3 Sisters 7 Days

People – specifically, fellow moms who have abandoned running…as well as jogging and walking – often ask how I do it. How have I managed to continue running consistently, without jeopardizing my career or ignoring the demands of my increasingly large family, which currently includes four children and three dogs? Following the last conversation on this theme, I gave some serious thought to what I’ve done to pull off a successful 15-year training program. Here’s what I came up with:

1. Attitude: running is way more than “just” exercise. I agree with Larry Shapiro, fellow academic and author of  Zen and the Art of Running, that running is as essential as breathing is to my living fully. I literally find not running to be painful; I swear, my muscles begin to ache as if I could actually sense them atrophying and muscle tension in my neck and shoulders turns to migraine headache. Hence, I’ve always prioritized running. A morning run – or walk on a rest day – is among the first things on my daily agenda. Period.

2. Find a running partner: get a dog. I’ve heard more than one health care professional say that the quickest way to improve your fitness is to get a dog and walk him. We got an Alaskan Malamute – Shunka Wacon – who required at least two extended exercise periods a day. We’d run in the morning, then walk again in the afternoon. Because Shunka looked like a wolf and outweighed me before he was a year old, I felt safe running anywhere, from trails in upstate New York to dimly lit streets in Southern California.

2. Nurse and run. When my eldest child, Quentin, was born, I learned very quickly that I had only a brief window of time to run (or eat or work or whatever) following each nursing session. I used to get up before Quentin was due to wake up, and then dress for running from the waist down before getting him up to nurse. Afterward, I’d tuck Quentin in bed with his dad, finish dressing, get Shunka, and go. Later, as a single mom living back at home, I’d run before Quentin woke up, but after nursing his sister Reiley. My mother and sisters stood in as ready substitutes for dad.

3. Get a running stroller. Once I was back on my feet and living alone, the Baby Jogger was my “freedom stroller.” A gift from the kids’ dad, my first running stroller literally saved me. In order to get my run in before getting all of us ready and out the door, I had to be in my running shoes and on the street before dawn. I’d wouldn’t even wake the kids before strapping them into the stroller, tucking chocolate milk in sippy cups and snacks into the mesh pockets located conveniently on outer edge of each seat. Then I’d park them on the porch while I leashed the dogs (yes, I was crazy enough to get a another dog – a mutt adopted from the pound). And the five of us would be on our way.

4. Invite the kids to ride along. Not surprisingly, each of my children, in turn, became independently mobile before they were old enough to leave at home alone while I went running. Not a problem. They joined me on their bikes, scooters, or roller blades. When we first moved to our current hill-top home, I used to slow to a walk going uphill so that eight-year-old Quentin and six-year-old Reiley could keep up with me and Parker (in the aforementioned running stroller). I think the most cumbersome this family running team effort ever got was when my youngest sister Terri lived with us and joined in the run. There were mornings when we’d trade off pushing Olivia in “Bob” (I replaced the double Baby Jogger with the much lighter and more maneuverable Bob Ironman) and being pulled by Ayla (Shunka’s successor Malamute), while Quentin, Reiley, and Parker weaved in and around us on their scooters.

Most days now, it’s just me and the dogs – Ayla and Cooper, a quick, short-haired Vizsla who’s a better suited to Southern California’s heat than our beloved Arctic breed. All of my children except five-year-old Olivia can stay at home while I run, even if I get out after their dad leaves for work. Sometimes they don’t, though. Parker occasionally accompanies me on his bike; a couple of times a week, Reiley takes Cooper and runs with me part of the way. I’m glad they do. Of course, I appreciate the idea of simply putting on your running shoes and hitting the road; I just don’t think I enjoy it now as much as I once did.

Vizsla's are characteristically agile and trainable, but can they climb? After proving himself to be an adept scrambler at the quarry in Fontana, CA, Cooper surveys the route up…

On Sunday, the Fourth of July, my mom called crying because someone had taken her dog, Bear. Not likely; he probably ran scared from the fireworks! Nearly an hour of looking later – a group endeavor that included seven family members, four police officers responding to calls about a loose dog, and the woman who found him at a nearby park – Bear was home. My mom took Bear to the vet on Monday because he was limping. Apparently, he wore the pads off of his front paws running on hot pavement. I’m happy to report that Bear is on twice-a-day antibiotic regimen, but should recover fully. Until he does, he’ll b sporting these sassy Hanes crew socks.

Not surprisingly, our very ordinary backyard has become Cooper’s favorite spot. Here he is at the tail end of a half-our romp (otherwise, he wouldn’t be holding so still!). Pushing 10 weeks, Coop is still very much a baby. He promptly came indoors after this picture was taken, and fell fast asleep.

I woke up in my bed this morning, thanks to my loving spouse, who swapped places with me about 3 AM. I’d been sleeping on the family room couch with our new puppy since his last trip outside around midnight. Cooper isn’t our first puppy, but he’s definitely our smallest, and our neediest.

Cooper is a Vizsla, or Hungarian Pointer. Descended from the Transylvanian Hound, the Vizsla is one of the world’s oldest and most distinguished sporting breeds. Vizslas are easy to recognize among similar breeds because they are rusty gold to reddish-brown in color, with eyes that virtually match their coats (the easier to disguise themselves in the brush, my dear). They are often described by their owners as sensitive, intelligent, loyal, ENERGETIC, and affectionate.

After a prolonged search for a dog I could count on to run long distances with me and survive, if not thrive, in the desert-like temperatures of Inland Southern California, I settled on the Vizsla. Of course, the “red hair” didn’t hurt .

We counted on and expected Cooper to behave something like a Tazmanian Devil whenever he’s awake – about half of the time to date. We were also fully prepared for house – and crate-training. What we didn’t expect was a “baby”! In less than 24 hours, we were transformed into new parents – again – learning what each of Cooper’s growls, whines, and yaps means, and adapting our behavior accordingly.

Fidgeting? He has to go out. Add a growl or yap, especially when he’s just waking up. He has to go now!

Pawing at your feet and calves, especially when accompanied by a yap? He ’s sleepy and wants to be held while he goes to sleep.

(Apparently) unprovoked growl? He’s stalking a cat.

Whining? He’s realized he may have been left alone and wants company.

Pulling your hair with his teeth, especially just prior to 5 AM? He’s ready to get up. Good morn – ing!

Yeah, we haven’t managed to stick with putting Cooper to bed in his crate. Even it were smaller and more attractive – suitable for placement in our bedroom so that he can effectively synchronize his sleep patterns with ours – there’s just no way I’d make it from a deep sleep in my bed to effective facilitator of puppy elimination in the backyard “in time.” Assuming I got to sleep at all, that is. In our experience, puppies confined to crates cry piteously for days before resigning themselves to sleeping on command in a crate. (Consequently, our previous pups had the run of the downstairs…but they were older, larger, and more independent, not to mention less inclined toward moonlight household destruction.)

As it is, I sleep with Cooper on the couch downstairs, a short walk to the back door, and take him out every couple of hours from the time my spouse goes to bed at 10 PM and wakes up, perhaps sensing that I’m about to sleep through a pre-dawn potty run. Then he takes “Coop” out and “sleeps” with him until giving in to Cooper’s hair-pulling sometime after 5 AM. By the time we meet over coffee at breakfast, it’s a toss up whose more tired. Invariably, it’s just about then that Cooper starts pulling on our pajama legs to let us know it’s nap time.

Just like old times.

So many things went wrong with this morning’s run that I almost convinced myself I should have stayed in bed. My Garmin heart rate monitor powered off before I reached the end of my block; my running partner – Ayla, the Mala-moose – tripped me when she darted across the street to visit another dog; I plowed my thigh into a bolt on the back of guard rail; and ended the run at a slow jog after Ayla laid down – apparently in protest over my unusually quick pace. Nothing like a throbbing knot in the thigh and rivulets of blood congealing just below the knee to spur you homeward.

But, if I had foregone my run, I’d have missed the opportunity to practice – more specifically, to practice being present.

I just finished listing to Dean Kanazes’s Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All Night Runner. Karnazes’s approach to the inevitable pain associated with distance running is to accept it, and just keep running. This is remarkably meditative, actually, which may surprise those who don’t appreciate how body-oriented the practice of meditation actually is. According to Jon Pratt, a long-time marathoner who assists with “Running with the Mind of Meditation” programs at the Shambala Mountain Center near Fort Collins, Colorado, meditation “is not about leaving your body and entering some celestial realm. It is about relating to the here and now which we experience through our five senses…[I]n meditation we learn to let go of our thoughts and come back to our body.”

Exactly.

It’s not that I don’t let my mind wander while I run. Like many runners, I’ve used a good, hard run to blow off steam after an argument or upset; likewise, I’ve settled into a comfortable pace and worked out the details of my next article, or planned a vacation. This morning, though, between the uncooperative pooch at the other end of the lead I was holding and the pain in my thigh (and ankle, come to think about it…I must have pulled something), I had to keep my mind about my body and get us home without additional trauma.

After all, anyone who has run understands that finishing is a mental game. Buddhist monk and marathoner  Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche says that, “The mind is the leading edge of whatever you can do … after you’ve gotten used to physical activity, you’re working with your mind.”

Again, “just keep running.”  (I can almost hear Dori, from Disney’s Finding Nemo; can you?)

This little guy – a Vizsla, or Hungarian sporting dog – is among the pups I get to choose from next week! I have second pick of four males in a litter of 10 pups total. I’m thinking about naming him Rowan, which means “red,” or Rian (pronounced like Ryan), which means “little king.” What do you think?

Yesterday Sammy and I went our for a run at Red Rocks Open Space, It’s a good run that would usually leave dogs and some humans exhausted (Juliann can vouch for that).  We just finished our 6.2 mile run and I mean we are doing a quick “cool down” walk back to the car and then Sammy does it.  She goes into a tunnel and comes out the other end. After calling her for several moments, I see her approaching me with her tail under and her ears back – all I see is black stuff all around her neck and she smells.  Unfortunately it is a familiar smell; we have been her before…it’s a dead animal.  That little turd found a dead animal in the underground tunnel and rubbed herself in it! No joke, it was so bad.

I had two options:

1. put her in my car for a 25 minute ride home and then straight to the tub

2. take her to a close dog park (Bear Creek Dog Park) that has a creek for her to bathe in.

I chose option number 2.  After getting her in the car I don’t think I could have handled the smell all the way home.  I mean, it was brutal!

My master plan worked for the smell and the nasty black stuff on her neck. I did run into a whole other set of problems at Bear Creek Dog Park.  I guess I had forgotten that water, dogs and dirt don’t always make  a good combination.  The picture above says it all.

Side-note:  The energy Sam demonstrated at the dog park made me feel like the 6 mile trail run was a stroll in the park.

I usually spend Thursdays working at home – albeit in fits and starts between assigning the day’s lessons for my four home-schooled children, answering their questions, and watching Olivia work. I’m not kidding. Olivia likes her “teacher” – whether it’s me, her father, or one of her older siblings – to sit beside her while she completes her math and language arts “home work” and reads. I usually confine my earnest “watching” to the first 20-30 minutes after I finish reading the paper, and before I head into my office to begin my day.

Today, though, I was facing a 5 PM deadline for a grant application. Meeting it was likely to require frequent and repeated interactions with my Co-PIs (”Principle Investigators,” for the uninitiated), our administrative staff, and proposed project collaborators. Consequently, I was up early and had finished a 6-mile run and my first cup of coffee long before Olivia even woke up around 8:30 AM. I did manage to pull myself away from my work long enough to fix Olivia a no-cooking-required breakfast of milk, apple juice, and Cheerios and park her on the couch to watch one of her Scholastic books CDs. No, I don’t recall which, but it must not have been very interesting because Olivia was gone before it was over.

I hadn’t heard the door chime, so I assumed she was somewhere in the house, happily occupied, and – more importantly – quiet. I continued working.

Sometime between then and “early lunch” – you know, when the kids first start asking if they can have something to eat because they’re hungry, their stomachs are growling, and it’s SO CLOSE to lunchtime anyway – Olivia joined me in my office and asked me to tie her cleats. Yep, she was decked out in full soccer garb. Mind you, she’s never actually played soccer and it’s unlikely she remembers her siblings playing when she was much younger. But there she was with ponytails she fixed herself, wearing a pair of Reiley’s old soccer or basketball shorts, a t-shirt with a soccer ball screen print, soccer socks, shin guards, and cleats.

“Mommy, will you open the [sliding] glass door so I can play soccer?”

“Sure…” I said, as I opened the door, and out she went.

A few minutes later, Olivia was banging on the door. I knew she wouldn’t be able to hear me if I tried talking to her through the glass, so I got up, walked across the family room and kitchen, to open the door. “Yes?” I asked.

“Mommy, Roxie is out of her kennel…Can I play with Roxie?”

“Hmm…” I thought. Roxie is an Australian Shepherd mix who is at least 15 years old. Once a menace to our neighborhood’s small animal population, she now has to be coaxed up and off of the pillow she sleeps on, and guided out of her kennel into the yard. I couldn’t imagine Roxie “playing” with Olivia. Still…

“Okay, I guess so,” I told Olivia.

“Yeah!”

I closed the door and returned to my office. It was a while before I heard from Olivia again…She came running into my office (nope, no idea who let her in or what prompted them to do so)…

“Mommy, I winned! I really did. I winned Roxie.”

“Great!” I said, and paused.

“Mommy, can I have one of your trophies?”

“Hon…” I said, “I’d love to give you one of my trophies, but the truth is, they were thrown away a long time ago.”

“Oh,” she said, and paused…”Then can I have one of Reiley’s?”

“Sweetheart,” I began, “You usually get a trophy because your team played better than all the other teams, and you won A LOT of games.” I refrained from adding that beating a geriatric dog is generally not considered worthy of a trophy.

“Did Reiley win a lot of games?”

“Well…yes…some of her teams did…”

“Oh…Mommy, can you help me take my cleats off?” And Olivia was on to something else.

But I was left thinking about the truth…As just about any parent would guess at this juncture, no, Reiley did n ot earn most of her trophies by playing well; rather, like the majority of children playing organized sports today, she was awarded them simply for participating. And much as I support rewarding children for having fun, learning new skills, cooperating with their teammates, good sportsmanship, etc. I hate the currently commonplace “participation trophy.

Rich Tierney has it right: “The participation trophy is one of the most misused and irrelevant pieces of hardware sitting on your child’s shelf. A trophy should represent an accomplishment of some sort, but there is no true accomplishment in participating, at least by the standards of most participation trophies.”

I can bet that’s not what Reiley thinks…there was no way she’d give Olivia one of her prized trophies – and certainly not for beating the dog at backyard soccer.

My day yesterday confirme the theory of the busier you are the more you get done (because you have to), opposed to having a completely free day to “catch up.”  Those free days usually end up being spent on the couch catching up on the latest “Real Housewives of ANY CITY,” and nothing gets done.

I started the day off at 5:30 am as usual, and got Maz out the door for work at 6am. Then I got myself ready for work and off I went to drop Sammy at the groomers.  I worked until a little after 1pm, then went to Sunflower Market to get stuff for dinner- a roast- yes, a roast…I think my second roast of all time.  Then I went back to get Sammy and was off to Starbucks to meet with a friend and some much needed caffeine.  I think I ended up at home around 3:15 pm and rushed to get the roast in the oven so I could get Sammy out for a quick walk because it was starting to snow.  Got the roast, potatoes, and carrots in the oven and out the door I went.  Sammy’s 45 minute walk turned out to be wet, I didn’t beat the snow! I’m just tired by the time we returned.  I still had to clean up the kitchen and do laundry.  I think I actually sat down at 6:30 pm.

Okay, I know I may sound like a baby her,e but seriously I did so much yesterday- for me anyway.

Today’s agenda: Run, lunch with friends, and finish cleaning the house.  Okay, now I sound like a baby.