PARANOIA is in bloom,
the PR transmissions will resume.
They'll push drugs that keep us all dumbed down,
and hope we never see the truth around.
So come on.
Another promise, another scene,
another packaged lie to keep us trapped in greed.
And all the green belts wrapped around our minds,
and endless red tape to keep the truth confined.
So come on.
They will not force us.
They will stop degrading us.
They will not control us.
We will be VICTORIOUS.
Interchanging mind control.
Come let the revolution take its toll.
If you could flick a switch and open your third eye,
you'd see that we should never be afraid to die.
So come on.
Rise up and take the power back,
it's time the fat cats had a heart attack.
You know their time's coming to an end,
we have to unify and watch our flag ascend.
So come on.
Muse, "Uprising"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
With the big "M" less than three days away now, the paranoia is definitely in bloom in Running Lawyer world. Actually, it has been for the last couple of weeks now. It's safe to say that the past two weeks of taper has made me a total head case, so much so that it's amazing I've managed to get anything accomplished at work or otherwise. My mental state in the taper has gone downhill faster than Bode Miller in the Super G.
I don't remember being quite so nutty this time a year ago, but maybe this is the weight of 14 weeks of hard training and anticipation on my shoulders. I've never had a training session go so well. So well, in fact, that I thought many times it was going a little too well and kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. Well, the proverbial shoe dropped two weeks ago today during my last really tough interval session. Some of you know what happened, some of you don't, but to borrow another blogger's comment about marathon training - the first rule of fight club, is you don't talk about fight club. And I don't really want to talk about fight club. My IT band felt tweaky. I've taken the last two weeks nearly off running, have iced, stretched, massage, and foam rolled to my heart's content. My IT band is now fine, I deem it so. End of story.
Or at least, that's how I wish it was. Reality is, it's not so easy to push aside the feelings of doubt and insecurity. I think I know what I'm capable of doing if I push myself, but then I'm also exceedingly good at convincing myself that I'm just never going to be that good at anything and settling for the easy way out. I think too much. I'm the line in the Billy Joel song -- "Should I try to be a straight A student? If you are then you think too much." I can think myself right out of anything, including a new PR this weekend. I can think of a million reasons why I can't run as fast as I want to run this weekend.
But I can also think of a lot of reasons why it just really doesn't matter how fast I run. Okay, okay...it would be ridiculous to say that it doesn't matter to me at all. But in the last couple of weeks I've seen close friends have to deal with incredible losses in their lives. Pain fair greater than a finicky IT band. Aches and pains, torn up muscles, messed up tendons, fractured bones - all of those things heal over time. Some pains don't ever heal. The pain my friends are suffering can't be made better with an ice pack and a few sessions with the PT. I'm so, so fortunate that the only pains I've felt in the last several months of training have been the kind that will go away.
What will be on Sunday will be...what I'm going to enjoy most about this weekend is just that I have the chance to go run and that I can share that experience with the people I love most in life - my husband, my family, and the very best friends a girl could ever have.
Therefore, surrounded as we are by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us fling aside every encumbrance and the sin that so readily entangles our feet. And let us run with patient endurance the race that lays before us.
Hebrews 12:1
4.06.2010
Marathon Redemption - Week 13
Something has changed within me,
something is not the same.
I'm through with playing by the rules of someone else's game.
Too late for second guessing,
too late to go back to sleep.
It's time to trust my instincts, close my eyes - and leap.
It's time to try defying gravity.
I think I'll try defying gravity. And you can't pull me down!
I'm through accepting limits,
'cause someone says they're so.
Some things I cannot change, but 'til I try I'll never know.
Too long I've been afraid of
losing love, I guess I've lost.
Well if that's love, it comes at much too high a cost.
I'd sooner buy defying gravity.
Kiss me goodbye, I'm defying gravity. And you can't pull me down!
So if you care to find me,
look to the Western sky!
As somone told me lately, everyone deserves a chance to fly!
And if I'm flying solo, at least I'm flying free.
To those who'll ground me, take a message back from me --
Tell them how I'm defying gravity!
I'm flying high defying gravity!
And soon I'll match them in reknown.
And nobody in all of Oz,
no wizard that there is or was,
is ever gonna bring me down!
Wicked - The Musical, "Defying Gravity"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Defying Gravity" has quickly become one of my favorite songs since I was lucky enough to see Wicked last fall, and it is absolutely perfect for this point in training for me. Not only do I feel like I"m in the best physical shape of my life after the last few months, I feel that mentally I've become an entirely new runner. Even with the ups and downs of training, I have more confidence in myself than I've ever felt before, and I just hope I can carry that through the next few weeks into the race.
This was the last training week before my taper starts, and Fair Weather Runner and I had planned a 22 mile run as our last training run. Even though last week's post was all about conquering the inner demons and ignoring bad training runs, I'm not going to lie - having that 22 mile run go well was going to be a big deal for me. I even found myself, like she did, getting nervous and having trouble sleeping the night before. Partly because I was afraid I was going to oversleep my 5:45 am alarm, but partly because I was nervous that the weather was going to be cold and windy and terrible and that this was going to be yet another difficult long run that did nothing for my confidence.
When we started out in the morning it was still dark and pretty chilly - about 37 degrees. I don't think either one of us was really awake yet, either, becuase we sort of shuffled along and grumbled a lot for the first 4 miles. Once the sun came up the weather started to warm up a bit, and so did our running. Based on those first few miles I was really thinking the entire run was going to be HARD. But gradually we eased into a rhythm and the miles got a little easier and the time started to pass by a little faster. We'd talked about getting to mile 20 and just seeing how we felt before deciding to go ahead with the last two miles...so it was a huge relief to get back to my house around mile 19.50 for some gatorade and a Gu and realize that we only had 2.5 miles left to run. And that we both still felt like we could easily keep running. As it turns out, the running was less of a problem than attempting to do the math on how far we needed to go before we turned around after having already run for 3+ hours -- yes, we both have post-graduate degrees, but those sure don't seem to help much after 19 miles on your feet.
At any rate, even with a steady 15mph and whatever hills we could find thrown in, we finished the run and I was extremely proud of both of us. I know we both felt like we could go ahead and run those last 4.2 miles if we needed to. And I think we both made it through the run without feeling too torn-up, which is another huge accomplishment. I'm not sure the 22 miles would haev gone nearly as well without the Fair Weather Runner - in fact, I'm pretty sure the last 2 miles would have been more or less walked if she hadn't been with me. But for our 22 miler to go so well is a huge confidence boost heading into the taper.
And even though last week I said I wasn't going to talk about my training runs much anymore, I was pretty stinking proud that I ran a 5 mile tempo run last week with my three tempo miles at an 8:34 pace - some 30 seconds less than what my training plan called for. Take that, inner demons!
It's extremely gratifying but also a little scary that most of the hard work on this training plan is out of the way at this point. I still have some 4x1600 repeats to look foward to this week that will be very challenging, but most of the grunt work has been done. All that's left is to sit back and relax and enjoy the fruits of my labor - the problem is, I'm not the type that's very good at sitting and relaxing. Although I'm looking forward to the taper because I KNOW my legs need a rest at this point, I'm probably going to get a little stir-crazy. A lot stir-crazy, actually. But luckily I've got enough things in my life right now that I love doing that will keep me busy and make the next 19 days until the marathon fly right by.
something is not the same.
I'm through with playing by the rules of someone else's game.
Too late for second guessing,
too late to go back to sleep.
It's time to trust my instincts, close my eyes - and leap.
It's time to try defying gravity.
I think I'll try defying gravity. And you can't pull me down!
I'm through accepting limits,
'cause someone says they're so.
Some things I cannot change, but 'til I try I'll never know.
Too long I've been afraid of
losing love, I guess I've lost.
Well if that's love, it comes at much too high a cost.
I'd sooner buy defying gravity.
Kiss me goodbye, I'm defying gravity. And you can't pull me down!
So if you care to find me,
look to the Western sky!
As somone told me lately, everyone deserves a chance to fly!
And if I'm flying solo, at least I'm flying free.
To those who'll ground me, take a message back from me --
Tell them how I'm defying gravity!
I'm flying high defying gravity!
And soon I'll match them in reknown.
And nobody in all of Oz,
no wizard that there is or was,
is ever gonna bring me down!
Wicked - The Musical, "Defying Gravity"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Defying Gravity" has quickly become one of my favorite songs since I was lucky enough to see Wicked last fall, and it is absolutely perfect for this point in training for me. Not only do I feel like I"m in the best physical shape of my life after the last few months, I feel that mentally I've become an entirely new runner. Even with the ups and downs of training, I have more confidence in myself than I've ever felt before, and I just hope I can carry that through the next few weeks into the race.
This was the last training week before my taper starts, and Fair Weather Runner and I had planned a 22 mile run as our last training run. Even though last week's post was all about conquering the inner demons and ignoring bad training runs, I'm not going to lie - having that 22 mile run go well was going to be a big deal for me. I even found myself, like she did, getting nervous and having trouble sleeping the night before. Partly because I was afraid I was going to oversleep my 5:45 am alarm, but partly because I was nervous that the weather was going to be cold and windy and terrible and that this was going to be yet another difficult long run that did nothing for my confidence.
When we started out in the morning it was still dark and pretty chilly - about 37 degrees. I don't think either one of us was really awake yet, either, becuase we sort of shuffled along and grumbled a lot for the first 4 miles. Once the sun came up the weather started to warm up a bit, and so did our running. Based on those first few miles I was really thinking the entire run was going to be HARD. But gradually we eased into a rhythm and the miles got a little easier and the time started to pass by a little faster. We'd talked about getting to mile 20 and just seeing how we felt before deciding to go ahead with the last two miles...so it was a huge relief to get back to my house around mile 19.50 for some gatorade and a Gu and realize that we only had 2.5 miles left to run. And that we both still felt like we could easily keep running. As it turns out, the running was less of a problem than attempting to do the math on how far we needed to go before we turned around after having already run for 3+ hours -- yes, we both have post-graduate degrees, but those sure don't seem to help much after 19 miles on your feet.
At any rate, even with a steady 15mph and whatever hills we could find thrown in, we finished the run and I was extremely proud of both of us. I know we both felt like we could go ahead and run those last 4.2 miles if we needed to. And I think we both made it through the run without feeling too torn-up, which is another huge accomplishment. I'm not sure the 22 miles would haev gone nearly as well without the Fair Weather Runner - in fact, I'm pretty sure the last 2 miles would have been more or less walked if she hadn't been with me. But for our 22 miler to go so well is a huge confidence boost heading into the taper.
And even though last week I said I wasn't going to talk about my training runs much anymore, I was pretty stinking proud that I ran a 5 mile tempo run last week with my three tempo miles at an 8:34 pace - some 30 seconds less than what my training plan called for. Take that, inner demons!
It's extremely gratifying but also a little scary that most of the hard work on this training plan is out of the way at this point. I still have some 4x1600 repeats to look foward to this week that will be very challenging, but most of the grunt work has been done. All that's left is to sit back and relax and enjoy the fruits of my labor - the problem is, I'm not the type that's very good at sitting and relaxing. Although I'm looking forward to the taper because I KNOW my legs need a rest at this point, I'm probably going to get a little stir-crazy. A lot stir-crazy, actually. But luckily I've got enough things in my life right now that I love doing that will keep me busy and make the next 19 days until the marathon fly right by.
4.01.2010
Happy Birthday to the Running Sri Lankan!!
It's no April Fool's joke - it's the Running Sri Lankan's birthday today! Happy birthday, Indi!!!!!
Aww...it was jazz hands from the very beginning.
Head over to this fabulous girl's blog and wish her the happy, happy day she deserves.
So meeting Indi was a totally happy coincidence. I met her briefly, once, after the Wichita River Festival last May...but not long enough to really have a conversation. I'm pretty sure Indi has a bone to pick with that race, but I'll leave that story to her for another day. Our next meeting was MUCH better, in fact it was a whole evening of fabulous complete with some New Moon movie action, some California Pizza Kitchen, and a little gelato, capped off by a half marathon.
So I met Indi courtesy of the Fair Weather Runner, who was friends with Indi in college. We started getting to know each other during a little something we dubbed the "Giblet Jog" weekend (combining the Wichita Turkey Trot with the Overland Park Gobbler Grind) but we really solidified the friendship over a tiny shopping cart full of sweet potato fries before the Groundhog 10k back in February. Although I've only known Indi a few months, it's hard to imagine that I haven't known her for years. It's really hard to imagine someone putting up with the likes of the Lawyer, the Dork, and the Worm in all of our crazy glory, but Indi fit right in like the missing piece of a puzzle. I feel blessed to have her as a friend and I'm loving watching her journey to her first half marthon in OKC in just a few short weeks!!
Happy birthday again Indi...may it be full of wine, milanos, and everything else wonderful!
Friendship rainbows all around.
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