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…

I am participating in a retreat and workshop at the Lama Foundation in northern New Mexico. Today our art practice included creating a sculpture out of objects found in nature. I created this piece: a weaving constructed of twigs, flowers, grasses, leaves, string, and pieces of tent binding. It was inspired by a bird’s nest I once saw while out rock-climbing.

With the girls away at camp, the boys and I went climbing at Frustration Creek, near Forest Falls, California. This is Quentin on “Delusions, 5.11d.” Parker’s climbing day ended when he disturbed a nest of Daddy Long Leg spiders. I’m surprised you didn’t hear him screaming.

I’m with Terri. Hiring a running coach aside, there’s likely no way to increase our chances of qualifying for the Boston Marathon other than cross-training. Not only were we just plain burned out by “just” running during our training for the 2010 San Diego Rock ‘n’ Roll marathon, but I also suffered the onset of iliotibial (IT) band pain. Certainly, cross-training will help to develop muscles oft-neglected by running exclusively, and – hopefully – prevent (additional) injury. It will also combat boredom in what promises to be yet another long, hot summer.

Terri has taken up mountain biking and bike commuting. Although my current “recovery and training” plan include biking, my tack is a little different. I’m just going “back” to how I trained for my previous marathons: biking to work as often as possible, walking nearly as many miles as I run, practicing yoga daily, rock-climbing, and getting in the pool on most of the truly hot afternoons.

Bicycle commuting: In addition to reducing the stress on my joints, generally, riding to campus and back will require me to use overlapping sets of muscles in distinct ways to help limit my chances of injury.

Balancing walking and running: Amounts to “time on my feet.” I’d just tried doubling my workouts a couple of times before my IT band started hurting, but I like the idea of increasing my cardiovascular conditioning and running economy by getting more workout in each week than there are days. For now, one of my “runs” is a fast-paced walk.

Yoga: Without it, I’d be even less balanced. In addition to increasing the frequency and duration of my practice, I’ve incorporated asanas that stretch the IT band – Pigeon, Reclining Hand Foot Pose, Square Pose – and strengthen the core.

Rock Climbing: While climbing doesn’t have a direct impact on running, it’s a great way to improve the mental fitnessmental fitness long-distance running requires.

Swimming: Another low-impact route to cardiovascular fitness and alternative way to build upper body strength. I haven’t been able to find an adult class that suits both my budget and my schedule, so I’ve been swimming pretty sad looking laps at the community pool while  kids SPLASH and play nearby.

Two weeks into it, I’m on a roll.

I’m probably just making myself unnecessarily miserable by even thinking about designing a training schedule for my next marathon, but what else am I supposed to do while practically at a stand-still, waiting for my knee to heal?

Both Terri and I realized before we ever reached the starting line in San Diego that we weren’t having nearly as much fun running as we used to. We talked about cross-training, and I started reading about the mental foundations of running, especially as it might relate to running a faster marathon. Among the blogs, books, and magazine articles I’ve been reading, Matt Fitzgerald’s RUN: The Mind-Body Method of Running by Feel hit on a couple of points - in addition to running A LOT and ENJOYING every run - that got me thinking.

One of these really hit a nerve: comfort. Fitzgerald argues that in addition to familiar, repetitive training programs, your entire lifestyle can be used to create a comfort zone to foster the psychological momentum necessary for reaching running goals. Indeed. Just listening (internally, as I read) to long distance champion Deena Kastor describe her daily routine lulled me right into a marathon PR:

I wake up at 6:00 AM and then eat breakfast and then take the dog for a walk…As soon as I get back, my husband will stretch me out and get me ready for practice. At 8:30 AM everybody meets for practice. Whether it’s a hard day or an easy day, I’m usually back at around 11:00 or 11:30 AM. I’ll eat a snack and then take an ice bath and then eat lunch right afterwards. Then I take a nap. When I wake up, I eat another snack, walk the dog again, and do my second run. At 4:30 PM I meet my trainer at the athletic club for a gym session. Then I come home and prepare dinner for my husband and myself.”

Wow! If only.

And note those second, and third (at the gym) workouts. Fitzgerald emphasizes the value of multiple runs, in addition to gym workouts and/or plyometrics, in a single day. I have a hard time getting ONE run in, and it’s rarely packaged in the arcadian routine Fitzgerald suggests is optimal for improving mind-body connection and increasing speed. He does emphasize that in addition to living in the runners’ haven of  Mammoth Lake, “Kastor “makes a good living as a runner and has no children.” No?!

Today, I got up and walked the dog too! This trek necessarily “counted” as my first workout. Then I stretched, completely unaided, before getting on with a day that included supervising the kids’ chores, preparing two meals, completing heaps of school- and business-related busy work, chauffeuring the kids to their activities, and last-minute shopping for Fathers’ Day. All day, I sincerely thought about a second workout, but it’s after 11 PM now. I just don’t think it’s going to happen.

Okay, Juli and I have convinced ourselves that there is NO OTHER WAY to increase our running abilities than to cross train.  We can’t imagine adding anymore running miles to our training log. Seriously, I think we are exhausted just thinking about running more to do better in our marathons. Our solution is to cross train and develop “other” muscles.

So, yesterday I had this amazing idea to go actual mountain biking.  Right now, I use my mountain bike mostly for road riding and groomed dirt trails.  I actually thought mountain biking could be fun…WRONG!  First of all, the bike I am using is one step up from a Huffy you can get at Target.  Add to that, I don’t know how to use the gears; my back brake doesn’t work; and the thing is so heavy.  I didn’t know it was so heavy until I found myself carting the bike around up and down rocks and boulders for most of the ride.  I was more exhausted from the 4 mile bike ride than running 13 miles!  We couldn’t even do the whole trail because I just couldn’t do it.  I was ready to leave the bike behind and run the trail.  It was so bad…I just wasn’t prepared.

I have a whole new outlook on people who mountain bike; they are intense and extremely fit.  I mean, I just ran 26.4 miles at a pretty decent pace but I couldn’t mountain bike 4 miles! Now I’m torn; I have tried an activity that I didn’t enjoy because I it killed me. Do I continue and prove to myself that I can do it? Or do I give up and stick to road and groomed trails? It’s a little more expensive to get better, considering I’ll have to buy a new bike. (My current bike is now retired from ALL real mountain biking.)

Maybe this summer will be road-riding and trail running. Next summer – mountain biking.  I don’t know. My mind changes daily and sometimes hourly. We’ll see what happens next.

This is probably the best picture out of my/our entire stay in CA.  Maz has been to the beach before, but not like this past trip.  We actually spent a good amount of time at the La Jolla shores (my favorite place) and snorkeled.  Neither of us had ever done that before, but we had a good time.  I think the trickiest part is learning how to get in and out of the water with fins. Well, at least Maz was able to keep his fins on…

Or “How I Made Peace with ‘Wogging’ the 2010 San Diego Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon.”

Ignore for a moment my lack of mental fitness on the morning of the marathon. (That is, I very rationally, albeit pessimistically, believed that only a miracle would get me to the finish line.) My goal was to finish the marathon in as close to four hours as possible. Before I stopped to use the bathroom somewhere during the second mile, I’d fallen behind the 4:00 pace group, but I managed to keep up with the 4:15 pace group for 12 miles. Then my knee locked up. It took me six hours - only 5:29, if you discount the half hour I spent with paramedics along the route, discussing the pros, cons, and possibility of catching a shuttle to the end. That I managed do so with a smile on my face and increasing appreciation for marathon walkers is testament to the power and merits of flexible goal adjustment.

Flexible goal adjustment is an accommodative coping strategy that involves “downgrading” goals or expectations when they become clearly unattainable. It is strongly associated with levels of psychological well-being needed to avoid depression when faced with physical injury, pain, and/or disability. In my case, the now-familiar nagging pain associated with Iliotibial band syndrome (ITBS) prompted me to “downgrade” my gait from respectable running pace, to “wog,” or a kind of quick walk-jog that felt like a walk to me, but enabled me to pass a lot of marathon walkers. I was severely disappointed, even teary-eyed as a I reluctantly agreed to sit down on the back of the paramedic’s truck at mile 16 and put an ice pack on my knee. Three miles later, I’d resigned myself to “walking” the remainder of the marathon and – slowly – began to enjoy myself.

It was wild. I’m far from shaking my attachment to “the "idea that I am a runner",  yet once I let go of the idea that I was going to run that particular marathon, I settled into a respectable pace that generated a bearable level of pain. Almost simultaneously, the heat abated, I could feel the ocean breeze, and I could hear people around me talking to one another, stopping to take pictures along the way, laughing at the aid-station themes, and encouraging one another – after all, 26 miles is a really, really long way when you know it could take the whole day and not just a few hours. Who knew the actual marathon, as opposed to the starting line festivities and other, associated events and activities could be so much fun?

I’m nowhere near ready to hang up my running shoes or abandon my goal of qualifying for the Boston Marathon, but I’m now fairly certain that if the day ever comes when I can no longer experience the many joys of running, I will be able to experience the joys that accompany any number of other athletic pursuits.

Just two days until the San Diego Rock ‘n’ Roll marathon and I haven’t run more than four entirely pain-free miles since my last long run over three weeks ago. I’m confident I can run twice that far, maybe more, in tolerable pain; reaching the finish line in less than five hours could require a miracle.

But why?

Good question. The answer may not satisfy you.

I’m running this marathon because I committed to running it with my sister Terri; I trained hard for it; I paid for it – no small thing considering the only entry left at the last minute included a $99 pass to Sea World; and I continue to believe that joining thousands of people who share my passion for running for a morning run through one of California’s top vacation destinations will be fun. I persist in running marathons twice a year because I want to be a proficient distance runner. I have the endurance; now I need to get faster without risking injury.

A year ago, it was my planter fascia, which was stressed when I sprained my ankle during a long run. This year, it’s my iliotibial band (ITB), which runs along the outside of the thigh, extending from the pelvis, over the hip and knee, and inserting just below the knee, is essential for stabilizing the knee during running.

When massage, chiropractic adjustment, and ultrasound treatment, combined with the remedies provided online – reduce mileage and intensity, then build up again slowly – worked, I opted NOT to see my doctor. I wasn’t ready for her pat suggestion that I try another sport – maybe swimming. (The woman obviously has not seem me swim!) It’s not that I’m opposed to swimming or, in my case, learning to swim…more efficiently, if not more elegantly as well. Rather, the water doesn’t pull me into the pool or ocean the way my running shoes literally pull me outside onto the road or trail.

I’m a runner, not a swimmer.

According to Elsa Primo, despite idiosyncratic distinctions between “jogger” and “runner,” what makes someone a runner isn’t speed or skill, necessarily. It’s his or her determination, willingness to overcome frustration, and openness to the mental unraveling that occurs when you run faster or farther than you think you can…then continue running anyway. A runner is someone “who gets out on the road” and runs on a regular basis so that his or her “legs start to feel funny from not running after a couple of days,” says Anne Kymalainen.

Novelist and runner Haruki Murakamidescribes it this way:

When I first started running, I couldn’t run long distances. I could only run for about twenty minutes, or thirty. That much left me panting, my heart ounding, my legs shaky…But as I continued to run, my body started to accept the fact that it was running, and I could gradually increase the distance. I was starting to acquire a runner’s form, my breathing became more regular, and my pulse settled down. The main thing was not the speed or the distance so much as running every day, without taking a break.

Recent scholarship supports these runners’ beliefs. Daniel Lieberman and Dennis Bramble argue that contemporary runners' "proclivity to run" has evolutionary roots. Humans are supposed to run. Zoologists Karen Steudel and Cara Wall-Scheffler, moreover, demonstrate that each one of us has an optimal running pace that uses the least amount of oxygen possible to cover a given distance.

So, again, why am I running the 2010 San Diego Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon on Sunday? Because I’m a runner; it’s what I do.