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.

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.

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.

I ran 23 miles on Monday – to campus and back (11 miles each way), with a one-mile detour to refill my water bottle. Just as I reached campus, I almost thought I felt … a kind of “tightness” that sort of hurt, but I wouldn’t call it pain, exactly, on the outside of my left knee. I stretched quickly before going to a meeting (all about research and heavily attended by graduate students, so my flushed face, sweat, and snug running attire didn’t even raise an eyebrow), and began jogging back off campus as soon as it was over. As I shifted from warm-up jog to easy 10-minute-mile pace, I became increasingly aware that the “muscles” around my left knee were not just tight; it was really starting to hurt.

Nearly half-way back home, about the time I slowed way down while looking for some place not too far off my course where I could refill my water bottle, I could tell that the pain was increasing. I endured a dull, persistent ache for the remainder of my run. I stopped at a red light before crossing the street to where my car was parked, and it was all I could do to step down off the curb when the light changed. I sort of hobbled across the street, keeping my left leg stiff and straight to alleviate the pain, poured myself into my car, and headed home.

Despite what was easily the worst running-related pain I’d ever experienced, I had every intention of joining my girlfriend on Tuesday for our usual short, “recovery” run. This wasn’t positive thinking or the more commonplace denial. Rather, some deep part of my psyche recognized that pain is ephemeral compared to the constancy of running in my life.

I’ve been running since I was in Third or Fourth grade, when I read a biography of Mildred Ella “Babe” Didrikson Zaharias, who has been called the greatest multi-sportathlete that the United States has ever produced. Babe was a tomboy who excelled in basketball, golf, baseball, tennis, swimming, diving, boxing, volleyball, handball, bowling, billiards, skating, and cycling as well as track and field. What I remember most is that she literally ran to the market for her mother when she was a little girl, hurtling over hedges along the way. Babe didn’t compete in her first track meet until 1930, when she was 19; she qualified  for five events in the 1932 Olympics, where she set a world record in the 80 meter hurdles.

Until junior high school, my running “career” amounted to racing the neighborhood kids. I typically beat everyone my age or younger, even the boys! Although 7th and 8th grade track didn’t amount to much more than an extension of gym class – we competed primarily amongst ourselves, with students from the other local junior high school added to the mix sometimes – I became more serious. I began running the market, the library, and my brother’s baseball games – all within a mile of our home – and entered the house more often than not by dashing through the front door, across the entryway, and hurtling over the gate that separated the living room and family room/kitchen. This addition to our home’s structure, intended to confine my then baby brother Jeff, and prevent him from reaching the stairs, coincided perfectly with track season.

I ran hurdles and sprints in high school, but wasn’t a star. I earned my varsity letter primarily because there weren’t many female hurdlers in our league – so few, in fact, that I often competed only against my own team mates! That’s the subtext. The real story of my high school track career is that I started running long distance. I’d complete the sprinters’ work-out, then hang around to warm down with the distance runners. My favorite work out was to run the cross country course – sometimes barefoot! – and then jog the mile or so home, with my school clothes and books in a gym bag thrown over one shoulder.

I’m still not sure why I never competed in the longer distances, or simply switched to cross country. But I did continue running – typically four to 10 miles at least three or four times a week -  during college and graduate school, on my honeymoon and relentlessly during my divorce, and through all four of my pregnancies. I even ran a 5K when I was nearly six months pregnant with my daughter Reiley.

I know, know. Running through emotional pain is not the same as running through a physical injury. Still…

Although I really didn’t want to, I took three days off training for the San Diego Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon next month. (To be honest, during this time, that pain in my knee deterred me from anything more intense than a moderately-paced walk on a flat surface.) I had a deep tissue massage on Tuesday, a chiropractic adjustment on Wednesday, and felt well enough to walk the dog on Thursday. I jogged about a mile – with my five-year-old, so this was a slow jog – on Friday…and the pain returned.

It turns out, I have ITBS for “iliotibial band syndrome,” attributable to a lack of strength and flexibility in the iliotibial band, often aggravated by running on tracks or crowned roads. The solution? In addition to warming up “enough,” stretching thoroughly, and “getting a longer leg” (seriously; my chiropractor confirmed my massage therapist’s observation that my left leg was longer, and made the necessary correction), runners are encouraged to cut back on the intensity and volume of training and avoid hills and cambered roads. With the exception of the chiropractic adjustment, none of the other remedies will prevent ITBS. They only make it less painful.

And so I will continue to run – a little further, and hopefully – but not necessarily – less painfully – each day.

In addition to all the reasons I run, add this one: I run to vindicate my sisters who couldn’t…

Once women were told , and believe, they should not compete in sport because to do so will cause damage to the reproductive organs. Women should not compete in sport because it will require them to dress immodestly. Women should not participate because competition requires an aggressive response that is masculine. Women should not participate because men will crate a sexual spectacle of their participation. Women should not participate because it will produce muscles, which are manly. Women should not participate because to do so invites sexual interest, and leads to promiscuity. Women should not participate because they easily give way to the powerful impulses of competition and the will over-indulge. Women should not participate because women are of an essentially nervous temperament and will be damaged. Women should not participate because they will become Amazons, attractive only to other women. Women should not participate because sport will interface with menstruation. Women should not participate because of the danger of physical injury to their light bones and otherwise delicate physical characteristics. Women should not participate because the specific sport requires arduous training, which, sustained over the long term necessary for success is incompatible with femininity and with the proper social role for of women. Women should not compete because it may cast them into direct conflict with men. Women should not compete because women are instinctively nurturing, which competitive sport is not. Women should not participate because women who participate in sports threaten men.

~ Frank Murphy, The Silence of Great Distance: Women Running Long


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?)

The marathon may be the most popular independent athletic event in the world; in 2010, over a million people will register to run at least one of the 500 marathons organized world wide this year. In combination with the World Championship and Olympic marathons, the Boston, New York City, Chicago, London, and Berlin marathons constitute the World Marathon Majors series, which awards $500,000 annually to the top competitors. Wow!

Yet, it wasn’t the cash that put “complete a marathon” on my list of life goals. It was the challenge – 26.2 miles just seemed like an incredibly long way to run. Paul Heckert agrees:

26.2 miles is a long way. The runner’s feet will slam into the hard road about 26,000 times each. All this pounding makes the runner’s feet sore. It also hurts the ankles, legs, knees, hips, and so forth. A runner with an old knee, ankle, hip, or other injury will relive the familiar pain from the stress of a hard 26.2 mile run. At about 20 miles the body’s store of glycogen fuel runs out. Runners whose bodies have not yet learned to burn fat will often hit the wall. They muster every last bit of whatever it is inside them to continue barely doing the survival shuffle.

I am happy to report that I managed to complete my first marathon with less than the usual pain and suffering. By crossing the finish line in San Diego last year, I joined the less than 1% of Americans who will ever complete a marathon. Pretty impressive, huh?

More significant, really, is that I was even permitted to compete. Eighty-eight years separates Melpomene’s unofficial marathon during the 1896 Olympics, where she finished with a respectable 4:30.00, and Joan Benoit’s 2:24:52 winning finishing time at the first women’s marathon of the modern Olympic games in 1984. That was barely 25  years ago!

Although women’s access to “smaller” distance events increased – Arlene Piper was the first woman to complete the Pikes Peak Marathon in 1959 (in just over 9 hours), for example – they were barred from the elite races. Roberta Gibb hid in the bushes at the start of the 1966 Boston Marathon, then jumped into the race. She finished in 3:21:40, making her the unofficial women’s winner that year. She beat Katherine Switzer, who took almost an hour longer, competing as K. Switzer – a man. It wasn’t until 1972, a year after women’s participation in marathons was sanctioned by the Amateur Athletics Union (AAU), that Nina Kuscsik became the first official female champion with a finishing time of 3:10:26.

Considering Paula Radcliff’s record-breaking 2:15:25 marathon finish in 2003 and scientists' speculation that women may ultimately outperform men in distance running events, why weren’t women permitted to compete in world class marathons? According to Lynette Miller, the essence of the argument is that "Their bodies just can't take it! They might injure themselves and be unable to have children."

Uh huh…Current record-holder Paula Radcliff gave birth to daughter Isla in 2007 without incident; rather, childbirth complicated her return to the professional marathon circuit. Currently expecting a second child, Paula plans to enter – and win – the Olympic marathon competition in 2012.