Long run day, today. 10 miles. My time wasn't awesome, and my miCoach said I was only in my target zone 37% of the time, but that's another story for another day. The point is, it was a long run, and it was hard, and more than enough time for me to wonder why I'm doing this. Why does the girl who couldn't run a mile when she was young(er) and able(er) want to do it now?
The short of it? Because I can.
So? There are lots of things I can do, right? I can ride horses. I can write (sorta). I can sing (depending on who you ask). But nobody cares about that stuff but me.
A mentor of mine who was also a salesman and no doubt quoted a long line of salesman when he told me this, once said to me, "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." Then, of course, he went about telling me how to convince people I care. He called it 'the dancing bear act.' He was good at it. I rode along with him on sales calls, and he was convincing. I believed he cared. Thing was, I went to the same sales school he did, so I knew that once he got those people eating out of his hands, he misrepresented, lied, and misled them to get their money.
It's no wonder I failed at sales. The point is, I can do what he told me to do, and people would think I care. I can hold hands. I can hug. I can squeeze shoulders and elbows. I can shake my head sadly. But I don't. I'm not big on touching. I don't want you to touch me, and I won't touch you. That doesn't mean I don't care. It means that those things coming from me would not be genuine. But I did get his message.
Actions speak louder than words.
And when we're talking about cancer, something that often renders us helpless, hopeless, unable, and incapable on so many levels, all that's left to focus on is what we can do, each of us, individually, to heed Kim Manners' direction to "Action!"
I can run. I'm not good at it. I have days like today when every direction seems to be uphill and into the wind and I get passed by a lady leading a donkey. (I later passed her... twice.) But I can make the distance. So, I will.
Not just for Kim.
For Danny, too.
You wouldn't know Danny. A lot of people wouldn't, never got the chance. I met him when I was at a very low place in my life. I'd left grad school less than a year before that, spent the next months jobless, and then, pursuing the sales job that I knew was never right for me. I lost my car. Lived in apartment with no electricity, sold my plasma twice a week to buy groceries, and barely managed that. A dark, dark, place, though, admittedly, not the darkest.
Now, this could be a story about my hubby, because I met him at that time, too, but it's not, just another Danny.
This Danny I met when I was at the lowest my self worth had ever been. I'd just lost the sales job, first and only job I was 'let go' from. Not that I didn't see it coming. I sucked at sales. I just couldn't take people's money knowing how hard it was to live without it. Backward, whatever. I just couldn't do it. And what does a girl with a college degree and three semesters of grad school do for a living? She goes to a temp agency, and when they tell her all they have is manufacturing positions, she says, "Yes, please," and "Thank you."
It was the second job they sent me on. I worked there for a week before I met Danny. As a temp, I didn't have a regular shift, so as long as they needed help, I went. I was on my seventh day in a row of twelve hour shifts, on my feet, on concrete, doing my best to flounder through whatever task they gave me with almost no instruction. I was tired, and sore, and near tears, and just trying to do my best to not fail, because I couldn't fail again, and Danny came over to me, called me "Baby," like my hubby calls me "Darlin'" and showed me how to make it through the day. After that, he asked for me to be in his department all the time, and I got a regular shift. I also got hired on before my ninety-day trial was up.
I don't remember how many years I worked in that department. I was a cover operator, and Danny was the Cover Lineman. He was responsible for giving us our breaks and often didn't have time to take his own, because if he did, the line would get backed up so far he couldn't catch it up. Smoking wasn't allowed in the plant, but Danny often had a cigarette lit down under the strapper. No one ever said anything to him so long as he did his job. Just like no one ever said anything about all the infected cuts on his hands from the cardboard and strapping. People did say he was too skinny.
He said he knew.
Danny was always going to different doctors. They told him to eat more. He ate. He drank cans of Slim Fast like water because they're basically protein shakes and pretty high in calories. Never gained an ounce. They told him to stop smoking cigarettes. He said that wasn't going to happen. They told him had to stop smoking weed. He told them that wasn't the problem. They didn't believe him, I guess.
Danny was too skinny when I met him, working overtime for his wife and five kids, and he was too skinny when I got promoted to another position. I was happy to hear he moved to a warehouse position, even if it was at night so I didn't get to see him, because he got to drive a forklift instead of dragging heavy things around all day and wearing himself out.
He still didn't gain weight. He lost it.
One day I met him in the break room. He was choking down a bowl of Chunky Soup. Choking it down, hand shaking, and his Adam's apple working around every bite like it was dry sand. I asked him if he was still going to the doctor. He said they were still blaming it on the weed, but he had an appointment for a chest x-ray, at least.
He said he just wanted to stop feeling so... weak.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to guess what was on Danny's chest x-ray. Though, it apparently took more than a general practitioner.
I don't know exactly how it went from there. I hear they told him he had X-amount of time if they didn't treat the cancer, and possibly, Y-amount if they did the treatment, but the treatment wouldn't be easy on him in his condition. Of course, he got the treatment. He wanted to live.
He didn't.
I didn't go to his funeral. I didn't know what to say. What to do. I have a nervous tendency to laugh when I can't cry out loud. I didn't want to be the girl who laughed at his funeral. He would've understood, maybe laughed right along, but he wasn't alone. So, I didn't go.
I doubt there's anything I could've done for Danny to change that outcome. I tell myself he was already well down the path when I met him. But I never put out his cigarette either. I could have.
No, I probably couldn't have saved Danny. And no, I can't cure cancer. But a year ago, I would've told you I can't run. And now I can.
So, I do.
And maybe I do it for myself. On some level, it's a way to make up for all the things I planned to do with my life and didn't, couldn't, can't, whatever. But if by doing it I can show that I care, then that's why I'll keep on doing it, even when every direction is uphill and into the wind.
Because I can.
Until the next bend in the road. Watch out for giant plot holes.
--Tracy
Doing What We Can, and then Doing More
Team Logo Prototypes
Howdy again!
This post has less to do with running and more to do with presentation, but I have other posts in the works, including my review of the Adidas miCoach Pacer, and a sort of dedication post to a friend of mine who passed away from lung cancer several years ago this month.
But right now, I have this.
As I have noted in the sidebar, we're running for Team LIVESTRONG in association with SupportSupernatural.com (click on siggie at end of post). The question of, 'why not one or the other' would not be off base at all. So, why don't I just ask it and answer it at the same time.
Team LIVESTRONG is a group of athletes running, biking, or swimming for a cause. Everyone knows about the Lance Armstrong Foundation and what it stands for, the work it's doing to support cancer patients and research in the field. I sometimes hesitate to call myself an athlete. Heck, I sometimes hesitate to call myself a runner, but I run, and I train, and there's a lot of motivation and support that comes from allying myself with other athletes. And it's a cause I can really get behind.
SupportSupernatural.com stands for everything we love about the show that brought Tracer and I together, and about the fandom we've been in for over five years. That's a huge part of our lives, and we want to give something positive back. We could very well start out own organization, but the ladies at SupportSupernatural.com are already doing a great job, and we're already competing against our bodies and our schedules to train for and run the race. Can't we all just get along? And while the official charity for SupportSupernatural.com is A Dog's Life, which we also highly approve of and support, there isn't anyone involved with the show who wasn't touched by the loss of Kim Manners last year. And judging by the number of people who reposted the cancer awareness meme on LiveJournal when it made the rounds last month, it's a cause we can all get behind.
In talking with Tom Whiteside, our contact with the Lance Armstrong Foundation, I asked him if it was okay that we wanted to bring our fandom along for the journey, and he said it was more than okay to promote as many causes as we wanted to. However, we really don't want to have to manage more than one fundraising site, so it would be best for us if we can tie our causes together.
Hence, we're running for cancer research, in general, and fundraising through Team LIVESTRONG in honor Kim Manners and with the help and support of SupportSupernatural.com.
I went to SupportSupernatural's Cafe Press store (linked on their site, and soon to be linked on this one) in search of something to wear that would show our fandom support. The problem is, we'll be running the race in a Team LIVESTRONG jersey/shirt, and Cafe Press doesn't have any shorts or pants suitable for running or that have the logos on them.
I mentioned to the ladies that we really loved this logo:
And I added the dilemma about not having it on anything wearable other than tops. I asked if they would allow use of the image for us to design our own transferable decals, and they agreed. Of course, we also supported A Dog's Life by purchasing several items from the store, and I plan to do so again before the race.
Second dilemma: Most of our running tights are dark-colored, and printers don't have white ink, so I wasn't sure we could use the logo without changing the color scheme a little. Once again, they were nice enough to agree.
So, I played around a little with the colors, keeping in mind that I think the LIVESTRONG jerseys are yellow. Here are the first prototypes. I don't know whether I should add more color or keep it basic. Tracer's on vacation, so she'll have input. Once I get a few final choices, I might even put up a poll. But anyway, here's what I got started (they're smaller than actual size in the interest of blog overflow):
Grey/blue
Grey/blue with straight edges
Yellow to match the LIVESTRONG colors
Possible text placement, not sure text is necessary
Again, these are not final designs, just prototypes.I don't want to change the original too much except to make it visible on different backgrounds. Thanks again to Heather and Lindsay at SupportSupernatural.com for the help and generosity in helping us get our fandom the positive recognition it deserves.
Until the next bend in the road. Watch out for plot holes.
--Tracy
New Siggie, Test Post
This is just a post to test our new signature. It's obviously too big. I've downsized it at the host site, so it should fix itself in a day or so. We'll wait and see.
Do click on it, though, if you want to know more about SupportSupernatural.
--Tracy
Running Master Mix Part I
I am way passed obsessed with music. Love all of it, including like non-western genres. Yes, I have attended the Masters of Persian Music. One of like 5 Americans in there and the whole thing was in another language. Weird, but awesome lol.
Anyways, since I got an extensive collection and the iPod/whatever gadget you own that holds mp3s is an absolute must for long distance runners I present the 5 Master Mix Suggestions for this week:
"O...Saya" -- A.R. Rahman
--Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack version. BTW if you haven't seen this film go rent it. Now.
"If you want blood, you got it" -- AC/DC
--Anything more to say on that? No, 's AC/DC.
"Neighbourhood #3(Power out) -- The Arcade Fire
--Off the Funeral Album and you know they have a Killers sound and its catchy.
"Live Fast Die Young" -- Black Tide
--Classic sound thats fun to sing along with while you're on pace but then its like wait, what am I singing. I LURVS songs like that lol
"Flux" -- Bloc Party
--Its one of their singles thats crazy techno-y awesomeness. Feels like your running in some wacked out old school MTV music vid. I dunno =)
Why I (and quite possibly everybody) Should Run
My basketball coach used to tell/yell that she never wanted to see us running. She wanted to see us sprinting. I was fast, meant to be fast, and I better beat that opponent down the court. No excuses. I got hours upon hours of windsprints (suicides) behind me. And gonna be honest, I still have nightmares about an entire practice consisting of them because somebody had to piss off the Asst. Coach. After all, we screw up as a team not as individuals.
Don't get me wrong, I loved basketball. I'm also a very competitive person. I'll beat you down the court, and I'll beat you in a sprint. But sprinting was never really what did it for me. And while I loved the scrimmage and I love the game, my favorite part of practice was the starter laps.
We owed our coach 20 laps before we officially started practice, and there was something special about that longer running time for me. I could literally zone out, find some peace for my brain, and just get into the motion of it. Checking out sounds like the wrong term, but in a lotta ways thats what it was.
There's something to be said for having an activity, a set time in your day, for something that helpful and soothing to your mental state. I don't know about everybody else, but high stress levels creep up outta nowhere sometimes and your brain just needs a break.
I went nuts when I got outta basketball. Drank whatever I wanted (soda included--which I rarely got to have), quit the structure because I got the chance to for a change...I still worked out and still took care of myself but didn't want it to be my entire life.
But thing is, that life part ends up taking over, and soon you're left with nothing but migraines and stress built up and no outlet for it. Then, I remembered running...
So when I say everybody should run, I mean everybody should do something that sets their mind on auto for a while, gets them in a place where the things of the day, week, or month fade into the background. I'm all about exercise, and everything in moderation if you decide its not for you...but my second point would be, use that time to better yourself in some way.
Because lemme tell ya, there is nothing like getting the mental relax from the craziness of the day and replacing those overwhelming circumstances with the sensational feeling of personal accomplishment.
It's my opinion that everybody could use some of that.
Adidas micoach Pacer--Initial Reaction Post
It's here! My Adidas micoach Pacer arrived via UPS today. I was afraid it might not make it, despite the OUT FOR DELIVERY status on the UPS tracking site, being that we're under a Winter Storm Warning here in central Texas. It's snowing as I type. Walking snow, the big, globby kind that soaks you to the bone if you spend any amount of time in it but looks so lovely as motes in the beam of a lone streetlight. I'd like it a lot more if it was night, I guess. Right now, it's just cold and messy.
But, now I have it. My first gear haul of the blog. Along with the micoach Pacer, I also received a pair of Under Armour Spectre women's running shoes in graphite/carnation, which is just fancy talk for gray and pink. I'll review those another day, but UA has never let me down yet, and just from my initial try-on, I can tell these shoes will work well for me. *knock on wood*
This is about the Pacer. Most of you have probably never heard of it. I know I hadn't. I stumbled on it quite by accident last week when I was plotting how to spend that Tax Return money that was fixing to be burning a hole in my debit card at any moment. The only running gadget I had at the time was my Mio Classic Pink heart rate monitor. See link in sidebar. That's also a review for another day. I was looking for something a little bit more comprehensive that would give me pace information and have continuous heart rate monitoring. All my runner friends (are coming over tonight, damn you Hank Jr., get out of my head) rave about their Garmin Forerunners, the 305 in particular. When I started my online search, I had narrowed my choices to the Garmin 305, which has come down in price and can be had for around 150 bucks, or the Nike + system. Nike had everything I needed, since I'm not THAT keen on GPS. I've never had GPS in anything, so I don't feel the need to complicate my running further with that. Although, I did once get lost in my own neighborhood. For that problem, I've since acquired a cell phone. Tracy phone home. Problem solved.
So, I looked at Nike + first. For about 60 bucks, you can get the stride sensor and wristband which tells you distance, I guess, and not much else. For 30 bucks or so, you get the chip to plug into your iPod nano, and the stride sensor, which is wirelessly connected to the chip. After your run, you can plug the chip into your computer and upload all kinds of nifty stats to the Nike + website, chat with friends, and be part of a wonderful community. You can also download workouts, and miracle of miracles, a voice will talk to you through your .mp3 player to let you know how fast and how far you're going. I liked that idea. A voice coming through my .mp3 player seemed like a pretty novel idea. Sure, it doesn't really tell you anything you couldn't get off the wristband, but it's a voice. In my head. A voice! Yeah, I'm easily amused.
So, that's all good. Now the cons. One, the Nike + can be used with any shoe, but doesn't come with a means of attaching it if you don't have the Nike + compatible shoes. Con number two, the Nike + interactive system only works with the iPod nano. I have a Sandisk Sansa Fuze, two of them, which I am more than satisfied with. I don't want to spend the 30 bucks for the Nike + system only to fork out 150 more for the nano. I will say, though, it was a tough decision, because the new generation nano has a video camera in it, and I'd very much like a small, portable video camera to make vids for this blog. But that's not high enough on the priority list right now to warrant the extra expense. I have a clunky camera with vid capability that I can use in a pinch, and the miCoach works with any .mp3 player. Finally, the Nike+ isn't always accurate, distance-wise, but that wasn't a huge worry of mine, either, since I am now using MapMyRun.com and will probably continue to do so. No loss there.
In favor of the miCoach, the voice in the .mp3 player is an actual coach that tells you your workout stats as well as when to speed up or slow down. He (or she, depending on which voice you choose) knows what to tell you based on workouts you download to the Pacer via the website which are either part of one of their many training plans or made and fully customized by you. Which means, if you're already doing a training plan, like FIRST or Hal Higdon, you can use those workouts at templates to devise Pacer workouts online and then download them onto your Pacer so that your coach can keep you on track. Awesome. And the miCoach works with any .mp3 player. So, I don't have to trade in my Sansas. On the downside, it costs about 140 bucks.
Deciding against the Garmin was a little harder. It's only ten dollars more than the miCoach. It does way more than the Nike+ or the miCoach, so much, in fact, that I don't even know everything you can do with it. In short, probably more gadget than I need. When it came down to it, two things made me decide for the miCoach instead of the Garmin, and they're both kind of shallow. The first: the miCoach is new, and shiny, and I wanted to be the first kid on my block to have one. The second: hubby just bought me my Mio Classic for Christmas, which is a heart rate monitor that goes on my wrist like a watch. His feelings are going to be hurt if I replace it with a new watch-gizmo-thingie in February. Now, I'm essentially still replacing it, but since none of the miCoach gear goes around my wrist, I can still wear the Mio and hubby will think the rest is just add-ons. Plus, the Garmin isn't going anywhere and will probably get cheaper by the time I'm bored with the miCoach. Here's hoping so, at least.
All that being said, because of the snow, I'm not able to try out my miCoach just yet. It's currently charging, anyway, and the initial charge is supposed to take around 2 hours. That won't stop me from posting about my initial findings, complete with piccies and Tabby approval rating.
First, there was a box and some shoes. Okay, a couple boxes inside of one big box, one of which yielded shoes.
And then, there was Tabby, in for the ever important bomb sniffing test.
She said, no bombs on board, safe to be proceeding with caution.
But I know what you're all thinking.. WHAT'S IN THE BOOOXXXXX?
This is where my first criticism occurs. You can't tell from the picture, but the box did not survive the ordeal unscathed. Seriously, why must boxes be folded into impossible contortions so that one cannot even find where they're supposed to open, let alone pry them open once you do? Okay, so I probably could've figured it out, eventually, but at that point, I was deep in the throes of, 'OMG! Gimme my new toy, right now-itis.' Spoiled kids have nothing on adults who've spent their own hard-earned money and then had to wait, almost a full week to receive the goods in this instant gratification age.
Needless to say, the box eventually opened. It may never close again, but it is now open.
So, what is all that? On initial inspection, I found three black pod thingies, a silver whatsit that resembled a very large watch battery, an elastic strap with a snap on each end, and a baggie of cables and cords. One of the cables was obviously a USB. The other had male connectors on both ends, and I won't even go there... The last looked like .mp3 player earbuds but only had one bud. ONE earbud? And it's not even the kind that won't fall out of your ear when you're exercising. I had a momentary panic attack, imagining my favorite tunes with only ear bud and constantly having to put said bud back into ear, but then I read that you can use any earphones you like. So, I'll be using the ones I have now which hook over my ears and have as many buds as I have ears. I'll leave you to guess how many that is.
It took me less than five minutes using the included Quick Start Guide to find the necessary port and plug the main unit into my computer to charge. My comp automatically downloaded the driver and took me to the Adidas miCoach home page where I then made such important decisions as: how many and what type of workouts to load, what voice my coach should have, and what do I want my coach to tell me when I press the magic button on the center of the device that gives automatic updates. ('You're hot, and your butt is getting really tight' was not an option.) Now, in anticipation of receiving my toy, I had already gone online and registered with the site as well as picked out a workout program that's supposed to help me train for the 10k I'm registered to run in April. I went with the Run Faster option, rather than the Run A Race option, because I already know I can run 10k. While I don't have any visions of posting an awesome time in my first race, I want to at least race the race to the best of my ability. So, yeah, I have 30 workouts already planned over the next 8 weeks, and they automatically loaded onto my Pacer. There's also a place where you can change your heart rate zones to suit you better, since everyone is different, which is one of their selling points, and a neat assessment workout that's supposed to take 12 minutes and take you through all the training zones in a progressive manner so that you and your coach can get to know one another better. LOL.
One criticism that I have for the site as well as with the Nike + site is that there is no way to enter data that does not come from a device. I found a spot where I could enter numbers manually, since my micoach didn't arrive until after I'd already completed one of the workouts, but I couldn't get the numbers to stick. It still says I never completed this workout. And it will always say that, because I'm not going backward on my calendar. One thing some users might not like, as well, is that so far, there's no social networking feature to the adidas site. No message boards or challenges. Just you and your micoach. This is fine with me, as I spend too much time online anyway. Ask anyone who's waiting for me to post the next chapter of a story. :/
I'd say, within half an hour I had my device all set up the way I want it, got one of the other beanpod thingies, which turned out to be the stride sensor, attached to the laces of my new shoes (yay adidas for including the snap-on lace attachment) and got the third pod attached to the elastic strap, which is the heart rate monitor.
Now, I've never used a chest strap heart rate monitor before. I know they need to be snug, but when I first put this on, I was really skeptical. It couldn't possibly need to be that tight, could it? On first inspection, there didn't seem to be any way to make it bigger that I could see, only smaller. After I wore it for a few minutes, though, it made itself bigger, and when I took it off again, I facepalmed just a little. Once it was adjusted, it was still tight, but I stopped noticing it, so I guess it's fine. I don't see how it could restrict breathing at all. If you're breathing that high up into your chest, then you're doing it wrong, I think.
But still, the wearing of elastic around one's body parts always makes me leery. I don't know if any of you watch the Spike channel? There's a show on there called... I'm guessing here... "1001 ways to die." Have you seen it? The 1001 ways vary from moderately amusing in a 'anyone that stupid deserves to die,' sort of way, to completely gruesome and tragic in a way that will make you lose sleep. (Don't ever watch a marathon of it. You'll be scarred for life.) Anyone remember the one where the dude strapped a sausage to his thigh and then went to a club to attract some females of the species? He died of a blood clot that went to his heart or something like that. I am sad to admit that this image pops into my head every time I strap on the armband for my .mp3 player. And now, my heart rate monitor. Has anyone ever died from that?
Ah, so, now I'm all set up. My battery is fully charged and flashing green. Only thing left to do is tie on my shoes and go for a run.
Except... it's still snowing. Hard. And in about 15 minutes I have horses to feed and a sink full of dishes to wash before I can start dinner. Tomorrow, as they say, is another day.
To close off this initial reaction post, I turned the floor over to Tabby for her final inspection of the product.
While the box passed the Box Sturdiness Test with flying colors:
It left a little to be desired in the Box Fit Test, as she could not fit inside with the lid closed:
So, 4 paws out of 5 from Inspector T.
Chuck declined to comment:
Til the next bend in the road, watch out for plot holes.
-Tracy
Gonna Be Us Someday
Definitely subscribing to that Youtube channel.
Check Out: Coaching Endurance.com
Mile 1; It's a Lot Like Riding... a Horse
It’s January 26, 2010, and I ran two miles straight through for the first time on Christmas of 2009. Before then, I’d have told you, at length how much I hated running. I may have posted that very sentiment on more than one occasion on various health and fitness forums. It’s actually a very popular opinion. I’m a relatively new runner. Sure, I was out for Track in High School, but it was a small school, and they kinda had to take me. During the two years I ran for the team (didn’t start until I was a Junior) I ran a mile exactly one time. Once. And I hated every second of it.
My primary complaint? Boring. Running is boring. People who told me they ran to clear their heads were filling me with hooey, because when I ran, all I could ever think about was, “When can I stop friggin’ running?”
I sit here, nearly twenty years later, about to strap on my shoes and head out for four easy miles, knowing the only thing that kept me from finishing the eight I started yesterday was the failure to bring water. I will get that eight this weekend.
So, what’s changed in twenty years? Why did I hate running so much, and what got me past that?
I never had anything against fitness or working out. That was never it. In fact, at 35, I know for sure that I’m in the best shape of my life. A self-proclaimed workout DVD junkie, I’ve done them all. I started with Denise Austin, and when she got too easy, I moved on down the road to Jari Love and Kathe Friedrich, joined a gym, and then dropped out because the classes were not challenging enough and I was afraid of treadmills (LOL), worked my way through P90X, Hip Hop Abs, and even Insanity. All in the name of not running, because seriously, there is no point in doing all that nonspecific training just for the sake of being fit or zipping up those skinny jeans. Sure, that kind of workout can be fun, and I still resort to them when I’m in the mood to kick some ass, but I gotta say, I’m getting too old to care that much about everything and sustain that level of intensity. I probably kept it up way longer than necessary, just because I refused to run.
It’s funny-- all the various workouts I’ve done, all the looks I’ve gotten from people who insist, girls don’t DO that, don’t have MUSCLES like those, all the times I’ve had guys grab my arms and proclaim, “Look at them guns,” and running was the thing that stigmatized me. Of all things. It was the one thing I couldn’t do. I wouldn’t do. It was my can’t.
And yet? I envied runners. Never once, in all the years that I ‘hated’ running, did I spy a runner on the shoulder of the road and conspire to throw thumb tacks in his path or possibly water balloons. Never did I roll my eyes and suggest they get a real job so they could burn off some of that excess energy. Instead, I called them ‘dedicated jogger types,’ and what’s more, I sooo wanted to be one. I just didn’t know how.
But, Tracy, you say, what do you mean you didn’t know how? It’s running. All you do is put one foot in front of the other.
I know. Right? That’s what I thought, all the more reason to be constantly frustrated that I just... couldn’t.
But you know, there was a time I thought riding a horse was just sitting in a saddle and pulling on the reins. That wasn’t true about riding, and it isn’t true about running. I spent a lot of years riding horses by the seat of my pants, and let me tell you, I spent a lot of time in pain, pushing myself too hard and pushing my horses too hard, all in pursuit of the perfect ride.
And what was the perfect ride? That daydream place I went on that long school bus ride to with my knees propped up on the seat in front of me, my nose pressed against the window in hopes of catching a glimpse of every single horse on the route? When I closed my eyes and imagined the perfect ride, it was just me and the horse cantering through a field, just that, cantering through a field, making long swooping turns through the fog while the morning sun warmed the ground. (I know, the fog is tacky, but what can I say? I’ve always been a hopeless romantic.) That sounds pretty basic, though, doesn’t it? Easy.
Well, let me tell you, it isn’t. I rode a lot of horses in my pursuit of the perfect ride, and finding one that will canter in an enjoyable manner at all is a challenge. I rode ponies who trotted faster and faster until my brain was pudding and my butt was hamburger, picked up a canter for about three strides, and then went back to turning my innards to puree. I rode horses that you could squeeze and kick, cluck to and spur all day that would never shift into a canter. These horses might eventually learn to canter, but they’d usually take a whole lot of oomph to keep them going, or they’d still drop out of the canter when you changed directions, and that was only if you were lucky enough to find that their canter was actually worth riding. That’s not even mentioning all the ones that only cantered on one lead or cross-cantered. Not all canters are created equal, it would seem.
Then, there were my chosen horses, the ones who had two speeds, jig and Yee-HAWWW!
You know that kind of horse. Riding one is like being strapped to the back of a missile. The missile is careening through wind and sky and anything in its path, while you’re trailing above like a kite on a string wielding a sledgehammer in hopes that you can smack it on the nose hard enough to send it in the direction you want to go. (The missile, of course, not the horse. Disclaimer: No sledge hammers were utilized against the noses of any actual horses in the imagining or writing of this blog nor in any of the recollected thoughts that inspired it. It’s called storytelling.) Enough practice riding this kind of horse, and you end up with bulging biceps and become adept at timing your ‘influence’ so that you can, indeed, steer that horse through a barrel pattern or a pole bending course, by the seat of your velcro-equipped Levi’s, and make it look effortless. But deep down, about the place where the dowels of your spurs have carved grooves into the fuselage, you know you’re still strapped to a missile, and unless you’re an adrenaline junkie, that ain’t no fun, and it gets old real quick. Or you do. Or you die, which is always a distinct possibility.
A lot of years, a lot of horses, but you know, I eventually found that perfect ride. My gelding, Teddy, registered name Cometet, came storming out of the south pasture of the breeder’s farm on the day I went there to pick up my other gelding, Brat. I had passed on buying Teddy, because he was a few years older. It just wasn’t good horse sense to buy a 13 year old unbroke gelding when my goal was to train a horse and sell it to buy a better horse. But then Teddy came. Well, all of the horses in the south pasture came, because we didn’t get the gate closed fast enough when we brought Brat out, and excitement spread like a static charge through summer thunder heads. Most of the herd just ran really fast through the gate and then mulled around, picking at the new grass and generally getting in our way. But Teddy came out like a true prince of the desert, his head high, tail flagging, and passaging like a Grand Prix dressage horse, complete with airs above the ground. To say I’d never seen more athleticism in a horse would’ve been putting it mildly. So, of course, a couple months later, I went back and bought Teddy, too.
Teddy was my first big challenge, starting a horse completely from scratch using natural horsemanship techniques, and there was the added challenge of him being way older than your average greenie. And he was smart. No doubt smarter than I. Everything he did was a puzzle, so nothing I knew to do worked on him. But you know, I taught him to stand with no halter or bridle while I trimmed his feet. To walk backwards if I led him by the tail, to ride bridleless, sidepass over barrels and do a zig zag sideways through ground rails with me standing 22 feet away and wiggling a rope. Still, riding was a challenge. Most of the first year I had him under saddle, he’d buck for the first five minutes, refusing to canter, and then he’d canter for about three strides and bolt forward, gradually gain more and more speed until I was holding onto the front of the saddle and praying with my eyes closed that he’d eventually just wear himself out. Let me just say, to anyone who’s interested, that never works with Arabians. They can run forever.
But eventually, it happened. I asked him to canter, and he did. I asked him to canter three strides and back up, then go directly into the canter again, and he did. I asked him to change directions without using the reins, and he did. I asked him to stop without touching the reins, and he did. All the elements were there. Granted, each one took hours and hours to put there, but they were there. And one morning in December, I climbed on and... had no plans whatsoever. I couldn’t honestly think of a single thing I wanted to teach him that he didn’t already know. So, I just smooched him up into a canter, sat back, and... yeah, the perfect ride. We looped around that pasture for a good half hour or so, never breaking gait or changing speed, none of his constant head tossing or bit jangling, just me and him, cruising around, soaking up the air and some sun.
Perfect.
So, that’s all well and good, you say, but what does it have to do with running? Let me tell you.
A few years ago, I would’ve told you the perfect ride didn’t exist, that there were too many factors involved that made it too hard to achieve, and it was just a pipe dream, just like me staring after those dedicated jogger types as they ran down the shoulder of my road and wanting to be able to run along beside them was just a pipe dream. Too hard.
I was wrong about the riding. And I was wrong about running, too.
Of course, I had good reason for thinking it was too hard. Even after I spent half the summer letting Shaun T kick my ass on DVD, I still could not run a whole mile without stopping. No matter how many muscles I built or how much fat I stripped off, how much endurance I thought I had, I still couldn’t run. I still got about a quarter mile from my house and started looking for turnoffs where I could walk back and no one who saw me run out would see me walk the walk of shame. I just couldn’t run. I was just not made for running. I talked myself out of it every time. What was the point? I wasn’t even training for anything. What’s the point of running just to run?
But I still had this image in my head of what running should be. Jared Padalecki talking about running with his dogs before heading off to set. Jensen Ackles talking about jogging through Paris while on vacation. Experiences. Things that you got to do and to see only because you were out there running, things that I was missing out on because I couldn’t run.
Then it occurred to me, I achieved the perfect ride by re-evaluating and rethinking every single thing I knew about horses.
If, after all these years of putting one foot in front of the other I still couldn’t run, then I was probably DOING IT WRONG!
So, yes. I bought books. I bought DVDs. I learned about the Pose method of running. I learned about midfoot striking as opposed to heel striking. I learned about walk-run intervals. I learned about cadence. I soaked it all up. And then, I read Jack Daniels’ book, and the theory behind the long, easy run. I did some calculations, and by my numbers, I only needed to be running at a heart rate of 145 beats per minute. After spending all summer training at over 180, I knew 145 did not hurt at all. By extrapolation, then, running at 145 bpm, should not hurt at all either. And I think that was the final string tying me back, because when that baby snapped...
I remember exactly when it happened. Hubby had gotten me a heart rate monitor for Christmas, and even though I pigged out all Christmas day, by the time Christmas night rolled around, I just couldn’t help but take that monitor out on a run. I told myself it didn’t matter if I couldn’t do more than walk. All I had to do was get my heart rate up to 145.
I stepped onto the road, took a couple steps, knew they were too big, took a few smaller ones, and then, just kept going. I got to the end of the song on my .mp3 player which is where I would usually start my walk, and I just didn’t feel like walking. I kept going. I kept going past the half mile mark, kept going down the long stretch of road on the other side of the block where there are no houses or lights since the frat house burned down, and then, I was climbing back around toward my own road and decided I still wasn’t finished, took a detour down a cul de sac that turned out to be all uphill, ran all the way up the hill, turned around, came back, and when I finally did turn down my road and faced that hill that had stopped me every single time I’d tried to run it in the past, I ran all the way up that sucker and all the way to my back gate. And then I stopped, and I turned around, because there’s no point in living at the top of (arguably) the biggest hill in College Station, Texas with a direct view of the... airport, if you’re not going to stop and soak in the view. It was dark, and cold, and my .mp3 player was playing “Restless Sinner,” way too loud to have been safe. But it was perfect. Two miles of perfect.
I haven’t stopped since. I have my aches and pains, but I’m careful, and the mileage keeps going up. I haven’t yet hit the point where I just cannot keep going because I’m too tired or can’t catch my breath. I intend to keep running until I find that wall and then go through it, because something tells me on the other side is another long stretch of road waiting to take me to all those places I couldn’t go before I learned to run.
-Tracy
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