Pre-Hartford: 2018 Year-Long Recap

Pro tip: pretend you're actually exercising by doing your PT at a gym.

They say "don't take things for granted," but we inevitably do. So let me start this off by saying how grateful I am to even be writing a pre-marathon season recap. Just getting to the starting line this year is a triumph on its own.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Let's start back in January. As of the first of the year, I was sidelined with an "overuse" injury called patellofemoral syndrome. If you happen to be a physical therapist, you'll recognize that this isn't a break, or a strain, or even anything specific; it basically means I was having pain around my knee, mostly likely caused by inflammation. The trick—and what my physical therapist and I worked on over the next several months—was to determine why I was having pain and to train my body to move in a way that would stop causing said pain. For everyone who's not a physical therapist, all you really need to know is that bending my knee hurt. So running was out, along with biking, erging (rowing), elliptical-ing . . . it even hurt to walk. Also, stairs were especially painful, which, as anyone who lives in or around New York City knows, was especially problematic in terms of getting anywhere. However, luckily for me, my fiance and I had moved to a building with an elevator in late 2017, so at least I no longer faced three sets of stairs anytime I wanted to leave the apartment. That was one silver lining, and the fact that I could still swim freestyle without pain was another. So from January until April, I went to the pool 4-5 times a week and spent the rest of the time dutifully practicing PT exercises and trying not to feel too much FOMO as I watched everyone else get fitter and faster.

During this four-month span, I was faced with a hard choice. At the end of 2017, I was accepted to attend Wilder, an all-women's running-writing retreat hosted by retired professional runner Lauren Fleshman. Anyone who knows me knows how excited I was to be accepted—this retreat was practically made for me!—but given that the event was scheduled for Memorial Day weekend, I was now faced with a tough choice. Should I pay the rest of the deposit and buy a plane ticket, gambling on the fact that I'd be healthy enough to run by the end of May? Or should I save my money, give up my spot, and hope to be accepted into a future retreat?

With the encouragement of my physical therapist (who also happens to be my coach), I took the gamble, and lo and behold, by the end of May, I was finally running again. (Albeit very low mileage and with a lot of huffing and puffing . . . but I was putting one foot in front of the other with minimal pain!) Suffice it to say, that weekend in Sisters, OR, remains a highlight of my year. I met amazing women, communed with nature, and basked in a sense of security and freedom that I rarely, if ever, feel. It's hard to summarize the experience in a few short sentences, but the whole weekend was an important reminder that I don't always need to have an agenda. Every word I write does not need to be an act of performance, and every run I go on does not need to be in service to larger goal.

That said, I was still eager to get back to training for my "larger goal," so when I returned to New York (okay, okay, New Jersey), that's what I did. And man, was it humbling.

Fast-forward to the end of July, when I ran my first race of the year. It was a low-key 5k in Brooklyn's Prospect Park, and I knew I wasn't in shape to do anything impressive. In the end, I was pleasantly surprised to come in under 19 minutes, and, thanks to very few other women showing up for the race, I won. Two weeks later, I ran the exact same race . . . almost 30 seconds slower. This was yet one more slice of humble pie, but, to take this metaphor much farther than it needs to go, I got a scoop of ice cream with it this time: at mile 2, a man-woman duo started to pass me. I huffed something along the lines of "good job, go" and then the woman turned and invited me to "come with us." This was somehow exactly what I needed to hear, because I kept pace and wound up out-kicking her and another woman at the end, for second place. All of a sudden, I could feel that old love of competing nudging me. That was exciting. Can we do that again?

Still can't quite believe this trip was real. That's Lauren Fleshman, in the flesh!

I had just started searching for more upcoming races when, the next week in August, disaster hit. I got the call that my sister had been rushed to the hospital, and since both of my parents had just left on a cruise to Alaska, I was the family member left in charge. Without getting into the details, my attempt to "get to Cleveland ASAP" involved two separate trips to La Guardia airport and half a night spent in the Port Authority. To make matters worse, cruise lines still apparently communicate using smoke signals and carrier pigeons, so by the time I arrived at the hospital, two days had passed since I first got the call, and I had only just reached my parents to tell them what had happened. I spent the rest of the week in and out of the hospital, so needless to say, not much running took place. 

The good news is that by the time I was able to leave my sister's bedside, I had an excellent distraction lined up: the 2018 Hood to Coast relay! It was a dirty, smelly, stressful race . . . with really awesome people. If you want more details than that, you can get them here.

September thankfully calmed down, although it was still not smooth sailing: I tweaked my neck, and as soon as that was fixed, I got sick, and on top of all of that, a lower back problem I'd been trying to manage since springtime finally insisted that it would no longer be ignored, so I grudgingly went back to PT (although thankfully I was still able to run).

Also, it was during this month that I ran the second-worst half marathon of my life. This pattern is apparently pretty standard for me: before my each of my last two marathons (Berlin and Portland), I had an "all is lost" moment when I seriously questioned whether I'd be able to run the upcoming marathon at all, let alone as well as I wanted to. This year's "buildup" race was no different, complete with bitter tears of self-rage and utterly shaken confidence. But this is also my year of attempting to re-frame what happens to me, so I did my best to take away some positives: I did not drop out of the race (despite an overwhelming desire starting at mile six), I (miraculously) did not walk, and I got lots and lots of practice with my various mental strategies (ignoring my watch, remembering to be grateful, listening to my breathing, telling the doom and gloom voice in my head to "STOP").

If you look up "anguished emoji face," this is what you'll find.

And here's the thing about reframing: it doesn't always work in the short term (as can be deduced from conversations like, "Allison, you'll come back from this mandatory rest stronger!" STFU. You try not running and see how strong you get), but in the longer term, I think it is helping. I really am grateful to run again. I'm grateful to my training partners (both new and old) for their constant enthusiasm, and to my coach for his limitless patience and optimism. I also focused on one of the few controllables in my life this year, my diet, and while it's hard to say if it has helped in any measurable way, experimenting with a farmshare has been fun, and eating more fruits and vegetables can never hurt!

All told, I wouldn't say I'm any sort of "new athlete." I didn't come away from this year's challenges with stronger muscles, a leaner frame, or an ironclad mindset. But I'm working on that much-lauded "process" mindset, and one thing I can say for sure: I really did enjoy putting in the work.

We'll see what that's worth on Saturday.

Hood To Coast Recap: Teamwork and Traffic Jams

Almost exactly one month ago, I ran the Hood to Coast relay as the twelfth member of the North Queens Runners (NQR) team. Whenever I tell anyone about this, the number one question I get is, "Was it fun?"

Honestly, I'm not sure.

Carly & Garen, Leg 6

For those of you who don't know what Hood to Coast is, let me summarize: on the second-to-last weekend of August, 1,000 teams of 12 runners each (split into two vans of six) start at the top of Mount Hood in northern Oregon and run 199 miles across the state to Seaside, i.e., the Pacific coast of Oregon. Each of the twelve runners runs ~15-18 miles, split across three legs of the relay, which are run in rotation, equalling 36 legs in total. If your team is walking (or running very slowly), your first runner starts at the crack of dawn on Friday, with each subsequent sendoff containing progressively faster teams. If your team wins, you will finish in about 17 hours. If not, the cutoff time to complete the relay is 36 hours. There are very few rules: you can eat and drink whatever you want, drive (almost) whatever you want, and wear whatever you want (unless you are running at night, in which case you are required to wear an LED light vest and a headlamp).

Running a relay like this was an entirely new experience for me, and I think when we have new experiences, rare experiences, or experiences we've invested a lot of time and money into, we expect (and others expect us) to "have fun." No matter how we feel during the event itself, we tend to revise our story afterward in order to make it seem like it was a total blast. After all, our audience probably didn't have this experience, so the least we can do is give them the best highlights, right?

Well, this is going to be the best and worst highlights.

First I want to say that I am very glad to have had this experience. I really enjoy new challenges, and  I've certainly never run what amounted to approximately three 10k races in 24 hours, nor have I spent 24 hours with the same seven people in one van. I also love contributing to a team, and this team was especially great; everyone on NQR was enthusiastic and supportive, while also intent on giving their best effort toward our goal of winning the mixed division (i.e., teams with at least six women). Finally, I love competing, and I was surrounded by competitors, and we were working together toward a shared goal. That was really fun.

Literally stretching my legs

However, there were a lot of parts that were not so fun. There were things I expected to be unpleasant, like wearing perpetually sweaty, smelly clothes; eating room-temperature sandwiches that have been squashed into unrecognizable shapes; "sleeping" for a grand total of one hour in a cramped van seat; and squatting in not one, not two, but three different leafy roadside "bathrooms." But then there were other elements I did not expect. For instance, I discovered I really do not enjoy running in the dark. Where I live (right outside Manhattan), it's never truly dark; there are always so many street lights and car lights and lit-up storefront displays that visibility is never a problem. However, on the uneven, poorly lit sidewalks of suburban Portland, curbs drop off without warning and you never know when a tree root will emerge. And that was only my first leg; during my second (at about 3am), I spent five miles running through a pitch-black valley of fog. (Dinky headlamp + zero streetlights + fog = unabated terror of falling in an invisible potholes.) Fear is very stressful, and apparently when I'm running, I'm scared of the dark.

The other unexpectedly stressful element had nothing to do with running at all.

When I was initially envisioning this race, I pictured running through hill and over dale. I saw trees and grass and dirt and even a few inevitable highways. What I did not picture was how 1,000 teams--meaning 2,000 vans--would get from point A to point B (and then to point C, and then point D . . . ). As it turns out, while the athletes are running through the wilderness, their vans are winding through narrow, rickety back roads that were absolutely not designed to accommodate 2,000 vehicles at once.

Driving--or, rather sitting--in standstill traffic was unquestionably the most stressful part of the whole relay. Here we were, trying to test our physical limits, to see if we could prove ourselves to be faster and grittier than our competitors, and we being hamstrung by . . . what amounted to rush-hour traffic. We left one of our runners stranded at a checkpoint, out in the cold, for over twenty minutes. And on top of that, there was no cell service, so we had no way of telling our other van (i.e., our six other teammates) that we were way, way behind schedule.

Team NQR! Clearly a photogenic bunch.

The upshot is that we lost the mixed division title by one minute. That's five seconds per runner. Less than two seconds a leg. Yet, I felt robbed of what would otherwise have been disappointment, because it didn't feel like a real loss. There was no way to know if we actually ran slower than the team that beat us, because they left in the very last sendoff, fifteen minutes behind us. Maybe, as a result of their later departure, they had less traffic, and "drove" their way to victory. (Or, alternatively, maybe we would have lost by a wider margin if they'd been in our sendoff.) Without going "head to head" with them, there was no way of knowing if we could have closed that sixty-second gap. As a result, most of what I felt, upon reaching the beach, was fatigue, and most of what I remembered was glaring helplessly at endless red brake lights.

Of course, that's not the end of the story. At the awards ceremony, there was some insane drama involving the winning women's team, but we weren't there for it, because we had rented a beach house! For the rest of the weekend, the twelve of us sat in the hot tub, ate ridiculous quantities of food, drank equally ridiculous quantities of alcohol, and slept. A lot.

Now that was fun.

If I Could Just

If I could just wake up without pain

...walk without limping

...take the stairs this time

I swear I'd be grateful.


If I could just run

...for more than five minutes

...without paralyzing fear

I'd be appreciative beyond belief.


If I could just catch my breath

...keep up with the others

...go faster than this

I wouldn't complain, I promise.


If I could just finish the workout

...add more miles

...run the way I used to

I'd feel more confident, I know it.


If I could just hit that time

...and then go a little faster

...and then a little bit faster

Then I'd be satisfied.


Wouldn't I?

The Obstacle is the Way, and Other Impossible Mindsets

Every year, usually at least twice a year, my fiance R___ goes on a self-improvement binge. Now, I'm not complaining, because these endeavors usually benefit me in some way. Maybe he wants to get fit (hey sexy guy!). Maybe he wants to learn a new skill (cooking, anyone?). Maybe he wants to be a better partner (helloooo date nights . . . and swiffering!). However, his most recent episode has involved a "get tough and get Buddhist" attitude that, for reasons I will explain, makes me want to scream and punch things on a daily basis.

Decidedly NOT running.

What irritates me isn't the attitude itself, because honestly I admire it and wish I could adopt it myself. What irritates me is that he somewhat arbitrarily "decided" to adopt this mentality and, seemingly overnight, is now cruising along with the serenity and can-do mindset of a monk. I, on the other hand get to watch him fast, meditate, and walk around without a coat while simultaneously seething and/or trying not to cry at my own shortcomings. Not that this is a competition; I understand perfectly well that we can all be better versions of ourselves at the same time, and that this is not a zero-sum game. But he seems to be making all of these personal strides while I sit on the couch eating Chex Mix, feeling like a sub-optimal version of myself.

So here's why I'm such a mess: on December 31st, my right knee started hurting when I went up and down stairs. Thinking it was just some arbitrary tightness left over from my snowy run that weekend, I foam rolled and went running the next day . . . and came back hobbled. Ever since then, my sneakers have been gathering dust, and the only running I've been doing is running up a credit bill for physical therapy visits.

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love running, and the longer I go without it, the clearer it becomes that I have woven this sport into the fabric of my life. Without it, I no longer have a weekly schedule (because my runs dictated that); I no longer have a daily social life (because seeing my friends on runs pretty much was my social life); and I no longer have any desire to look at social media (because if I see one more person post their weekly mileage or daily workout paces, I actually have a psychotic episode).

Now, I must acknowledge that R___ is perfectly sympathetic about all of this. Just because he's zen about life doesn't mean he expects me to be. The problem is that I expect myself to chill out and take this in stride. Practically every runner I know has been injured in some way, at some point. And despite how important it is to me, running is not my whole life. I have a partner who love me whether I run or not. I have a business that is independent of the sport. I have friends who barely remember I run, and friends who are willing to hang out even if we can't run together. So why can't I just accept that this "is what it is" and try to make the best of it? Or, even better, "How can I take [shitty thing that has happened] and turn it into the best thing that has ever happened to me?" (Thanks for sharing that nugget of wisdom, R___.)

After weeks of stewing, I have come to the conclusion that there's no way I'm going to feel like this is "the best thing," or even a remotely good thing, until I'm safely on the other side. So for now, I'm trying to come at the issue from an academic angle. In no particular order, here are the potential silver linings:

I've lost the compulsion to run, but retained the desire. For the two weeks after my last marathon, when I was supposed to be "resting," all I could think about was the fitness I was losing--fitness I would need to build upon if I wanted to run any faster in my next race. All I could think was, Why am I not running? I should be running! Well here I am now, stripped of my fitness, with no sign of getting it back anytime soon. After two weeks of panic and a few weeks of sadness, I'm stuck with a big cold dose of reality: those time barriers I was so anxious to break? They're gone, gone gone. I won't be seeing them, if at all, for quite some time. Yet I still want to run. It sounds cliche, but I dream about running at least once a week. I miss the feeling of power and control over my body. I miss the freedom of stepping outside and just going. So the love of running is still there, and despite the trials of the moment, that simple fact is comforting.

I'm swimming more than I have in almost a decade. Inherently, this is not a good or bad thing; it is just a fact. What's lucky is that I enjoy swimming. Also, it reminds me of the self who persevered for years, despite being the worst on the team, and still found satisfaction in working hard and seeing incremental progress. I like that self. Plus, these days, I mostly swim alone, so I have no one to compare myself against. I follow virtually no swimmers on social media, so it's sort of this pure thing, with no pressure or expectations. I know I'll never be a top-level swimmer, no matter how many hours I put into the pool . . . but that's okay. That's not why I do it.

My upper body is getting stronger. With no real lower-body exercise options (except a few PT-approved movements), I've taken to doing push-ups and planks on a much more regular basis. That's not to say I neglected these things before, but I most certainly did not do them every day. As a result, I'm up to 3x15 push-ups and 3 pull-ups, which I fully acknowledge is no great feat, but it's more than I've done before, so I'll allow myself a smidgen of pride. And who knows--maybe it'll help my running down the line. Crazier things have happened.

Grateful

I'm trying really hard to be grateful.

Grateful I've stayed healthy for so long.

Grateful that my injury (if it had to happen) happened now, in the cold slippery winter, and not during a big summer training block.

Grateful I have a coach who is also a physical therapist (as well as one of the calmest humans beings on earth).

Grateful to have health insurance.

Grateful I can still swim.

Grateful to have so many friends who still care about me, even when I can't run.

Grateful I don't equate self-worth with running fast.

. . . but let's not fool ourselves. I still want to run fast.

Just have to heal, first. And then, I guess, we'll see.