Ann's Running Commentary

One of the best pieces of relationship advice I was ever given, came from my mother-in-law. Early in my marriage she shared her

story with me and I have been putting it to use for years.

During the early years of her marriage my mother-in-law found herself getting angry at her husband over and over again. When an anniversary, birthday or other special occasion came along he never lived up to her expectations. She hoped for a romantic dinner and would get tickets to a sporting event. She hoped for a piece of lingerie and she received candy.

Finally, well and truly fed up with the situation, my mother-in-law mentioned her dilemma to a friend fully expecting her friend to take her side.

Instead, the friend looked at her in astonishment and said, “Wow, I had no idea your husband was a mindreader.”

My mother-in-law was confused.

“What are you talking about,” she asked her apparently drunk friend.

“Well, if you are mad at him because he didn’t do what you wanted him to do for Valentine’s day and you didn’t tell him what it was you were hoping he would do, then you must assume he is a mindreader.”

It was a bit of a sarcastic way to get to the point, but the point was made none-the-less.

The best part of this is advice is that it doesn’t apply simply to our marriages.

I have thought about this before getting angry for my toddler for doing something he was not supposed to do. After all had I ever really told him not to drink directly from the dog bowl before?

I have used it with my older children, with people I work with and with friends. But recently, I realized I had lost the plot in my relationship with my coach.

I found myself frustrated with my coach because he was giving me one hard workout after another and my home life was just too crazy for that at the time. Why did he keep giving me hard workouts while I am just barely keeping my head above water as it is?

Keep in mind that my coach is in Colorado and works with a few dozen athletes. Keep in mind that I was doing the workouts and they were helping me to become faster and more efficient.

But I was still getting angry with him. Then, in the middle of a run my mother-in-law’s story came back to me and I realized that I had never told my coach what was going on in my life. I hadn’t explained how I had taken on a new project, my dog had died, my mother was sick and needy and to tell the truth I was just plain emotionally exhausted.

After the run, I put all of these things in my log. A couple of hours later I received a bemused call from my coach telling me how sorry he was he had not known all of these things before. For a couple of weeks we backed off a little, doing easier workouts until I felt like I was breathing a little easier and once again we are back on track.

There are very few mindreaders in the world and none of them are in my life, so I have stored my mother-in-law’s story and I am lucky to be able to pull it out, dust it off and put it to use regularly.

Every how-to book on writing advises that you cannot be a good writer unless you are an avid reader. If you want to be a better writer, just keep reading.

Getting lost in a book has never been a problem for me. As a child I drove my mother nuts, ignoring her and the rest of my family because I had my nose stuck in a book. In college, it was not uncommon for me to skip a night out with friends because I didn’t want to leave the characters in the book I was reading hanging. And for as long as I can remember I have always read, at least some before falling asleep at the end of the day.

I am not picky about the types of books I read either. You cannot look at the bookshelves in my house and figure out exactly what kind of person I am. There are love stories, horror stories, mysteries, and history books on more subjects than you could imagine. There are books on football, both American and European, track and field, baseball and basketball. There are books about God, about math and science and of course books about writing.

I love getting lost in a good book so much that it is not unusual for me to have several going at one time. The one in the car is generally an easy read that I can leave for a couple of days at a time but will be available to me as I sit at a field waiting for one of the children to be done with soccer practice. The one beside the bed cannot be too exciting, otherwise I might not sleep. The one on the main floor of our house is generally a non-fiction book that will help me in some area of my life – diet, fitness, writing or parenting.

A couple of years ago, after reading Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, I decided I could add one more book into the mix. So, I began adding audiobooks that I could listen to while running.

These books are generally fiction and almost always thrillers or at least something that keeps the heart pumping.

Over the years I have to come to realize there is a very easy way for me to rate these books.

If it is not a great book, I generally find myself having to switch it off or switch to music during the faster portions of a run. If it is a good book but not a great one, I bring it along and listen to it the whole time I am running but even as I am pulling up to the house at the end of a run, I am turning it off and can wait for the next run without giving the story or the characters a second thought. A great book will have me chomping at the bit for my next run and even as I start the run I am dreading the end when I know I will have to turn it off.

A truly exceptional audiobook comes along very rarely but those books, oh, those books, cause me to add extra miles at the end of even a long run, add walks to my daily exercise routine and sometimes even trainer rides just so I can listen to the story.

I do not know that reviews of these books will become a regular part of Ann’s Running Commentary but starting this week I am going to begin adding reviews of some of these books. Unless a book is completely atrocious, as in Mr. Franzen’s Freedom, I won’t bother with the blah. Instead, I will try to share my favorite listens so that you can add them to your running library, combining a love for a good book with a love for a great run.

If you have a review of an audiobook you would like to share, let me know and we can work out a guest post. If you have one you want me to listen to and review, let me know that as well, I am always interested in a good story.

Stephen King said, “Books are a uniquely portable magic.” This is something I believe with all my heart. To get lost in a book, whether it is lying under the covers on a cold winter night, sitting in the car while my children practice their sports or while running through my neighborhood streets, is one of the greatest pleasures in life.

I am a runner and triathlete which means I spend a good portion of the rest of my life either eating or sleeping.

Although I know there are some people who are strict about their food, choosing food based completely on the nutritional value. I am not one of those people. I like food. I enjoy eating. And even more than that I like cooking.

I have very few hard and fast rules about food. As a matter of fact, I have only one hard and fast rule about food. It has to taste good.

I don’t like diets. Especially those that cut a whole food group out of a diet. And I don’t like to feel deprived. So I cook and I try to eat as balanced a diet as possible. Sometimes this means a meal that follows the 30/30/40 fat/carbs/protein. Sometimes it means a heavier meal tonight followed by a pretty light one the following day. And although I seldom eat sweets, I am not completely opposed to a slice of cake if the opportunity arises.

This cake is the cake my sister bakes for us anytime we visit, generally once or twice a year. It is true Southern cake. Full of fat and sugar and absolutely delicious.

2 cups of sugar
2 sticks of butter
½ cup of butter milk
1 tsp of vanilla
1 cup of water
2 cups of self rising flour
2 eggs slightly beaten
1 tsp baking soda
¼ cup of cocoa (Special Dark)

Sift flour and sugar into large bowl. In sauce pan melt butter. Add cocoa and water to butter and bring to a boil. Add this to sugar and flour and stir well. Add remaining ingredients and stir well. 13X9X2 pan greased. Bake at 350 for 20 to 25 minutes

Icing

1 stick of butter
¼ cup of cocoa
Box Powder sugar
6 tbs of milk
1 tsp vanilla

As soon as it comes out of oven melt the butter in sauce pan. Add cocoa and milk and bring to a fast boil remove from heat add powdered sugar and vanilla and mix well and pour over cake. Save some of the sugar and sift cake.

When my first two children were one and three respectively, my husband decided to go to law school. To make it work, I quit my job to become a full time mom. Because my husband was working days, going to school at night and studying whenever he was not trying to catch up on sleep, this meant I spent a good deal of the time living the life of a single parent.

Luckily I had running to keep me sane. Even while we were planning out the changes that were about to occur in our lives I decided to run my first marathon. My friends and family discouraged me.

“Don’t you have enough on your plate,” they would ask.

I did have enough on my plate and yes, training for a marathon meant I would be taking hours out of my day that I might not be able to afford, but I had learned something from watching other stay-at-home moms. I had learned that the happiest of them took care of themselves as well as taking care of their children. For some women this meant girl’s nights out, shopping with friends once a week or monthly spa treatments.

By contrast, the moms who were the most harried were the ones who devoted every waking hour to their children and their husbands and by extension, neither their kids nor their husbands were the happiest people in the neighborhood.

By watching other moms, I realized that if I wanted my family to be a happy one, I needed to do something for myself each and every day and running a marathon would insure that I did just that.

Over the next several years I continued to run marathons, even inspiring my husband to run his first marathon before he finished law school, and we were happy. The kids had a mom who was not pulling her hair out, my husband had a wife who was accomplishing something that he had not imagined he could do. And even on the hard days, when both kids were at that worse, I knew I could survive those years because I had run a marathon.

When Zooma approached me about being a community connector for their Annapolis race, I jumped at the opportunity. I thought back on that time in my life and remembered what training for that race had done for me. As a woman’s race that has a woman’s weekend atmosphere to it, Zooma may be the race that keeps another young mom sane and happy. I am happy to be part of a race that while not just for moms is targeted to women. I am proud to be part of a race that offers a little pampering for women who might not otherwise pamper themselves.

Zooma will be only my second women’s race but I look forward to the opportunity to meet other women in the training leading up to the race and on race weekend. I look forward to running side by side with women who have found the same peace in running that I have. And I look forward to hearing how their lives and their families’ lives have been changed because they decided to make taking care of themselves a priority.

Zooma is graciously offering a discount for readers of Ann’s Running Commentary. To register and receive your discount visit Zooma Annapolis and enter the discount code: ANNCON2

Today Blaise and I are celebrating 20 years of marriage. In twenty years, we have had three children, moved to London and back again. Helped each other through

job changes, illnesses, injuries and loss. But I believe with all of my heart that the secret to our marriage lies in a simple decision we made during our first week as a married couple.

During that first week, we both stepped up and admitted we were overweight and out of shape and we both decided to do something about it. This week, even as we celebrate 20 years of marriage, we celebrate another anniversary as well – 20 years of running.

By becoming runners, we created a life together that had substance. We ran our first 5k only a few short months after we were married. Our first 10k was followed closely after and even though it was so hot that the asphalt burned our feet through our running shoes, even though I came in dead last and we were both physically miserable after that race, that is the race that hooked us.

Pushing through and finishing that first 10k proved to us that we could overcome obstacles we never imagined we could. Since that race, we have gone on to run ten milers, half and full marathons and dozens of races in between. We have become smarter and faster runners but we have always held on to the lesson we learned in that first 10k.

And when the lesson itself doesn’t work and one of us wants to strangle the other for being a pain in the butt, we know that there is always a run. We know if we head out for 30 minutes or an hour on the road, whatever was bugging us will shrink in importance. I can’t stress enough how important this part of running has been for both of us.

But because we are runners we don’t find ourselves needing that escape as often. Because we both race, we have formed our own mutual admiration society. Because the life of a runner is never dull, we seldom fall into the doldrums. Instead, we are able to cheer the other one on as they reach for one goal after the other. And we are able to support each other as we encounter one obstacle after the other.

So, today we celebrate our anniversary, but we can’t celebrate the marriage without celebrating our running life. Today we are thankful for each other and for the gifts that we found through running.

My seventeen year old son recently shared with me that it took him a long time to feel comfortable going to our local gym to lift weights because he didn’t know

what he was doing once he got there. But he also admitted he had been embarrassed. He knew there would be people who were very experienced and some who would look down on him for his lack of knowledge. Luckily, he found a way around this by becoming a part of a strength and conditioning program for young athletes at API, Inc.. Four months later he has the confidence he needs to continue to grow as an athlete.

But the reason he was speaking about this at all was that he was angry. A new kid had recently started the session he was in at API and some of the other students were whispering behind his back, mocking him for his lack of experience and knowledge. It made my son angry because he remembers being that kid and he knows how easy it is to be discouraged in the beginning. He didn’t want to see this young man stop trying.

It is very much the same way for new runners. They hear how much their neighbor loves running and they decide to take the first step. Unfortunately, very few people find running easy right from the beginning. Most have to push through the discomfort until finally one day they begin to love it.

But the new runner doesn’t realize this. Instead they think, “Well this just isn’t for me.” And they quit.

Or they go out for a run in sweatpants and their husband’s big cotton shirt and some moron yells insults at them from the side of the road, either about their clothes or the fact that they have not developed the body of an athlete yet. They are hurt and embarrassed and they quit.

As runners, we have found something that brings us real joy. That doesn’t mean that every time we head out for a run, we experience a pain free or perfect run. But it does mean that even after the crappiest of runs, we are happy we went out and did it. We understand that a bad run is better than a good day on the couch any day of the week.

Fortunately there are people out there who love running so much and have found such joy through the sport that they don’t want to tuck the experience into their vest and keep it all to themselves. These runners want to encourage everybody to at least dip their toes in the running waters.

Through racing and more recently through Daily Mile I have had the pleasure of meeting a lot of these sorts of runners. Runners both fast and slow who take the time to encourage the new runner, answer questions and help them over the hurdles that come more often in the beginning.

As runners, we can live selfishly, making our runs and everything around them completely about training. Or we can use our love for running to welcome people into the sport and encourage them to makes themselves at home. I don’t believe you can push someone into becoming more active. But I do believe you can lead them to it. And maybe more importantly you can pick them up, brush them off in those early days before they find the joy.

I am reposting this story today after reading about the teacher in Montana who disappeared on a trail run. I am reposting it because I want runners, not just women, to understand that we are not powerless. Yes, running alone can be dangerous and bad things can happen if we drop our guard when out on the trails, but that doesn’t mean we should give up something that brings us such joy. So, I am posting this and asking you to read it, pass it on and keep on running. But I would be irresponsible if I didn’t tell you to take precautions. Let people know where you are going to be. Pick paths that are less secluded. And most importantly trust your gut. If you head down a path and get that little nagging in your belly that says, “Turn around,” do it. There will be other runs and maybe you will feel a little silly for a little while but it is better to feel silly now than to berate yourself later with, “I knew I should haven’t been there. I had a feeling that that was the wrong path today.” Be careful out there but don’t give up the joy. Don’t let anybody take your run from you.

I am a trail runner.  Before I even knew there was a name for it, I was a trail runner.  The first time I can remember running on a trail I was eight years old.  My family had moved out of the city into a trailer park in the country.  Other kids would roller skate or ride their bikes around the circle of trailers that was our neighborhood.  But not me.  Circles were not for me.  The minute I saw the trail leading between two trailers into the woods and heard that it lead to an abandoned railroad track and had trails leading off of it into the woods I abandoned my bike and headed into the woods.  I remember the other kids warning me about the Maco Ghost and the hermit who lived in the woods.  But I wasn’t scared.  Somehow I knew I belonged there, running on those trails.  I went every chance I was given.  I tried to talk my friends into joining me.  I found new trails with every run.  Some were clear others were not.  I would come home pouring sweat, legs covered in blood from the blackberry brambles but I didn’t care.  I had found a home.  A place I belonged.

Today, thirty two years later, I still love the trails.  I can’t resist them.  I hunt them out.  I am a trail runner even though the warnings are still there.

“Aren’t you afraid?”

“Don’t you worry about being attacked?”

“Didn’t you see the sign about copperheads?”

“What if you fall and break a leg?”

I laugh and explain that no, I am not afraid.  I have a better chance of wrecking my car on the way to the trail than being hurt on them.

As I have gotten older I have learned to take more precautions. I always carry a cell phone.  I go at times when I know a trail is going to be most populated and I let my husband know where I am going to be.  But I am not scared.

In a strange way I think this fearlessness was a gift from my mother.  Way back then, when I first became a trail runner I was scared.  Not of the hermit who lived in the woods or the ghost we all claimed to have seen but of my mother.  I was scared every moment of every day, until the day I found those trails.  On those trails I found a peace I had never known.  I ran into those woods to escape a life of fear.  I was running away but I was also running to something.  I was running to the athlete I would become.  I was running to the beauty life has to offer.  I was running to a world of comfort I didn’t have at home.

I run on the trails now for different reasons.  I run to let go of the stress of parenthood or to feel my body responding to the ups and downs of the ground.  I run to feel my heart beating faster and the burn in my legs.  Often, I run just to see what is down a particular trail.  Will there be a stream, or a railroad track or a dilapidated house beside a manmade pond?  But I never run without a sense of gratitude for the trail and where it has lead me or the gifts of peace it has given me.  I am a trail runner and I am not afraid.  I am a trail runner and I always will be.

Previously published in Trail Runner Magazine’s eNewsletter, Inside Dirt May 2009

I am a cyclist. I am the person who causes you to slow down because I take up too much of the road. I am the person you see riding up and down roads early in the morning and late in the after. I am the person you don’t see as you put on make-up, talk on your phone or turn around to talk to your child in the back seat. I am the person you scream at, honk at or maybe even throw things at in frustration.

But I am also a runner, a swimmer and a triathlete that uses these sports to stay fit and healthy so that I might live a long life. A life as a …

I am a cyclist. But I am also a person who understands your fear and frustrations when you encounter a cyclist. I understand that you are in a hurry to get to work, home or one of the thousands of other places you may be traveling. I understand these things because I am also a person who drives and feels the same distractions, fears and frustrations when I encounter a cyclist.

Today I ask you to stop looking at cyclists as the people who slow you down, get in your way and annoy you. I ask that you start looking at them as the person they are the other 23 hours of the day and value their lives the way you do other people you encounter each day.

There are 285 days until I run my first Ironman but after one quick email from my new friend Paul Peavy, former stand up comedian, current psychotherapist and two time Ironman, I have a whole new take on those 285 days and the workouts that each of those days will contain.

Last month my Daily Mile and Facebook friend Paula Kiger circulated my email request for stories and advice from first time Ironman finishers. Paul Peavy was kind enough to respond with the following bit of advice –

The first thing is “The Blank Slate.” Don’t look at the second workout of the day, don’t look at the week’s training schedule, don’t look at the month’s training schedule, don’t worry about what’s supposed to happen in nine months.  Just a blank slate in your mind helps you to not get overwhelmed.”

Although this advice seemed to have a ring of truth to it, there was a part of me that didn’t believe I could follow it. There was a part of me that was sure I couldn’t internalize this advice and make it work for me. I mean come on, I am already counting days, hours, minutes…

But somehow, the bigger part of my psyche won out.

I received Paul’s email on Tuesday morning, only minutes before I was to head out for my step up run, a grueling workout that had until Tuesday always beaten me.

But that day, I won. I completed the workout even though I had never before followed Coach Jeff’s instructions to the letter. I completed the workout even though my body was begging me to quit at mile eight of the twelve mile run. I completed it even though I had to lie down for a few minutes after I had finished. It was this last bit that made me realize I had done something above and beyond anything I had done before.

Before my sweat had dried I realized something was different mentally. I couldn’t put my finger on it that day but by Friday I understood – somehow Paul’s advice had taken hold.

When I originally read Paul’s advice, I thought I understood what he was saying but I wasn’t quite sure and even today as I sit here writing about the positive influence his advice has had, I am not sure he would agree that this is what he meant but it is what came from it.

Since that day, my workouts have all been great workouts. Not easy, not effortless but effective. Each workout has served a purpose because I have held his words in my head and suddenly each workout is “the workout.”

That step up run on Tuesday was not just one step up run in a long list of step up runs. It was the step up run that would get me to Ironman. That 3100 yard swim was not just another swim. It was the swim I needed to make it to Ironman. Each of the workouts this week, whether it was a recovery ride, a swim or a run, took me a step closer to Ironman.

I don’t know what my training schedule is for the month. I don’t know how things will stack up as the year progresses. What I do know is that the next workout matters. I have to complete that workout and make it count because in 285 days I will be toeing the line on a beach in North Carolina. In 285 days I will become an Ironman.

When people ask me why I run, I can give a thousand reasons. I run to maintain my weight. I run for my health. I run to be a good example to my children. I run because it helps my state of mind. I run because I am convinced it will keep me from getting the cancer that runs rampant in my family. The list could go on for pages.

But if you ask why I started, there is only one real answer. I was inspired to run by my in-laws. For as long as I have known them fitness, has been a part of their lives.

My father-in-law wakes up each morning and does a calisthenics routine that takes almost an hour. Then he heads out for a run, sometimes alone sometimes with one of his six children. My mother-in-law refuses to leave the house each day until she has spent an hour on the elliptical or treadmill unless she is leaving it to walk, bike or kayak with friends.

I won’t give you their ages because the number might lead you to believe they are older than they actually are. But I will tell you that they will be celebrating their 51st wedding anniversary this year. They are not spring chickens. But you would never guess it from looking at them.

When, as a family, we go hiking or biking we invite them along without any worry that they might slow us down. Often we have to remind them to slow down for the children – but slowing down does not come easy to them. It is not in their nature.

Recently, they gave up their home phone. Because they are constantly in motion, the only real way to reach them is by cell phone anyway. In the past couple of years this has become true in a new way. Not only are they always running, biking, hiking, kayaking or just plain walking, these days they do all of this all over the country. I never know when I call them whether they will be at home or visiting another part of our great country.

But even as fit as they are, I worry. Not that in the sense I worry about my parents. I don’t worry that I will get a call that they have been hospitalized with a heart attack or that they have fallen and broken a hip. Instead I worry the way I worry about my husband when he heads out on a dark morning run. I worry that on one of their adventures, when they are far away from home one of them will take a spill or have a run in with one of the lunatic drivers that hate cyclists and runners so much and the hospital will not be able to get in touch with the other spouse or anyone else in the family.

Because they mean so much to us, because they are such a huge influence in our lives, I decided to do for them what Blaise and I have done for each other. I bought them 1BandID’s. I knew that a separate ID would not interest them, they would look at it as something old people wear. So the 1-Band was perfect. It slides right over their watch and can be worn without giving it a second thought.

When I emailed Joe, the creator of 1BandID to tell him I was doing this and why it was so important to me, he made me an offer. He offered to give me two 1BandID’s, one for a reader and one for a person they worry about. All you have to do to enter this contest if to leave a comment below telling me who you want the second 1BandID for and why. As always you can earn extra chances to win by tweeting and posting on Daily Mile and Facebook or as a bonus share your story of how a 1BandID has helped you.

We have a winner – Kristin Seibert of Annapolis, Maryland has won the pair of 1BandIDs for her and her husband. Congratulations Kristin.