Tag Archive | power walking

GLORY DAYS

Aug21

So many of us get caught up in the glory days of our past. Reminiscing about glory days…. Reminiscing is one thing, but getting lost in them is a whole other thing.

Lets be honest too. Often we skip over the sleepless nights of baby rearing saying how easy it was then. Remembering when we were in school think we had no cares. Forgetting both the social pressure and pressure to do well. We romanticize with most of our past this way.

There is really nothing sadder than a middle aged man or woman who is still living their glory days. Reveling in when they were star quarterback quarterback, cheerleader or any such thing. Having something amazing in front of you, but thinking it doesn’t compare to what you once had or worse dreamed of having. There is also nothing sadder than an athlete who keeps trying to hold on to their glory days too. In all of these cases, they are usually missing out on what is right in front of them.

Days you ran faster.

Days you ran further.

Oh what used to be.

Often we get so caught up in where we were that we forget to look forward to where we are going or even where we are now. Sometimes if we take off the rose colored glasses we also remember that our glory days are not as great as we make them out to be. We see this with people talking about their childhoods usually in comparison to the way kids are growing up now. They forget that it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be even if it was good. They look at it fondly forgetting the bad and while no one wants to focus on the bad, you can’t pretend it wasn’t there.

Now I am not saying that we should focus on the bad, but by discounting it sometimes it allows you to be stuck in the past because the future or present will never live up to it. Besides, they aren’t wrong when they say you can never go back.

You can’t.

Not going to happen.

Remember but don’t live in it.

Our lives change. Not just as an athlete, but as a human our lives change, our circumstances change and sadly our bodies change (and age). Now all that being said, you can be proud of your accomplishments. You can brag about them even, but what you can’t do is let them define where you are now. Most of all when you stop doing that you might just realize that you are able to enjoy today more than you did yesterday.

I’ve found that with my walking. Giving up where I was or thought I should be has allowed me to focus on where I am today. Now I am not saying that I will never run again because part of me already wants to run. That being said, I am enjoying learning what my body can do today. I have been walking at least a mile a day since June 21rst. I can walk more frequently and further without the physical downside when I was pushing to run (remember that whole Hypoparathyroidism thing).

Yesterday, I went out for a long walk as part of my NYC Virtual Marathon Training. I knew that I wanted to walk at least 8 but 10 was really my goal. When I reached 9.5, I met someone I know that was out walking and joined her. We chatted and I ended up hitting 11 miles. While I did end up with a blister (not uncommon for 3 hours on your feet) and I did need a short nap, I was not out for the count. I also realized that I need to stay true to this walking marathon training as the worst thing I can do is second guess where I am right now. The worst thing you can do is to try to make a major change in your training when you are in midst of it. I would only be setting myself up for failure.

Yes, I could most likely start running agin and I would be able to do it. The question is why would I be doing it. I would be doing it because I feel like it is expected to be doing it right now. When I tell people that currently I am not running and committed to walking, they do scratch their heads a little. It is not the norm to admit that you need a step back. It is not the norm to say that you are going to push it to the edge. It’s not the norm to admit that sometimes you need something different.

Then again as my friends can tell you……

I am not normal.

I’m ok with that.

Try it. It is freeing to break expectations. It is freeing to be who you are now. It is freeing to just be.

Easier is a Relative Term

Aug18

Just because something is easier does not mean it is not hard. Nor does it mean that there aren’t challenges, learning curves, or doubt. Just because something is “easier” does not mean anything except that it is different. Besides easier is a relative term that is different for each individual and changes during their lifetime. What was once hard can become easier Just as what was once easy can become hard. It is all relative and ever changing.

There are things we do in life and often think to ourselves does it really matter. Maybe we won’t buy some brands because we don’t like what they support. Maybe we avoid certain establishments for the same reason. That is our freedom. Maybe we think it doesn’t matter if we dust behind the picture frames because who is going to see it. Meanwhile we see lines at the store, people using the products we wont, maybe the dust piles up and wonder does it matter. Does it make a difference, but it does. We would know. We know.

In life, you may fool a lot of people. You might even fool them for a long time, but there is one person you can’t fool and that is yourself. If you cheat on your diet and no one is around, you know you cheated. If you tell everyone you are training, but never actually train; you will know. Some even go so far as to cheat at events crossing finish line. They may even get the bling, but deep down they know they don’t deserve it.

Currently I am beginning my training for the NYC Virtual Marathon. I have decided that I am going to power walk it and I’ve been doing my daily walks. I am still working on the actual training plan and need to mark my calandar with the day that I plan to complete the marathon. This will help tailor my training. I am leaning towards November 1rst as that would be normal date, but not sure.

In talking to my son about this, he was like how will they know you didn’t cheat. So we talked about it. I told him that I’m sure just like other events that there will be people who don’t complete the race the way intended. That would be on them. For me though, I will know if I don’t do what I set out to do which is to complete a marathon. Others can worry about themselves because I will know that I did what needed to be done.

In life that is all you can ask of yourself because what you do in private is even more important that what you do in public. It is even more important to stay true to yourself, your beliefs and your honor even if you are the only one who will know. Especially if you are the only one who will know.

So with that I begin my training of a marathon that I said I didn’t want to run. I wasn’t lying because this time I don’t want to run. I’m going to walk and know that just because some may think this is easier, it is still going to be hard.

Swimming Against the Current

Aug10

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Often people get trapped in a rip current without realizing it.  If you don’t look for the signs you can be caught up in one before you even know how it happened.  Once in many think the only way out is to keep pushing and swim through it.   Swimming against the current.   They push and they push until exhaustion sets in.    It’s only when calmness sets in do they often realize that the best way to escape the current is to not to try to swim against it but parallel to it until you get out of it.   Once out, you can swim back to shore.

The secret is remaining calm.   It is to think about what is happening.    It is about accessing the situation and it is about finding a way out.    Up until recently I have been doing the same thing with my running.   I have been going against what my body needed.   What my body wanted.   I had been pushing and pushing and not paying attentions to the signs or the way out.   I have finally found the edge of the rip current I have been fighting and now am comfortably able to swim to shore.

All this time, I kept thinking of it as giving up.   That I was taking the easy way out.    I didn’t realize that I was taking on water and pushing myself to brink of exhaustion because I refused to truly listen to the signs.   Just like you need to respect a rip current, you need to respect the limitations of your body.  It’s about learning to swim with the current instead of against it.   Most of all it is about knowing if you want a different outcome, you need to change what your are doing.   You need to be willing to look at ways to do the same thing over and over again.   You need to be willing  to float with the tide.

As you know I’ve been continuing on my 30 days of Yoga with Adriene.   The other day in practice she gave a mantra that really struck me.

Allow…. Release… Let Go

Seems easy enough, but is oh so hard in life.   Often we hold onto things that no longer serve us, but we can’t seem to let go.   Continuing to push when we should pull.   Holding on when we need to let go.   When we finally…. allow…. release…. let go; we wonder why we didn’t do it sooner.

As I’ve continued on my walking, I realize that for now this is serving me.    I can go longer distances.    I can go daily.   It doesn’t drain me.   I can go faster that I thought and further this way.   I can and will train for a marathon.  For me, it is better to be able to continue to keep going forward to achieve new goals than it is how I get there because sometimes if you don’t find your way out of the current you could end up exhausted to the point of giving up.   I’m not one to give up but I am no longer fighting the current.

just-keep-swimming

What rip currents have you escaped in life?

 

UnPause

Jul11

When the “Great Pause” as in my mind it will be known started in early March, no one knew what it would mean.   No one knew how long it would last.   In the beginning, most of us treated it as a snow day where time stopped.    No rules.   No expectations.   PJ’s all day.   Then again, maybe that was just my house.   The only one who remained on a regular schedule is my husband who immediately started working from home.  

So while life as we knew it changed, we only thought it was temporary.   Yet, here we are …months later still trying to figure it all out. Realizing this is not a pause but a temporary new way of life.  This is what we need to do…… for much longer than we ever imagined.   In ways we never thought of.

So now it’s time to hit the play button and take our lives off pause. Slowly…. Cautiosly…. Smartly… Taking things off of pause and restarting in small steps.

Here it the thing though….. It is also time to evaluate what things that we paused that didn’t serve us, our families and our lives. Prior to the pause everyone wore “busy” as a badge of honor when maybe it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Many for the first time in years have been able to have family dinners because everyone wasn’t over scheduled. There were not parents heading off in opposite directions with different kids only to meet exhausted at the end of the day. There was time to do puzzles together, game nights, and just time to putz around the house to actually just be.

I’ve kind of done the same thing with my running. There were no races to train for. No events that I felt I would miss if I didn’t do. There were no expectations. I could just be. Leading me to get back into practicing yoga and slow things down. And while I have signed up for virtual events, the expectations for them is much different.

So with that I Started walking. Taking that step back from running. Enjoying just being. At first it was not intentional. It really started just because it had gotten extremely hot and humid, so I thought walking would be better. Then I realized that this is what I needed. I began getting out every day and while I am not “on a streak,” I am going on 3 weeks without missing a day. So now I have a small goal of hitting a month streak.

At first, I felt like I should be doing more. Than I should at least attempt to run. That this was not pushing myself. Then I realized that I didn’t want to push. That I had no need to push. That sometimes you have to go back to the beginning to get where you need to go. With that there was a mindset change.

My walks are not Sunday Strolls, but more of a power walk pace. Walking with purpose as they call it. I want to get my legs used to a set pace for walking because I also know that when I do add running back in that walking MUST be part of the conversation. Eventually, races will start again. Eventually, I will sign up and be training for one again. When that time comes, I know that in order for me to be consistent, be effective that I will need to do a mix of walk/running.

So as with life, I will start to evaluate what has not served me well in my running. I will evaluate and adjust. Until I am ready to take the next step in running (the C25K), I will walk with purpose using the time to listen to some Podcasts and just be.

I know that I may not have been using this pause as efficiently as some, but to me life isn’t always about the finish line but the way you get there.

Walking, Walking, Walking…..

Jun27

Those who have been around a while know that I became the Accidentally Running Mama by accident.   Hence the name.   This blog and my running really was just to track and share my training for what was supposed to be the one and done Iron Girl Sprint Triathlon.   Obviously it took a life of it’s own and here we are.

Now though I am making a conscious decision to purposely become the accidentally walking Mama.

Say what?????

I’ve talked before how I can’t get a handle on my paces.   Running too fast.   Then needing to stop and walk.   Repeat.   Repeat.  Repeat.   There was a time where I could do negative splits without really looking at my watch.   I just knew by feel and adjusted accordingly.   Now I’m just so jerky with being fast and then slow and can’t get a handle on it.

I am not concerned about pace, so it’s not like I am trying to intentionally run faster paces.   It’s not like I even care about my pace or as we know not training for anything.   I just lost the ability to regulate it.   After a jerky run where my fastest pace was 7:16 (even if it was for a second), I had an epiphany.    I learned to regulate my pace because I was in touch with what my body could do and in tune with it.

Right now I’m out of tune.

At last years New York City Marathon I ended up doing a very brisk powerwalk for most of the race.   This explains my 6:10 finish time.    The thing is when it was over, I still crossed the finish line.   I still got a medal.   I still did what I set out to do.   I felt all the joy, elation, and pride of completing the NYC Marathon.  The next day though, I felt the effects of powerwalking a race that I was trained to mostly run.   Walking got the job done, but it does engage your leg muscles differently than running and I was sore in a different way from running.

I also was thinking about what I need to do to complete the NJ Virtual Parkway challenge.   I’ve got 18 days and about 60 miles to go.    So that averages out to 3.33 miles a day.    I can’t run that every day but I know I can walk it.   A challenge is a challenge and I never back down from one which you can view as good or bad.

I know that when I am out and about, I am going to want to run.   I’ve already gone for 2 walks and had to pull myself back.    I am going to feel like I should be running.   I am going to tell myself… Just this once and try to sabotage this quest to just walk thinking I should be doing more.   The truth is I think this is right want I need to be doing and am planning to stay firm.

I need to go back to the very, very beginning.   Not going back to couch to 5k, but the very very beginning.   Then I can do C25K to start running again.  As it is, I am heavier than I was back in 2013 when I started training for that Sprint Triathlon.   This will allow me to both finish my virtual challenge and get expectations (even internal ones) off the table.

So for now, I am out and about walking.   Not strolling like I’m on the boardwalk, but like I’ve got to get home before the storm comes in.   As a runner, it is important to stay true to your abilities.   True to where your body is on any given day.   True to what you need to do.   Often we push past what we should do in the name of vanity, in the name of meeting a goal, in the name of trying to be better.   Sometimes it works.   Sometimes we crash and burn.

Right now I am on my way to meeting my goal.   I know that I don’t need to do this step back to meet it, but I think it might be the smartest way to both meet it and give my body the reset it needs for my running.   As I said in my last post this is the year to regroup, refocus, and adjust.    I want to run.   I’ve got dreams of another 50K one day (seriously, why can’t I shake that one – I am trying).    If I want to be able to get to where I am going, I need to go back to the beginning.

I’ve also come to the realization that if I want to get back to the longer distances then I’m going to need to incorporate more walking. So this will help me find not just my running stride but my walking stride. Walking with a purpose

So here we go……

 

 

I’m Still Standing

Nov4

Yesterday, I had a choice. I could run through the pain or I could run a smart race. I could only do one. As a runner, we often think that we need to dig deep, run through injury, or somehow we aren’t tough enough. I beg to differ with that. Sometimes it is harder to make what you know is the right choice for your life even if it might not be what you necessarily want to do or as a runner think that you should do.

Aerbically I was feeling good yesterday. I started off with a strong run. I kept my paces conservative in the 11’s and 12’s. My splits were on target by the 15K. The problem was that by mile 6 my feet were starting to hurt. So I pushed through. I kept on running. Up until I didn’t.

Aebocially I had it in to push through. I was feeling strong. I was feeling confident in being able to get that 5:45 that I was aiming for. The flip side though was at what cost would I get that time. I wasn’t winning. I wasn’t PRing. I was only finishing. I knew that if I continued to push to run, I might not be able to walk like had happened only a month prior. I didn’t want to end up in a boot which since it would be both feet, might be complicated. It would also effect my job as teaching preschool gymnastics does require your feet. The cost was too high.

So I made a decision to power walk the marathon. There were times that I did run but they were fleeting moments and the pain reminded me that it wasn’t a good idea. Not to say there was no pain with the power walking, but as my Mantra became….. I was stronger than the pain.

By the Half way point, I knew that if I planned to get to the finish line and be able to go about my life the next day that I would need to stick with the walking. And for anyone who thinks that power walking a marathon is easy, I advise you to go for it and experience it yourself. My legs still became heavy, my quads and calves still screamed; but I kept on moving. I knew if I stopped that starting would be too hard.

The beauty of power walking is that I did several live stream videos for my facebook friends. It was more for me than them, but I do think they enjoyed “experiencing” the marathon in a way only those on the course can. The excitement. The bands, choirs, and views of the city that you can only get when it’s all shut down for 50,000 plus runners. Plus so many of these friends have support me in so many ways and supported the whole reason I was there….. Sandy Hook Promise.

This year since I was power walking, I did not miss the Sandy Hook Promise cheer section. It was the highlight of my run. To go and get hugs and support from my Team reminding me of why I was there and what was really important carried me. It also helped that they were at mile 17!

There is more to unpack with this event, but for now I need to go roll, stretch and soak.

Oh and for those wondering………. 6:20:41

A reverse PR, but done is done!