InnerTeub

Day 3: The JCrew Saturday Pant is A Slippery Slope to Wearing Leggings to work, a photo by LizScott on Flickr.

I didn’t do it, but Reader: it was close.

My husband to me, just now:

“When you come home, be sure to check out the ski section of the garage.”

Please note: the ski section is next to the bike section which is adjacent to the work section which holds the power washing station, which can be seen from the MooseTheDog station, and is not to be confused with the car section.

What I’m saying is: this garage is larger than almost every apartment I have ever lived in.

Yeeeeaaaars ago I belonged to this message board at Television Without Pity. It was a message board for people who watched The West Wing, but this particular board was for non-show related talk, and I’d feel slightly embarrassed about being such an active member of an Internet community except: a) It’s almost 2012 and I think we’re all over that by now and b) that board functioned in almost identical fashion to my Twitter timeline – a group of people discussing random topics throughout the day, topics I could choose to join in on or just observe, and Twitter is hip so apparently I was just way ahead of my time.

At some point on that board someone asked people to list their favorite inspirational pictures. I had recently read an article in Runners World about Katherine Switzer, the first woman to register and run the Boston Marathon. At the time (1967), females were  not allowed to officially enter the race (running long distances was at that time not thought to be good for our, um, delicate systems), but Katherine had qualified and registered with a gender neutral name (K.V. Switzer – her first and middle initial), and lined up to run the race.

When a race official saw her on the race course with official numbers, he shouted “Get the hell out of my race and give me those numbers!” and attempted to physically remove her from the course.

The pictures of this incident are jaw dropping to me—the violence and anger present in trying to remove a female from the race course still gets my blood boiling. I remember reading this article and seeing this picture and thinking to myself how amazing it was for this woman to keep plodding along, one foot in front of another, almost oblivious to the world around her trying to tell her  “You can’t.”

A few weeks ago, I opened my Runners World Quote of the Day, and found again Katherine Switzer:

When I go to the Boston Marathon now, I have wet shoulders—women fall into my arms crying. They’re weeping for joy because running has changed their lives. They feel they can do anything.

-  Katherine Switzer

Goddamn if that’s not the truth. I started running because I was dealing with chronic illness and I felt that if I could keep moving it meant I was not sickly; I kept running (and triathloning and crossfitting) because the feeling I get when I’m doing those things makes me feel like I can do anything.

So there you go, kids. That’s my feel good running quote of the day for you. Keep sweating, etc.

My stepdaughter spends Christmas with her mom’s family, which means Christmas for my side of the family is just 8 adults, no kids. This means that in addition to lots of late nights boozing and late mornings sleeping, our Christmas shopping lists are different from a lot of my friends who make the holiday about their little ones.

This year we decided to high tech the shopping (well: “high tech”) and make Google Doc spreadsheets for each person. Each sheet has a desired item, a link if appropriate, and a column for who has purchased it. Everyone has access to these lists except the recipient. It’s working out well so far — things are added that we know people would like, and we can pick and choose from a host of things we might not considered. I like it. I like getting people gifts I know they’ll enjoy, and I like the community aspect of it. It’s been fun to collaborate with my sibling’s spouses about gifts and what is wanted.

Anyway, with regards to this, I asked Mike about my list, which prompted the following IM conversation:

 me:  How’s my list looking? need any ideas?
 Mike:  depends. do you want anything besides gift certificates to Lowes, a new cordless drill, and a radial arm saw?
 me:  … i do
 Mike:  really?
 me:  shocking, i know
 Mike:  feel free to send ideas, but I think you’ll really like the new drill.

I put my running watch away when we moved to Colorado. I had to. The combination of altitude (6000 feet), hills (1100 ft elevation gain on my neighborhood loop) and weight gain (moving + holidays+ life stress) had done some no good very bad things to my running pace, and I found myself getting more and more frustrated with every attempt to hit the trails.

I struggled all last spring and summer. I was getting back into shape thanks to Crossfit and better eating habits (turns out not traveling full time for work makes it easier to, you know, cook meals), but I was still missing my running groove. I didn’t feel happy when I ran; I felt tired. Every time out was just as hard as the time before. I couldn’t breathe. I had no energy. And it really bothered me, because generally, no matter what else is going on in life, running has been my quick and easy way of resetting, of feeling clean, of doing something nice for myself. Back in August, Mike and I discussed registering for Ironman Lake Placid, a race I’ve always wanted to do, and thought of it just exhausted me. How could I train for an Ironman if I couldn’t even go on a four mile run without needing a nap? (He registered, I didn’t. Anyone want to keep an Ironwidow company this spring??)

So, I put the Garmin away. It wasn’t doing me any mental favors to see my pace and HR and overall time on these miserable runs. I started just doing a shorter loop through the neighborhood, one that still included major hills but was just under 20 minutes to run. In my past life, I wouldn’t have bothered lacing up for a sub 20 minute run, but I figured it was better than nothing and the fact that it was all uphill made it still a worthy effort. I kept going to Crossfit. I went to track workouts with the Rocky Mountain Tri club but refused to keep track of my times. And after a few months I started bringing a watch back into play – not a Garmin, just a watch – still not ready to track distance or  heart rate, or any of the other obsessivey runnery things that I like to track, but just to baseline how much time I was out there.

Last week, my longer neighborhood loop– the one that took me about 35-38 minutes to run when we moved here– I ran in 28 minutes. My shorter neighborhood loop? I’m getting that done in about 14 minutes, not 20.  And these times are reflecting everything else – I finish running feeling energized,  the hills don’t slow me to a walk, I’m able to push up and over. I’m getting it back. Maybe it’s just getting used to the altitude, maybe it’s the increase in overall strength I’m getting from crossfit, maybe is the iron supplements I started taking for altitude related anemia (um, maybe it’s a lot that last one), but whatever it is: I feel like myself again.

And I’m ready to bring back the Garmin. I’m ready to start training again. And it feels so, so good.

So I’m thinking that whole post about how I was basically forced to read Mindy Kaling’s book because of my library hold system prowess might prompt a “Thanks for a post about how much you like my book now could you go actually buy the damn thing it’s not like I’m writing for fun, here” response.

Which in turn reminded me of the night I met Jack Johnson and told him I stole all his music:

My brother and some friends and I went to see Jack Johnson right when his “Brushfire Fairytales” was juuuuuuuuuuuuuust becoming big news. He was playing at a great but small bar in Arlington, VA (Whitlows on Wilson, for those who know/care.)

Given the small venue, the line to get in was insane. It was one in/one out by that point and we were totally kicking ourselves because my brother lives like three blocks away, and the only reason we didn’t get there earlier was because we were watching reruns of Seinfeld (our bad.) We had just gotten to the front of the line when the bouncer asked us “Hey, are you guys like, real fans? If so, leave one person in line and the rest of you go around to the parking lot.”  When we got back there, we found Jack Johnson playing an acoustic set (with his drummer on bongos) for everyone who couldn’t get in (the opening act was currently on stage.) (This is in no related to how I made a total jack(johnson) ass of myself, just kind of a cool part of that night. Well done, sir. Well done.)

Anyway, we finally did get in before the opening act ended, and my brother and I found ourselves standing next to Jack Johnson himself at the back bar. Super excited, we started going on and on and on about how much we LOVED Brushfire Fairytales. (It’s true! I loved that CD. LOVED IT!) I told Jack “My brother burned the disk for me, and now every time a friend of mine hears it they want a copy ,and we burn it for them, and it’s basically taking over my college campus!” and my brother chimed “Yeah, we’re burned it for like, everyone we know! Everyone loves it!” to which Jack replied: “Guys, that’s awesome. But it’d be even awesomer if you actually BOUGHT the CD. Just saying”

Doh. Good point, Jack. Our bad.