and ignored. No desire, I told them, just not interested. And then one day...out of the blue....I said Ok, let's do it. What? What did you just say (to myself)? Are you out of your mind (also to myself)? I just agreed.

I think there are several reasons for this. I know I can do it, I know I can do anything that I decide to do and put my mind to, and I can do anything I train for. I know this already about myself, but I think I was tired of other people thinking I didn't know it. Stop telling me "you can do it", I know I can, I have no personal doubts about my capabilities. So I think I just decided to finally do it, really to get them all off my back. Good motivation, right.

Also, I think I want to see what the hype is all about, then be done with it, and not have to do it again. Everyone says, oh no, you'll be addicted when you're done. I actually don't think that is going to happen to me, but we'll see. I want to go ahead and do it, it's a whopping 5 month commitment out of my life, and then move on. And of course, I'm really hoping the bikini-body comes as the bonus result...but trust me, it's all psychological for me.

So, we're doing it...ups, downs, highs & lows, we're doing it. And I'm going to keep you posted on the process...all 2 of you who will keep reading my blog after this entry.

(Note: now that you've read this, we actually started running two weeks ago. I've been out 5 times since deciding to start, but I didn't want to overbore you the first time, so I'll highlight some of those trials in the next blog or two and get it all caught up)

I'm not LOST anymore!

So here goes, hope I tick some people off....if you didn't like the finale of LOST, then you didn't understand the show, or at least really missed the point. For those of you that are now mad at me...here's your wakeup call. They didn't call it LOST b/c they were all lost on an island, they called it LOST because the survivors of the crash were all LOST in life. The show was about their search, finding one another, finding answers, finding themselves, and ultimately, their redemption.

If you could bear with me for a moment to call the writing of this show "literature", then I make the case that once again that literature relies heavily on our most precious story in all the world, the story of what Christ did, and thus our faith that lives out from that.

Jack in this final episode, plays the role of Christ. Don't take me wrong here, I get that it's a TV show, I'm not likening it to great theology. I'm just making the point that when great writers need a great ending, they are over and over inspired by the most beautiful and precious of all stories, that of true self-sacrifice, laying down one's life for those loved, doing the thing none other could do for the benefit of all. It's been done for centuries, but in modern times in hundreds of stories from The Grapes of Wrath to the recent Harry Potter. It gets us every time, because every human created by God, knows that feeling deep in his heart as the truest of all stories, the story of our own creator, thus of our own redemption. Even those who never acknowledge Christ as a their Savior, know this story because He has placed it in us. And though many would not acknowledge it as true, they do acknowledge it as a beautiful idea, the truest sense of how we should all love one another, which again, comes from our inherent desire to have the relationships with one another that God wants us to desire, and most specifically with Him.

And so, brilliant writers know that this will get 'em every time. Sacrifice the hero, by their own choosing. Jack chooses the role because his loved ones have put their faith in him. As I watched the last few weeks, the minute he chose to be the final candidate for himself, I knew he was going to die. I saw it coming, the beautiful Christ imagery in the end. And when it happened, I cried, and I loved it and thought it was beautiful.

And then to further the idea of our faith values in the show, the redemption of so many in the end was also equally beautiful. Ben, so deserving and equally undeserving, was given an instant moment of grace by Hugo, and therefore redeemed. And we could go, character by character, but I won't here, and talk about their redemptions in this ending season, but I will mention probably the strongest, Jin, who at the end was unwilling to leave Sun behind.

Ok, but so away from the strong themes of faith that wove so deeply into this show, let's return to the fact that was just TV, and let's just address it more superficially. If you wanted all your questions answered, then you didn't get it. Here's a hint: LIFE DOESN'T ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS! In my short 35 years, I've asked God "why" more times than I can count. 4 of them were yesterday. There are things I don't understand, people I don't understand but love anyway or dislike anyway.

There was no way they were going to answer all our questions, and there are questions we have that weren't worth their time to answer. Some of that was just what made the show so stinkin' cool. The Dharma shark?? Who cares now, we all freaked when we saw it! Who was Dharma, who were the others? Does it really matter? They did answer an amazing amount of questions, and they took us to the heart of the matter...I mean, island.

And again, they took care of the relationships, of the characters who had become our friends, of the ones who were LOST. And that's what mattered. And for that I applaud Damon & Carlton. I applaud them for their bravery NOT to answer too many mundane questions, for their brilliance as writers, for their passion for being creative and unique, and for their openness to being inspired by the most brilliant writer of stories of all time.

I loved it. I loved my time with this show over the past 6 seasons, I will probably watch it again from beginning to end sometime in the future (I keep saying that about Lord of the Rings too). If you didn't like it, perhaps you should re-evaluate your love for the show, and then go back and take a second look.

Feelin' WICKED! And actually quite good.

So total surprise, got a call from mom at 4:30 last Thursday, "aren't you having a girls' night out tonight". "Yea," I say, "we're going to dinner." "Want to go see WICKED instead?" "What? Of course!" And then, there we were with the worst best seats at WICKED. Stoked. Beyond stoked.

Absolutely one of the best shows I've ever seen, and I've seen quite a few. Among my top two for sure. And the scene Defying Gravity is the best scene of a show EVER, musically, technically, etc. I'm a techie nerd when it comes to shows, I watch the lights & the set changes, and I'm so critical and look for mistakes, etc. This was an amazing technical show!

But so here's the thing, it's also an AMAZING story. I'm a huge fan of out-of-the-box stories. Anyone (well maybe not anyone) can write a great love story and set it in war-torn and class-impacted France (Les Mis). Or a love story set amongst racial Russian families (Fiddler). And even stories like RENT, that are very out-of-the-box, but tout really political and social agendas aren't nearly as enticing to me.

But this...this crazy story of what if's. I am not just in love with this show, I'm in love with Gregory Macguire (the guy who wrote the book, Wicked:The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch). I mean really, this is how my brain works. Like him, I could watch the Wizard of Oz, and then wonder for the rest of the night, how did she become so Wicked, and why was she green? And he wrote the story. And it's genius.

But really, on a spiritual level, here's why it's so genius...not only does he wonder to write the answers to these questions, but he goes so far as to create a story where the "Wicked" witch is entirely GOOD! She wasn't wicked at all, she was moral, brave, courageous and does the right thing by everyone to the very end. And she was someone who life set out from the beginning to be against.

What if we lived our life like that? Seriously, how many people TODAY did you write off b/c they were different, unusual or too much for you to deal with? How many people did you stereotype as mean, cruel, evil or just plain "bad"? What if you were wrong? What is that persons' backstory? What if their entire life is based on their attempts to be good, but at the points your lives intersect, your perspective on their life is bad.

What if you could live life assuming that everyone wants to do good at heart? Or at the very least, has the potential to be good at heart? What if you started treating people that way? No more stereotyping, no more writing anyone off. Everyone gets treated the same, with love & respect, as if you understand that they are only trying to do their best by what they believe. What if you showed everyone LOVE? Hmmm....sounds like someone else I know, someone I try to be like every day.....yet fail miserably at. (I'll keep on trying, JC)

Try an experiment. Spend a day thinking about everyone that you encounter and that they have a back story, a personal story, that's nothing like what you think or know. How does that change how you treat them, how you interact with people? What if you treated everyone as if they were all GOOD at heart? Can you do it? Does it make a difference for you? It does for me!

It's brilliant.