Choose to stay

"38 degree race time temperature, 30 mph winds, mud.... but The Cary Rockin Marathon Relay roles on! These athletes are tough as nails!" - Trivium Racing (9am this morning)

According to the warm forecast ahead, this morning is going to be my last of the winter race season. I am looking forward to running without having tears roll down my cheeks & snot dripping down my chin from the winds & bitter cold. Bring on the shorts!

It was a great last race of the season; the WakeMed Soccer Park for the Rockin' Marathon Relay. I teamed up with my running pal, Jon Hunter, who's training for a marathon 2 weeks from today.

We ran 8 1.65 mile laps apiece around the Soccer Park - passing the baton between each set. We went with a breakdown of laps per person: 1, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1 - the last 2 consecutive laps hardest of all!

The weather gods had the wind pushing us back on the last monster hill of each lap - running uphill into 30 mph winds equals double the amount of exertion and doubles your usual pace.

We ran under the team name of the Hawk Clan Runners - in Native American tradition, you receive an Animal Totem at birth - comparable to Astrology - I am an Aries / Falcon (Animal Totem) and Jon is a Libra / Raven - both the Falcon and Raven are members of the Hawk Clan. 

Reflecting upon today's experience, I've thought a good deal about community - the Falcon is a solitary creature, the Raven more communal. The Falcon can learn from the Raven.

A running pal who supports your journey, and teams up with you to accomplish a shared goal, is a good friend.

(Almost 3/4 of the way through, lap results)

On my drive to the race, just after 6am this morning, I came across the public radio program On Being, and today's guest was author & poet Jennifer Michael Hecht - no chance of fate that that was the interview I heard while mentally preparing for this race. 

"We have secret web-like connection to each other," says Hecht. "Sometime when you can't see what important about you other people can."

It may seem odd to have been inspired by an interview focusing on Hecht's new book; Stay: A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against. However, it was Hecht's words on community that resonated. 

There was a time in my own life 10 years ago, before I severed my biological family's toxic grip, that I chose to leave. Yet my spirit refused to succumb, and I was given the opportunity to live the life I was always meant to live.

Today I was renewed by the secret web-like connections of friendship, and community, and gently reminded of how wonderful it is to choose to stay, persevere and keep going - in life, and in a relay with 30 mph winds!

“None of us can truly know what we mean to other people and none of us can now what our future self will experience. History and philosophy ask us to remember these mysteries, to look around at friends, family, humanity, at the surprises life brings — the endless possibilities that living offers — and to persevere." - Jennifer Michael Hecht 

A Runners Mind: Empty & One with the Mountain

“The Great Way is not difficult if you don’t make distinctions. Only throw away likes and dislikes and everything will be perfectly clear. So throw away all opinions, all likes and dislikes, and only keep the mind that doesn’t know. This is very important. Don’t know mind is the mind that cuts off all thinking. When all thinking has been cut off, you become empty mind. This is before thinking. Your before-thinking-mind, my before-thinking-mind, all people’s before-thinking-minds are the same. This is your substance. Your substance, my substance, and the substance of the whole universe become one. So the tree, the mountain, the cloud and you become one. Then I ask you: Are the mountain and you the same or different? “ -Seung Sahn

Back to Basics

Last week, post half-marathon, my mind & body needed a break. A goal behind me and somewhere in limbo, I kept my runs between 6-8 miles in the woods / following uncharted trails to heal and unwind my mind.

For the past three months, I've focused on distance primarily running fifty plus miles a week in preparation for the race.

That race has come and gone, and it taught me much. 

The beauty of running and becoming, is that each day, each race, each experience provides useful instruction on one's self, and one's potential, and does not define us, but informs us, and offers clues on what we need to bring our attention back to.

Yesterday, I did 9.5 miles in a steady rain. It banished the lingering doubts still with me after the challenging and unforgiving race, and inspired me to set new goals.

Today, after 4.5 miles of warm-up, I tackled the track at a local middle school, and did 4 x 200 intervals. 

I'm neither coach nor expert, but I do think that to become better, you have to work harder, and have a specific goal that informs your training & visualizations.

I relished my intervals today; the rush of adrenaline when sprinting and running down the clock - those precious seconds of harmony & rhythm w/ breath, legs, arms, mind.

I may have bombed any PR goals on race day, but I didn't leave without having learned something about myself, and about who I want to become..it inspired me to get back to basics, and that is a very good thing.

Who will you become tomorrow?

"...Excellence is not something attained and put in a trophy case. It is not sought after, achieved and, thereafter, a steady state. It is a momentary phenomenon, a rare conjunction of body, mind, and spirit at one's peak. Should I come to that peak I cannot stay there. I must start each day at the bottom and climb to the top...I run so I do not lose the me I was yesterday and the me I might become tomorrow..."

-George Sheehan

Limitlessness

"When a fish swims, it swims on and on, and there is no end to the water. 

When a bird flies, it flies on and on, and there is no end to the sky.

There was never a fish that swam out of the water, or a bird that flew out of the sky.

When they need a little water or sky, they use just a little; when they need a lot, they use a lot.

Thus, they use all of it at every moment, and in every place they have perfect freedom.

But if there were a bird that first wanted to examine the size of the sky, or a fish that first wanted to examine the extent of the water, and then try to fly or swim, it would never find its way.

...

For the place, the way, is neither large nor small, neither self nor other."

-Dogen

Running and living; when weary, soul sore, and prone to seeing gray instead of lilac, have faith that your path equals that of the bird who never flew out of sky.

"Footfalls echo in the memory"

To describe this past Sunday's running-learning-curve, I must dip into T.S. Eliot's Four-Quartets.

What might have been is an abstraction

Remaining a perpetual possibility

Only in a world of speculation.

What might have been, what was, perpetual possibilities...

Over one thousand runners assembled, dropped off by shuttle, just before dawn at the Biltmore Estate grounds. 

The weather not at all optimistic: 40 degrees, and beginning to drizzle. 

I found a bathroom, checked my bag, and huddled in the one warm place near the startling line - former horse stables of the Estate.

There's always that moment before a race - jockeying at the start, stretching, tying shoe laces one last time, that I begin to feel a buzz of perpetual possibility - everything begins at that moment the gun's shot, the horn's blown, the buzzer sounds.

I started strong; legs felt light, and lungs opened up. 

The drizzle turned to heavy rains by the 3rd Mile, and did not relent for the next 10. 

I made several tactical errors in this half-marathon. 1. Not accounting for altitude changes (no training in Western, NC, and coming from Piedmont region), & 2. Not grasping the course elevation gains or what the course actually looked like.

Miles 3 through 5 were a steady incline - envision a spiral staircase, except a road wrapped around the mountain in a unrelenting ascension.

I held onto my pace and personal goals until about the 4th Mile. I faced the reality of either gutting it out, and painfully hitting a wall hard enough to keep me from finishing all 13.10, or surrendering to the terrain and mountain, and taking it at much slower tempos to adjust to altitude & elevation gains.

There were portions of beautiful downhills, and flat straightaways, but the majority of the race was hilly & steep.

I was on the course for over 2 hours, and by the 8th Mile my feet were numb inside my wet/cold trainers. Numb feet aren't quite so responsive on rougher surfaces, and miles 9 & 12 were along the French Broad River on a rough pebble/gravel surface.

I'd be hard pressed to think of one mile that was easy. It was one of the hardest races/long runs I've done; however, all the weeks of training, working with form and focused mind/body alignment did - I believe, give me the single mindedness to keep going, one small footfall at a time despite the rain, wind & lingering bronchitis. There was no option to quit, only to conserve energy at the cost of pace and personal record, and keep moving towards that still point:

Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,

Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point

As I rounded the final hill's crest, and saw the blue and white Finish arch beckoning, tears filled my eyes. 

I had learned what it takes, and how I could get through it.

"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." 

- T.S. Eliot

Running Meditations

The Circle of Kindness Continues

I contacted Amy L. Smith - creator of the Tangled Kindness Project, after finding my serendipitous note in the woods, and Amy offered to send me four more cards to place on local trails. 

Last week, I finally found the perfect spot to leave my first card - a knoll beneath a magnificent oak - the circle must continue. It stays with me, even now...swollen from the rainstorm and streaked with mud, and that moment in the woods when I noticed it lying in the leaves...clearly Amy's project has touched lives.

I have the four new cards in my running bag, waiting for that special trail to place them on.

Amy also mentioned our connection across many states in her blog (Thank you, Amy.):

http://tangledkindnessproject.blogspot.com/2014/03/running-meditations.html

Sunday, March 16, 2014

Running Meditations

It is responses like this that make my heart sing!!!

I received an email from Rebekah; stating she wrote about her encounter with human kindness here...

Her blog is called Running Meditations. She eloquently shares her story of finding a Tangled Little Card.  I certainly don't know how the card got from Ohio to North Carolina but it is bound to have a wonderful story!  Rebekah and I don't know each other, not when she found the card anyway, but are certainly bonded by kindness. It is so heartfelt that she is leaving it for another to find and enjoy.