Posted by: Sue D. Gelber | March 21, 2011

Signs of Spring

After whining and complaining and generally being crabby about the weather for the past month, I woke up one day last week to what was by all accounts a beautiful day. It was sunny and warm. The birds were singing, the sky was blue. I scrapped all my plans for the day and decided to head outside.

First up was a quick run. Although it may have sounded like I’d ended my relationship with running completely after my last post, I decided that running and I could still see each other, as long as we kept things more casual – no pressure, no commitment, an open relationship. So I laced up for a quick little jog, just four miles to enjoy the sunshine. It seemed as if everyone was out, including a few people who clearly had not run since winter arrived last November. I also encountered some people clad in gray baggy sweatpants (akin to wearing a big neon sign that says “I don’t run very often”). Seeing so many casual runners made me feel a little better about myself – until one of them blew right by me as if I was standing still, his gray sweats flapping in the breeze.

But it didn’t matter, my goal was not to run fast. My goal was just to enjoy the day. I finished my loop and headed back home, just in time to start getting ready to meet up with a friend for the inaugural bike ride of the season. First off, I had to get my bike out, check it over and pump up the tires. Fortunately, I’d already brought it in for the pre-season tune-up, so it was in pretty good shape.

Next, I had to find my biking clothes.  Hmmm, biking clothes…. Where would I have put everything at the end of last season? I spent about an hour fishing through my closet to find tights, shirt, jacket, etc. It took forever. Then I had to find all my accessories. Another hour hunting around for helmet, gloves, skullcap, shoe covers. I worked up a sweat before I’d even left the house.

Then came the part where I repeatedly went outside, reassessed my clothing choices, and went back inside to add or shed a layer as needed. Lather, rinse, repeat. Another hour passed. Finally, I hopped on my bike, pedaled to the end of the block, decided I needed a heavier jacket and went back to the house. I pedaled away again, then realized I’d forgotten my water bottle and turned around one more time. The third time was a charm, and I headed to my friend’s house. I was pleased to find that she was in her driveway having the same scattered pre-ride frenzy that I’d had. Finally, a full hour behind schedule, we rolled out. The sky was blue, the potholes were enormous. Since I’d spent the better part of the day getting ready for the bike ride, I was left with precious little time for the ride itself, but we managed to get some miles in.

Once back home, I molted accessories as I went – helmet, gloves, shoe covers, shoes, hat, sunglasses. It was a like a bike shop exploded inside my door. As I looked around at the piles of biking stuff on the floor, I was pleased. They were sure signs of spring.

2 Comments

Posted in Cycling, Running | Tags: , , , , , ,

Posted by: Sue D. Gelber | March 12, 2011

A Fall From Grace

Am I the only person who cries during runs? I’m usually pretty buttoned up and, generally speaking, I do a great job suppressing my emotions. As I mentioned last week, I come from stoic New England stock and I don’t cry in public. Except, apparently, when running. On one run last summer, I’m pretty sure someone called 911 about the crazy lady sobbing while running down the street. I rarely cry while biking (except that one time where I was caught in a massive rainstorm and I was still miles from home, cold, wet and miserable – but that cry was totally justified) and I never cry during swimming (sometimes I cry on the way to the pool because I hate swimming so much, but never in the pool itself), and yet bawling during a run is not exactly uncommon. Usually the impetus is a long run during marathon training, but today I had no such excuse. Today I just fell apart.

My winter running had been going quite well. I managed to keep my training up and avoid injuries. I had a reasonable finish time at the F^3 Half Marathon in January and dared to hope I might eek out a PR at the Austin Half in February. Alas, life derailed my plans and I had to go to a funeral instead of Austin. Chaos and bad weather ensued, resulting in a tumble off the running wagon.

When I ventured out this morning, I discovered the weather was not exactly ideal: bleak, gray, chilly and very windy. I knew the wind would be challenging. My friend Andie had posted earlier that morning that she was on the lakefront path, about to begin her 15 mile run and she was NOT happy about the conditions. Even though I knew what I was in for, as I started down the street, all I could think was “I hate this. I hate this. I hate this.” It ran through my head like a mantra. I was tired of the wind, tired of the cold, tired of the gray, tired of winter in Chicago, heck, I was tired of living in Chicago, period. I didn’t even make it a block before I started crying. I turned around and went back home.

Slamming the door as I came in, my husband (the poor soul) made a joke about how fast I must have run. I nearly bit his head off. I heard my daughter whisper “Mommy’s crabby.” And that’s when I realized I had to try again. Because if I didn’t get a run in, I’d just continue to be crabby all day. And no one wanted that. So, I went back out, but instead of heading south, I headed north. With the wind at my back, I was less miserable. I figured, if Andie could run 15 miles in the wind, I could run at least five, right?

I plodded along like an elephant. My pace was pathetic. Good lord, how could I go from ready to PR at a Half Marathon to dreading five miles in less than a month? I’d fallen from running grace, a rapid and humiliating plunge. What used to be effortless and enjoyable was now painful and labored. I’d lost my will to go on. I needed a break. At the 1.5 mark, I cut the run short and headed back home, barely tripping three miles on my Garmin, defeated. I realized that perhaps it was time to change gears. And that, as it turns out, was just what I was about to do.

After a quick shower, I hopped in the car and drove to the VisionQuest Training Center for my biking camp orientation. Yes, biking camp. Complete with camp counselors and everything. I’m not sure if there’ll be s’mores and ghost stories around the fire, but I couldn’t be more excited. A week riding hills in California. With SAG support. It’s exactly what I need, especially now.

Today’s camp orientation was a gift: it gave me something to look forward to. I have to say, Robbie Ventura is a pretty motivating speaker. He had me psyched to come home and dig out my rain gear (and I hate riding in the rain, so that’s really saying something). After my tear-streaked morning, it was just the change of direction I needed.

Now that’s not to say that I have given up running completely, but I look forward to focusing on something different. Biking camp to start, hopefully riding Going to the Sun over the summer, Apple Cider (one of my favorites) plus some other century rides in the fall, maybe even Tucson if I can work around the date. Oh, I’ll still run, but after my fall from grace, I know I need to start again at the bottom. It’s certainly a long road, and yes, I’ll probably cry on some of those runs. In the meantime, however, I look forward to going down a slightly different path.

13 Comments

Posted in Cycling, Running | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted by: Sue D. Gelber | March 5, 2011

A Home Run

The past two weeks have been quite the whirlwind, punctuated with funerals, illness and an all-around messed up schedule. I never realized half a month could go by in such a blur. Fortunately, I was able to find a positive angle: I managed to go for a run along the streets of my hometown, a nice jog down memory lane.

One of the funerals I attended in February was back East, only about 25 miles from where I grew up. I had a small chunk of time the morning of the service, so I decided to get up early and drive down to what used to be home. Getting off the highway, I was immediately struck by how things had changed, as I sat marveling at the enormous, sleek Whole Foods that stood on the corner where the tacky orange roof of the Howard Johnson’s used to dominate. My favorite HoJo Mocha Chip ice cream was no more, swapped for organic ice cream made from hormone-free milk produced by lovingly tended cows afforded greater rights than women in many Middle East countries….but I digress.

I drove down the road, with some things looking much the same, such as the cemetery and the car dealership, and some things looking remarkably different, like the housing stock. I drove to my old elementary school, which was exactly as I remembered it. The play field, however, looked so much smaller. I remember doing the 50 yard dash across it during Field Day, all those years ago, and at the time it seemed so much larger, an expanse spanning, quite possibly, several time zones. And yet as I gazed upon it as a grown-up, it looked downright cute. Heck, it barely looked 50 yards wide. Certainly it could not be the same field of torture from my childhood, could it?

I parked my car and got ready to go for a jog. I’d planned to run from the school down to the beach and back, a journey that I was certain would be about 4-5 miles, round trip. Imagine my surprise when I MapQuested it and found out that the beach was barely three-quarters of a mile away. How was that possible? When I walked that route as a child it would routinely take me a full hour! Of course, the fact that I stopped to pick every dandelion in my path, to make a much-coveted bouquet for my mother, might have had something to do with it. No, I needed a better route. So I headed the other direction, on a loop that I knew (as verified online) would be at least 5 miles.

While I ran, I was plagued by the feeling akin to bumping into someone you went to high school with: familiar and yet different at the same time. What I remembered as small Cape- or Gambrel-style houses had been dismantled and replaced by the standard Nouveau McMansions. But the curve of the street was the same. The vista as I came over the bridge was unchanged. The dead-end appeared in the exact same place it always had. One thing, however, was drastically different: the hills were much, much larger than I remembered. Perhaps that’s not because I’ve been gone so long, but more likely because I have become a bit soft living in the Midwest.

I have to confess that I, a hard-core keep-your-emotions-suppressed-at-all-times New Englander, found myself verging on emotional. Here I was, in a place where I used to be young, after dealing with issues of aging made real by four deaths in less than two months. There was something moving about returning to the streets of my childhood while in the midst of such a spate of funerals. The combination made me acutely aware of the passing of time.

My grandparent’s generation is gone, for the most part. My parent’s generation is aging, sometimes rapidly. People that I thought would be around forever, such as my sister-in-law’s mom, whose funeral I was in town for, were suddenly no longer there. And yet there was something rejuvenating about seeing my old elementary school, looking at the playground where we used to play “The Boys Chase the Girls,” and its corollary, “The Girls Chase the Boys.” Having been spared the ravages of Cooties, we’d been fortunate enough to grow up. I stood mesmerized for a moment, musing on how the passage of time is both a gift and a curse, but when I started to hear “The Circle of Life” echoing in my head, I knew it was time to wrap up and find a Starbucks. I can only think deep thoughts for so long before I start to drown.

Luckily, I was able to cap off my quick trip back home with a special treat, something appropriate to the theme of my voyage. Before heading back to the funeral, I swung by my best-friend’s parents’ house. Who knew when I’d be back in that neck of the woods again, and they’d always meant so much to me growing up. I’d known them since first grade. Their house had been my second home. As my best-friend’s parents, they were the best possible version of parents: they were always happy to see me, they never grounded me, they didn’t need to nag me to make my bed or do my chores, but they always had cookies for me (a stash of Oreos, just for when Sue came over). They were a special addition to my memories of childhood, a blessing lodged in my brain for me to remember all these years later.

I nearly burst into tears when I saw them, although perhaps the sting in my eyes was from the lingering pain of those damn hills. Although they have since moved from the house I knew as a child, their new home had that different-but-familiar feeling. The same furniture, the same decor adorning the walls, the same easy laughter filling the room. For a moment, I was twelve again, feeling nothing but love and unending optimism, with the future stretched before me, time suspended. But then the moment passed.

We had all of 15 minutes to chat before I had to hop back in the car, race the clock 25 miles back up the highway and take the fastest shower ever in order to make the funeral on time. But it was worth every minute to have a short, if emotionally laden, jog down memory lane. I hope everyone gets that opportunity at some point.

4 Comments

Posted in Running, Travel | Tags: , , , , , ,

Posted by: Sue D. Gelber | February 12, 2011

I’m Not Ready to Marry the Chicago Marathon

Chicago Marathon registration has been open for well over a week now, and I still haven’t signed up. I’ve had some legit excuses, though.

First, there was the blizzard. Or perhaps I should refer to it as The Blizzard. Given all the hype, it has to be a proper noun by now, right? Granted, the hype was well deserved. This fabulous Chicago Tribune photo captures some of the drama. So that sucked up a few days right there. I mean, who can think about a marathon when you’re trying to get to the grocery store before all the milk, bread and eggs are gone? (Which reminds me, why does everyone buy milk, bread, and eggs? Is it a snow-day tradition to make French Toast? We usually just have cereal. Have I been missing out all these years?)

Then there was the Super Bowl. Not that I really cared, but there is always hype around the big game. Who can think about a marathon when there is all that 7-layer dip to eat? And this week I was catching up on the mundane domestic stuff that got pushed off due to The Big Storm and The Big Game. Who can think about a marathon when you’re busy trying to find a particular pair of jeans that may or may not have gotten lost in the laundry?

So, finally, for the first time since the calendar turned to February, I am feeling a little more caught up and a little less overwhelmed. But I still haven’t surfed on over to the Chicago marathon website and clicked “Register Now!” Certainly, it’s not due to a lack of urging on the part of my pals, the #runnerds (you know who you are). My CM11 registration (or lack thereof) has become a daily joke on twitter. The teasing always brings a smile to my face. And yet, I still haven’t signed up. Why?

Well, I’m not sure I want to do it. (Gasp!)

I think part of the problem is that I’m currently in the middle of rewriting an essay about my Half Ironman experience, so I am reliving all my training from last summer. In some ways, it’s like having post-traumatic stress disorder flashbacks. The run when my husband had to come pick me up at mile 1.5 because I was crying and couldn’t go on. That 16-miler when I hated every single step from mile 10 on. The 18-miler through farmland where I spent most of my time alternately crying and swearing, frightening even the cows on the side of the road.

And then of course, there was my 20-miler last September, which I hated more than anything I have ever hated in my life. Last year, I had a conflict and was not able to do the CARA-organized Lakefront 20-miler training run. (Truth be told, I had tickets to see Dave Matthews the night before, and I was pretty confident that a 20 mile run the day after a Dave Matthews concert was not  a good idea.) Therefore, I decided to do my own 20-miler a day earlier. Big mistake. A friend of mine came with me for the first 5 miles, but we got caught in a severe thunderstorm and sprinted back home. I changed to dry clothes and headed back out, but I was on my own. I was ok for another 5 miles, and then my motivation disappeared. I phoned home and my daughter (bless her heart) said she would come with me on her bike while I finished the run. She kept track of the miles and encouraged me the whole way: “You’re almost there, Mommy.” I couldn’t have done it without her. We were still a half mile from home when my Garmin ticked to 20.00. I refused to take another step and made my husband come pick me up in the car. It was at that moment I said “I am never going to do this again.”

But it’s not just the fact that I hate long runs. A friend of mine recently sent me a marathon training plan (the Hanson program) that scales back the long runs considerably. “Hmmm,” I thought, “this might be the ticket.” But then I looked more closely. The program calls for running 6 days a week. 6 days a week? I can’t commit to that! What about my bike rides? What about spin? What about hiking in the summer? What about waterskiing? What about all the other things I like to do that aren’t running?

And that may get to the real crux of the issue. Marathon training requires something pretty darn close to monogamy. Yes, you can flirt with other sports, but if you are running a marathon, running is your sole significant partner until the race is over. If you run Chicago Marathon, you are married to running for most of August and all of September. October is spent tapering and then recovering. By the time you think you are back to normal and you might be able to squeeze in a 50 mile bike ride, guess what? It’s snowing. Better luck next year.

So, all of this is to say that I don’t mind running the marathon itself. In fact, I love the marathon. The energy of the city, the community of runners, the cheering crowds: it’s all fabulous. I would happily marry the Chicago Marathon, but I just don’t want to commit to the training. So if someone can come up with a magical way to prepare for a marathon while running 5 miles a day, three days a week, then I will gladly register for Chicago Marathon 2011. In the meantime, I’m just waiting.

25 Comments

Posted in Running | Tags: , , , , , , ,

Posted by: Sue D. Gelber | January 30, 2011

You Might Be a Crazy Runner, part 2

So here’s how it goes down: back in November, some crazy runner friends convinced you to do a half marathon fun run. In January. In Chicago. On the lakefront. Did you stop to think that it might be seven degrees with a wind chill factor of minus ten? Or, worse, that it might be 32 degrees and a driving rainy, wintry mix? No. You just thought: Oh, that sounds like fun and excellent motivation to keep running in bad weather. So, you signed up.

Naturally, you soon regretted it. Running in the spring, when it is warm and sunny and you love to be outside, is one thing. Running in January, when it is cold and gray and icy and windy, is a different experience altogether. You dragged yourself out to run on days when you would rather sit on the couch and watch reruns of Modern Family. Or The Office. Heck, you’d rather stay home and watch Gilligan’s Island. But you forced yourself out there. Somedays, it worked out great and you were delighted you went. Other days – many days – you were miserable. A lot of time you were the only runner around. People would drive by you in their warm cars, and you know they thought you were a crazy runner. Are you? Have you gone over the edge? Have you become one of those people who gets whispered about at cocktail parties? “I saw her running this morning. It was seventeen degrees and snowy! I think there is something wrong with her. Some kind of disorder.”

And so you find yourself, on the last Saturday of January, hauling yourself out of bed in the predawn darkness. You lather on the BodyGlide, then add layer upon layer until you think you can do battle with the elements. Still half asleep, you drive into the city, convinced that maybe it is true. Maybe you are a little crazy. When you get there, however, you meet up with a bunch of the other crazy runners. Runnerds, they call themselves. These are people you barely know, most of whom you have never seen in anything but running gear, some of whom you have never seen before at all. And yet there is this instant camaraderie. Everyone is joking, laughing, posing for pictures. People are dressed in costumes – pirates, ninjas – and bundled up head to toe. You talk about the route, press Start on your Garmin, and you are off.

Everyone settles into their paces and your group thins out. You fall into step with a few other people, only one of whom you have met before. In spite of being virtual strangers, you chat like old friends. You notice that the Lakefront trail is full of other runners. Back on My Feet, a fabulous organization you’ve gladly supported in the past, is doing a group run that morning. You and your running friends make a point to yell lots of encouragement as you pass them. You see some of the CARA running groups out there, including one with your friend Molly. You scream greetings at each other over your shoulders. Kirsten, your running partner for the morning, says “God, I love this sport.” You couldn’t agree more. Not only that, you realize that you love Chicago. Here it is, the end of January, a cold gray morning, and the Lakefront trail is packed with runners – even a few cyclists. You wouldn’t miss this for the world.

You pause after several miles to take a short water break and chat with some friends on the side of the trail. As you talk and stretch, you notice a tent set up on the beach. “What’s going on there?” you ask. A polar plunge, they tell you. A polar plunge? Apparently, 250 completely insane people are planning to jump into Lake Michigan. You see ax-swinging guys chopping up the ice to make a clean entry for the plungers. “That’s crazy,” you tell yourself as you continue on your run. You head south until you get to 6.55, then you turn around and head back north. You stop again for a water break near where the polar plunge will be. Participants are starting to show up. “Presumably they came straight from the asylum,” you mutter to yourself.

Unfortunately, the last few miles are a little painful. You hadn’t trained quite as much as you should have for this run, and what started as minor foot pain is now causing aches up your legs. You think about stopping to walk, but what’s the point? You still have to get all the way back to your car. You might as well keep going. Fortunately, you and Kirsten are still in sync, running the same pace. At this point you are both too tired to talk, but just being next to her helps you pull yourself along. You pass another runner friend, Andie, who is heading the opposite way. Smiles and cheers. The camaraderie gives you a much-needed energy boost. You pass some more Back on My Feet runners, and you are inspired by them. You are no longer tempted to walk. And then finally, you hit 13.1. You and Kirsten high-five each other as you reach the milestone. You walk out some of your aches and pains and the chat for a minute with other runners who finished before you. However, you are freezing, so you are happy to hop in the car and warm up.

You wait for a few other friends to finish and you spend time chatting and laughing about the run. You marvel at how crowded the path was. You all agree that the weather was great, considering the time of year. Finally, you head back home to take a hot shower. It was, you realize, a wonderful way to spend a Saturday morning in January. So does that mean you are a crazy runner? Maybe. But at least you are not one of those polar plunge people – they are the real crazies. You’d never do that. Would you?

 

Some of the Runnerds, in full runnerd gear.

11 Comments

Posted in Favorites, Running | Tags: , , , , , , , ,

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »

Categories