July 20, 2010

life list: four, three, two

I finished the Couch to 5K program a few weeks back, and then immediately went on vacation for a week. But instead of slacking off, I ran almost every day we were in Florida, including one day in the pouring rain.

That was a good run.

Most of my runs that week were short — two miles or so — because that was all I had the time and energy for. I came home feeling a little disappointed that after finishing the C25K program I couldn’t run more than two miles without walking, even though I ran that same two miles every single day. I started to think that there was no way I would ever be able to run even six miles, never mind 13.1. I resigned myself to running 5Ks for the rest of my life, which isn’t bad, really, but isn’t a marathon.

I shouldn’t have worried.

On Sunday, I ran four miles; yesterday I ran three. Today, I ran just over two miles, in just under 20 minutes. Because it’s been so hot, I’ve been getting up at 5 am and leaving the house around 5:30, which means that I’m running in the dark — but that’s better than running when it’s a thousand degrees, really. Also better than running once I’m awake and actually thinking about what I’m doing, because then I start to wonder exactly when I lost my mind.

I’m gearing up to start a Bridge to 10K training program, but I have to get to a block of time where I’ll be home and on a schedule. We’re leaving town again this weekend, and then I’m heading to New York City for a few days in early August; I’m planning to run during both trips, but it’s harder when you’re on the road and sharing a hotel room with people who do not cotton to setting the alarm for a 5 am run. Chris, I’m looking at you.

This week, I left my iPhone at home and started running without music; it has made a huge difference in my pacing and energy, which is precisely the opposite of what I would have expected. I really like the silence; my neighborhood is so still in the early morning. Although today a goose honked at me — twice — and scared the living daylights out of me — twice. In the exact same spot, even. And no I was not expecting it the second time, even though I had run past that same spot not ten minutes earlier. Chalk it up to running at 5 am.

I’m starting to think that running a half marathon in February — actually running the entire thing, not running most and walking some — isn’t so crazy after all, that I will not die at mile seven and have to ride the rest of the way in the sag wagon. Because if I can run four miles then I can certainly work up to five, and then six, and then 13. Why not?

In my life list accounting, I feel like I am about one quarter of the way to a half marathon. Not bad, really.

June 27, 2010

life list: out of my comfort zone

I ran to J. Crew this weekend to return some things (remind me to tell you later about how to make J. Crew’s free shipping deals work for you, because I have a strategy!) and while I was there I looked at this dress. It’s beautiful, and on sale, and machine washable, and they had it in my size. But I didn’t try it on, because strapless is a bad look for me.

J. Crew Ginny dress, $148 currently $79.99

I did, however, try on a one-shouldered dress in a crazy shade of Barbie pink that I would never, ever wear (it was shimmery, you all) and I was impressed by how not-horrible that one-shouldered look was on me, because it’s totally not me, whatever that means.

Despite that, though, I walked away from the other dress, the strapless one, which I really liked, because … well, I don’t really know why.

Except that I do.

I’ve written before about my inability to put together a complete life list; I’ve attributed it to the format (lists don’t work for me! I’m a single-project girl!) but that’s only half true. My real dilemma is that I really like my comfort zone, and anything that falls outside of that makes me nervous.

Including the strapless dress.

If you’re going to do the life list right, it needs to consist of things that challenge the status quo — and push you outside that comfort zone. And by you I mean me, of course, although I suspect I’m not the only one who likes things just the way they are.

I’m not resistant to change, necessarily; I like to try new things, as long as they fall within my existing comfort zone. I know that some of you won’t get that at all, and some of you will absolutely understand what I mean.

Here’s an example: I finished the Couch to 5K program this week, which means that I’m able now to run for 30 minutes without stopping or dying. I’m also running a sub-ten-minute mile, which is a good start. Next up on my list is to run an actual 5K race, and then to run a 5K in under 30 minutes. I can do both of those things. Easily.

But today, when I started reading up on half marathon training programs (because the next thing on my list is to train for a half marathon) I nearly had a stroke, because OMG HOW WILL I EVER RUN THAT FAR? Especially since I only have seven months to train!!!

See what I mean?

I think that, for me, the life list really does need to be about pushing the boundaries; I need to get better at stepping outside my carefully crafted routine. But I need to do it one wee step at a time. I’m not going to spontaneously go parasailing, for example (oh hell no), but I certainly can work my way up to running a marathon. It’s just going to take a while.

And a lot of baby steps.

In the meantime, I can’t stop thinking about that dress, and about how I wish I had taken the time to try it on. Henry has camp tomorrow, but Charlie and I are going to have a coffee date in the morning; I wonder if I can persuade him to stop at J. Crew with me and wait while I push my boundaries a little bit? I’ll be that if we follow that up with a visit to the LEGO store, the answer will be yes.

Because maybe I can wear a strapless dress after all. Although I might layer it under a cardigan to start.

June 23, 2010

life list: words to live by

Pumbaa: It’s our motto.
Young Simba: What’s a motto?
Timon: Nothing. What’s a motto with you?

 * * * * *

For his birthday this year, Henry got a Nintendo DSI. He paid for it with money he earned and saved and was gifted by various friends and kindhearted relatives. It’s his first really big purchase, and he’s very proud of it.

Also, apparently, it’s totally cool, so there’s that.

On the home screen, when he logs in, there is a space for his name and a personal saying. “Want to see what mine says?” he asked the other day. Sure, I said. Under his name, he had written I can do it.

 * * * * *

The other night Wade and I were watching the last stage of the Tour de Suisse; at the very end, there was a pitch for the Road ID. “You need one of those,” I told him. “I know,” he said, “I really do.”

The Road ID is a simple bracelet that you wear running or cycling; it has contact and emergency information engraved on it, in case you’re hit by a car or collapse or are felled in some equally horrible way. “I’m ordering two,” I told Wade, “one for you and one for me.”

“I want a pink one,” he joked.

The id can be personalized with up to six lines of text; the sample on the web site includes a personal motto (in this case, NEVER GIVE UP!). I’m thinking Wade’s should say SAVE MY BIKE! because that’s probably what he’d be worried about in an emergency.

 * * * * *

Years ago, when I was in graduate school, I bought a silver bangle bracelet at Banana Republic. It was engraved, in a beautiful script, Often one finds destiny where one hides to avoid it. I liked the size and the weight of it, but I didn’t pay too much attention to the words.

I still wear that bracelet, stacked over two others: a silver locket engraved with a W and a strand of pearls I bought after Henry was born. I like the way the bangle looks with the other bracelets, the ones that remind me of my family, and how it plinks against the desk or the edge of my laptop when I’m working.

 * * * * *

 Charlie and I were in the bookstore recently; next to the Godiva chocolates was a display of coffee mugs with be the change you want to see in the world written on the side. “What does that say?” Charlie asked.

“You can read it,” I told him. So he did.

“What does it mean?” he said. And we talked about what Ghandi meant. I think he got it. I hope I did.

Your turn: do you have a motto? Let’s hear it, and hear why it inspires you.

June 8, 2010

life list: make a wish

Yesterday I started week 7 of Couch to 5K. In case that sounds like gibberish to you, let me translate: I ran for 25 minutes, without stopping. And because of the route I have chosen in my neighborhood, I swear to you that I ran every single step of that 2-ish miles uphill.

No lie.

A couple of weeks ago, I was talking to another mom from my children’s school, an experienced marathoner, and I told her, in a very quiet little voice, that I want to run the half marathon at the Memorial next spring. “Do some hill training,” she advised, very seriously. In general, Oklahoma City is not known for its hills, but when I thought about it, I realized that the route for the Memorial (downtown to Lake Hefner and back again) is indeed pretty hilly. Or at least uphill for the first half.

So I’m running the hills. And so far, it’s not killing me.

When I’m not running uphill both ways at 5:30 in the morning, I’m reading The Wishing Year, a book Chris sent me a few weeks back. I cannot put it down; I’m finding it mesmerizing in the same way that I found both Eat, Pray, Love and The Happiness Project mesmerizing, and for the same reasons. Noelle Oxenhandler chronicles her “deliberate attempt to make three very different wishes come true — the wish for a house, the wish for a new love, and the wish for spiritual healing.” She writes, “As I see it, a wish begins with a desire — a desire for things to be somehow other than they are.”

I have a lovely house, and a lovely husband, and I’m not really in need of spiritual healing, but that idea of wanting things to be “somehow other than they are” spoke to me. People have been asking me whatever possessed me to start running again, after quite literally 20 years of not running, and I’ve been floundering for an answer. In the end, it’s a lot of things and one thing, all together.

It’s the desire for things to be somehow other than they are, really.

Perhaps two years ago, Wade found out that his cholesterol was a wee bit high, not enough for him to need medication, but enough that his doctor suggested he think about some lifestyle changes. So, after ten years of not riding, he bought a new bike and got back on the road.

The cycling made me crazy, but it took me a long time to figure out why. I assumed that I was annoyed by the way the riding complicated our schedule, because 100+ miles each week takes a long time to do. But that wasn’t really it (and honestly, Wade is fantastic about finding time to ride around all the other things we need to get done). What was really irking me was that Wade was able to step back and take time to do something solely for himself, while I was not.

I don’t know why I woke up seven weeks ago and decided to start running. I just know that it appears that this was what I was wishing for.

Noelle Oxenhandler talks about the first step in wishing being “putting it out there” — letting the universe know what it is that you are wishing for. It sounds hokey, but I’m telling you, it works. When I started running, I told people — Kristen, Chris, Wade — what I was planning — a 5K, a half marathon, a marathon — and the more I said the words, the more possible that wish became. I wrote the dates for races on my calendar — September 25, October 9, February 20, May 1.

I set smaller goals along the way: finish C25K in 9 weeks, run a 30 minute 5K, run 10K. So far, I’m totally on schedule, which is perfect for me.

I don’t know that wishes — or life lists — are supposed to have schedules, but checking these small things off my list in an orderly fashion is making me feel like I can do other, bigger things. I am thinking carefully about what else I want to wish for, about what else I should put on my life list, and about how I can make those things happen.

Even if it’s uphill both ways.