Nine and a half hours...

Yesterday I ran 32.5 miles of trail. It took me 9 hours 35min and 16 seconds. It was the hardest thing I have ever done. I started running long ten years ago when I saw my big brother run his first marathon. I saw all the people in different shapes and sizes running fast/slow/in between and I thought "I could do that". When my family snickered at my hubris I was that much more determined and I started running the very next day. I didn't stop for 6 months until I crossed the finish line. Last November I went to run a 10k sort of on a lark, to support a friend who was running her first 50k, a distance I couldn't wrap my mind around. There I experienced that wonder anew as I watched men and women of all shapes and sizes digging deep and running long. In particular, I met one woman who was on a quest. I didn't know quite what the quest was but I could just feel it. She had run several recent marathons and was now a Maniac (whatever that was). She was in the last 10k of her 50k and with double pneumonia she, like everyone else, was hurting. But she kept going. She was upbeat and positive in spite of the physical challenges. She shared a GU with me. I thought it might have just been the endorphins in the air but I felt a heart connection with this stranger and as I drove myself home that day I felt like maybe we wouldn't be strangers much longer.

On April 10th I ran my first marathon in 10 years. It was rainy and hilly and hard. I had battled shin splints and body image issues and depression all winter but it was my birthday week and I was ready! I started amid a pack of really amazing women. Several of whom I had met that rainy November day. Beside me was the stranger. By now we were FAR from strangers. We had run 5ks and trail runs and exchanged countless messages of encouragement and friendship. She was my pacer and my friend. When I hit the wall emotionally very early on (mile 6) she just kept running and encouraged me to think about something else and to "change the soundtrack" in my head. When I came over the wall 8miles later she was still there to celebrate. At the finish line she beat me to the tears but just barely.

On May 1st I ran the next marathon. Again, my friend at my side from the very beginning. I had told her my goal was to stay positive no matter what. I knew running wasn't going to kill me so I was determined to make the most of it in my soul and spirit. I wanted to stay grateful for the capacity and the privilege to run. We packed "Jelly Beans of Optimism" and hit the road running. This time the wall was physical. I started to really hurt just before hitting the half way point. I knew it was only a matter of time before I would shuffle over the finish line and so I kept moving through the pain. My feet hurt, my knees felt like they might be made of broken glass. I was just in so much pain. But we laughed and sang and, this time with the presence of yet another inspiring woman, made it across the finish line together. The three Amigas.

There had been a bunch of schedule shuffling and gall bladder removal surgery and general upheaval in the weeks leading up to the race and thus, I had spent some serious time coming to terms with the idea that I might well be alone for much of this race. I was ok with that. The stranger had another race she was responsible to that weekend and my pit crew was in varying stages of readiness to jump in for legs. I had my head in the game though. And I knew the stranger would be meeting me at some point before the end to help bring me in. The night before joy of joys, the stranger texted me to let me know she was coming and would be there for the whole thing. This was like music to my soul. I packed my backpack and laied out my shoes and said a little prayer before going to bed.

The next morning I set off with around 100 other people up the trail and over the bridge. Only 40? of us were running to insanity and back but there was a 20k that morning as well. The trail was full of happy strong runners. I was at the back of the pack quite quickly and with the stranger by my side I was perfectly fine with it. I had been last at that marathon 10 years ago and it hadn't killed me then. This wasn't going to kill me either. I was in zen brain. Then the sweeper caught up to us. I started to feel anxious and rushed and guilty for being so slow and asking so much of him to be out here ALL day with me. He was a very pleasant man who had run a killer trail marathon the day before and seemed genuinely fine with whatever I wanted to do. He told us he was a sheriff and showed me his badge. He said he had volunteered to be the sweeper 1. Because he was training for Pikes Peak and an upcoming 100mile race and just wanted to get miles and miles in. (I told him he was more likely to just get hours and hours in) and 2. Volunteering for this race gave him free entry into another race later in the season and he was going to pick a big expensive one so he was "just happy to be here". I realized after a while that I was the only one who questioned my presence on the trail and it was rude to project it onto him so I mostly shut that train of thought down.

The first 20k was not so bad. My low back was hurting and I was having odd pelvic cramps but other than that it was nothing I couldn't handle. The stranger and I had a lot to catch up on from the weeks apart. At the 2ok mark LFS joined us and she was a breath of fresh air. She happily plodded along at my shuffling pace. This 10k segment was a loop at the top of the trail and it was steep climb after steep climb. Every climb seemed to induce profound nausea in me. I felt like my stomach was being forced into my lungs and I was sure my low back would break. LFS carried my water pack for me for the last 2/3 of the loop. The tears came on this loop. Though only a few because it was too hard to cry, breathe and try to avoid puking up the hills. I knew in my heart that I was going to finish. I was just experiencing sad and afraid. It was ok I kept saying over and over "I'm OK. I'm just sad. This is just hard". LFS just walked beside me and gave me her quiet strength. Something I will never forget. She carried me up that hill if she knows it or not. All the while the stranger stayed just a bit ahead of me modeling "doing it" just like I needed her to. She ran on the flats and the down hills and walked the ups. One foot in front of the other. All the while my cop was right at my heels.

When we finished the Everest Loop as I will now forever refer to it, I saw my husband at the top of the rise to the aid station. "Honey! Put on your shoes and take off your pants. I need you". He snapped into action. I struggled to get some boiled potato dragged in salt and half of a chocolate ensure down while he geared up. I heard the stranger talking to the folks at the table "Yeah, I want to keep her moving". We were off and shuffling again. The next little while was the 10k of painful feet. I kept chasing the cramps with apple cider vinegar mixed with ginger syrup and grape juice. The nausea kept after me for hours. Finally we reached the last aid station and I knew that there was only another 10k left and I could certainly do that. It was almost all down hill too. No more heart breaking, back breaking, nausea producing climbs. But my body was hurting so much. My feet no longer able to modify the stride or the strike to ease the pain, my hips and knees no longer able to absorb the pounding. I felt beat.

Somewhere in the last 3 miles something snapped. I couldn't listen to anyone talking any more. I couldn't interact anymore. I was struggling so hard I didn't know what was going to happen to me. I went someplace else. I imagined holding my brain like a crying infant and said "there there, go to sleep". I said this over and over until my busy brain finally gave up and went to sleep. I don't remember any of the conversations or much of the surroundings. I just know that I started running again. Not the waddle of the pregnant penguin (I know they lay eggs but that is how I felt). I was running. Slowly but full out. My body didn't hurt. My vision was mostly dim except where the path of least resistance seemed to glow, inviting my feet to "tread here. This is the easiest and safest path". I just went with it. A few times I sort of came out of it and started to struggle but I just whispered "There there, back to sleep" and I was gone again. The stranger and G took off just before the finish line and my cop went too. It was safe now. I was assured a finish. I put my whole heart into those last 2.5 miles and I finished stronger than I have ever finished anything in my life. It was not the broken shuffle of a girl in over her head. It was the strongest run I had and it WAS a run. My little family was around me and some perfect strangers on a picnic table shouted and clapped as I crossed the finish line. Spent but proud. Inspired by my own actions. Drenched in gratitude.

Even when it has to be your own body on the wrack it is the love and support all around that make things like this possible. These are the fires where friendship is born and where people become heroes to themselves. I must honestly say that I don't fear pregnancy and childbirth the same way I did on May 28th. I have a strength inside that I never could have fathomed. I have steel inside. Additionally, I have love all around. Between the two, anything, ANYTHING is possible. The stranger showed me that.

Tomorrow I will run a very long way

Tomorrow I am running the Forest Park 50k. I have never run 50k before. I am excited and anxious. I have trained hard for this race. Even though it feels like I have been tapering since March I have run 2 marathons and many other runs and trips to the gym between now and then. The goal was to get to this point uninjured. I have arrived. Other than an ache in my R arch I don't have any real pain on running these days. I am shocked to have made it this far.

Tomorrow's run is a big deal to me. This will be the hardest thing I have ever done. I have guaranteed myself that it will hurt but I have worked very hard at making peace with that. I am expecting the first 2 hours to be fun, the middle 4 hours to be the sucky hours of intermittent walls and aches and pains followed by the last 2 hours which will just be a blurr. I am as mentally ready as I will ever be. Now I just need to get my shit together. I need to pack my backpack, change the sheets on my bed, try to put some tunes on my ipod in case it gets super hard and I need a distraction, clean the bathroom, wash my running skirt and coordinate with the folks who are running legs with me. It may not sound like much but it feels like a lot.

After writing yesterday's post I felt a little better about the whole thing but still pretty confused. I feel like my life has all of these layers. There are the layers of work, layers of running, layers of traveler, layers of fancy free young woman and layers of the woman I really want to become. I don't know how to manage all of those things. What do you do when your layers seem to contradict one another or at least don't seem fully compatible? How do you reconcile the layers? I don't know yet. I know that I am going to take the example of some of my girlfriends and just take it one day at a time and one goal at a time. Today my goal is to get ready to run the best, hardest run of my life tomorrow. Tomorrow my goal will be to stay positive, and to not die. Maybe tomorrow night my goal will be to drink an entire Burgerville fresh strawberry milkshake....mmmm that sounds wonderful already. Next week my goals will include learning how to stay even keeled now that we have officially put an end to the era of condoms and sponges. It isn't going to happen right away and that is for the best. I would be very happy if it happened in 5-6 months but looking at my cycle and our work schedule it may indeed, be like shooting a cannon through a bathroom window. Days on for us will soon mean we don't even have the 10 mins together a day we have now. I will be 0400-1600 and he is 1730-0530 but has to leave at 1630 to get to work and doesn't get home until around 0630. So, yeah...no sex then. And that is fine. I am happy to just let it go knowing that we are not holding out for a year down the road accumulating expectations and hopes for the next 12 months. It is no Venus Demilo but maybe it is my shell on the foam after all. It is the difference between "Trying" and "no longer trying to avoid it". It feels like there is more space here.

So, tomorrow I have lots to think about out there on the trail. There will be no shortage of mental entertainment. I think this run is an analogy for so many things I am about to do. I am just grateful to have the chance to get out there and experience my mind this way and my body this way. I will let you know what I come out with on the other side and how the milkshake tasted.

You can't unring a bell: How growing up in labor and delivery makes it very hard to just relax and let pregnancy come to me

This week I thought I was pregnant. No, we haven't been "trying". But there was some birthday sex and well, let's just say we (in a total spontaneous flight of fancy) left the window open. I was excited and totally freaked out. G was not as excited but he made new and exciting revelations about how ready he actually is every day. It seemed like all he was going to need was time. I, on the other hand felt, and sort of continue to feel very, very conflicted about all of it. In many ways I have been waiting my whole life to get pregnant. The way some little boys dream about becoming astronauts, I dreamt about becoming pregnant. Growing up the daughter of a Nurse Midwife running a private practice, many years mostly solo, one of the only ways to spend time with my mom as a pre-teen and teenager was to take her dinner to the hospital or birth center where she was attending to laboring women, or to drive to home visits with her on Sunday.

My mother was super unorthodox. She is a pretty awesome woman and a total bad ass. As I child I would never have gone to mom for the skinned knee. She was the one who was re roofing the barn or mowing the lawn, my father was the snugly one who you begged to let you into the bed after a bad dream or who would know just how to make that skinned knee better or soothe the sore throat. My Mom was fun and strong and hardworking but she was by NO stretch of the imagination the nurturing one. I didn't even know if she had a soothing whisper voice for when things were scary in the middle of the night. That was what Dad's side of the bed was for.

When I was 10 years old my mom came into my room and asked if I would like to come to a birth with her. WOULD I?! I jumped at the chance to hang out with my Mom. I would have followed her through a burning building! I was so excited to get the chance to see what she DID all those nights she left before dawn and didn't return until the next night, spent and hungry and looking like she had been to war. I was quiet on the drive to the hospital. I was so excited. She parked me in the call room (my only source for cable TV or ANY TV to speak of for the bulk of my childhood) tossed me a hand full of individually wrapped graham crackers and told me she would be back. I was in heaven! It was already past my bedtime and it all felt very secret mission-ee. Several questionable TV programs later she returned and said "OK, you ready?" She took my hand and walked me down the dimly lighted hall to a brightly lit room where a woman with a VERY pregnant belly was sitting in a bed nursing her toddler. I was introduced to the RN who gave me booties to wear over my flip flops. Mind you, I was 10 and just thought it was strange to see a toddler nursing as I knew nothing of nipple stimulation for encouragement of labor progression yet. The woman looked tired but also looked like a warrior. She glowed with this sort of strength and resolve that I found very intriguing. My mother made introductions and the warrior looked me in the eye and said "It is an honor to have you here for this. Is this the first time you have come to a birth with your mom?" I was a gregarious little thing and said "Yes" and "thank you for having me" as if I had been invited to dinner or the movies with someone new. I spent several more hours in the call room with the nurses at the desk checking on me from time to time. I slept and watched more questionable TV. Several hours later one of the nurses came and woke me up saying "it's time". I was escorted down the hall where my mom was in full battle dress and wheeling a mirror out of the hall closet into the room. "Hiya kiddo, you ready?" I didn't have a clue what I was "ready" for but I said yes. I walked in and the warrior in the bed looked very different now. She was sweaty and all wadded up in the middle of the bed. Her toddler was in grandma's arms beside her. She had steel in her eyes and glanced at me, breaking her focus for just a second before the next contraction to wink at me. Mere moments later she was pushing and my mom was giving her instructions in a soothing night time voice I had never heard before. The warrior pushed and my Mom encouraged and before I knew it I felt the hands of the nurse guiding me into a chair she had pushed behind me. I sat down hard as the head delivered and I remember letting out a sound like "ohhahh". Then I was crying for no reason as my mom pushed this slimy, wet, pink and blue mess onto the warrior's chest still speaking in the soothing voice. It was the most magical thing I had ever seen. There had been 5 people in this room and now there were 6 and the doors and windows were all closed. Now there were 6 people breathing and living and moving and making noise in that room. It was all it took. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that this was magic and I wanted to be a part of it. This one night lead me to many many more nights with my mom in the dark hallways of the labor and delivery unit, the stairways of the birth center, the back bathrooms of people's houses. I spent the next 18 years thinking about women and the journey of pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood/familyhood. I spent the next 18 years, the last 18 years thinking about when it would be my turn to be a warrior.

Nursing school, a degree in biology, over 30 births attended in all fashion from fly on the wall to child caregiver, photographer to labor coach and resident bouncer taught me a shit ton about women's health, fertility, pregnancy, sex, labor and babies. What I fear now is that like the unwitting witness of a crime I "know too much". I know that, despite what the sex ed teacher wanted me to believe, I only have a 36hr window where I can get pregnant. After that, it is a very delicate and frankly fucking miraculous dance of floating eggs, determined sperm and hormones that needs to be executed nearly perfectly for there to even be a chance of fertilization let alone implantation, let alone holding on to viability and then term. This is one nasty ass obstacle course for some clusters of cells with no eyes, ears or brains (sperm and egg) to work through before you end up someones mom. It feels like shooting a cannon through a bathroom window...the odds of missing are HUGE.

So, now, I am coming up on 30, my magical age for taking up the mantle of warrior as determined by my ten year old self that night. I have a wonderful husband, a beautiful house, a great job, beautiful friends and community and I am scared out of my mind that I am going to be a neurotic mess. The Hubbs and I have talked in varying degrees of specificity about the when. It seems to be a fluid concept. But no matter when the when is I am afraid that I will be unable to put down the thermometer and charts and just throw away the condoms and have sex. I don't know how to stop looking at the charts and pinpointing the most likely days and what I WANT is to be one of those women who floats into pregnancy on a clam shell and sea foam of zen goddessness. I want to just let it all go and let it happen. The problem is I am ready to just let it happen and if I get pregnant next month cool, if not, fine maybe in September....The Hubbs doesn't know the science and all the possible ways I can obsess between now and a year from now. He also doesn't know to what extent waiting will stoke the fires of my obsession as it seems that you can't swing a recycled grocery bag without hitting a pregnant woman or a newborn in Portland. They are freaking EVERYWHERE!

So, I wasn't pregnant this month. Instead, I had one of the worst periods starting on my first day back to work. I am a Paramedic which means I drive around in an ambulance all day (12hrs) with an old guy (my partner) who thinks he knows everything about everything and is more than happy to plaster you with his opinions and knowledge and if you don't have any questions for him that's fine he'll just talk about anything or nothing. I have no control over when/if I can get to a bathroom as, if a call drops we will walk away from food we have paid for and scoot to the ambulance. More than once this week, I threw away underpants that were just totalled from running a call when I really needed a ladies room. Yay periods! Anyway, this week sucked. I was cramping, bleeding like I had been shot, crying for no particular reason and thinking about how unready I am to raise a small person. I feel conflicted. I am afraid to become a warrior but simultaneously dying to become a warrior. I feel like I need the power taken out of my perceived control...I want to throw away the condoms and just see what happens before my heart breaks and my head explodes.

Eugene Race Report

This past weekend I ran the Eugene Marathon with a few thousand of my closest friends and relatives. There were honestly, about 20 people I knew running this race. Many of them were Chicks from PDX but my husband's parents both walked the 1/2 and a girlfriend from search and rescue as well as a co-worker of G's also participated. It was a really huge event for our little community of friends. This race was only 19 days after Vernonia Marathon so I was mentally prepared to feel less than atomic.

I had spent a great deal of time reflecting on how attitude impacts perception. I have been thinking a lot about how we "add" suffering onto already difficult things by continuing to focus on how difficult/uncomfortable/frightening/yucky something is. I am starting to realize that if I DO that, I miss everything. I miss the whole point. Beyond missing it I have now spent 100$ to bitch for 6hrs? What ?! Yes, friends, misery is an inside job. It is a choice. In the wise words of LG "Honey, running a long way hurts, and that's Ok." In the equally profound words of JC "Well, we're in it now. Keep going." That was what was fresh in my mind after Vernonia. I spent a LOT of time thinking positively about Eugene. Thinking about how I was going to stay positive no matter what. I decided I was going to make friends with the pain and just keep it "breezy". There were to be no miles filled with tears and profanity, no shouts of frustrated defeat. Don't get me wrong, it was going to suck at points. There were going to be miles when I wanted to say "WHAT THE FUC%?! WHERE IS THE BRIDGE?! WHERE IS THE FINISH?!" But I wasn't going to give in to that. I was going to experience the moment of oh god this sucks-ness and then move on. Move on to what? Well, move on to the beautiful day, move on to a conversation with one of my awesome running buddies, move on to Jelly Beans of Optimism. What I was moving onto didn't matter as long as it was positive. This is not a polly perfect definition of positive. I don't want you to think I was out there fooling myself. No, I was not. Positive just means anything outside of the poverty mentality of ow, wah, poor me, f-this, whine whine whine.

It worked. I got a little worried when I started to feel physically fatigued at mile 11....with 15.2 more miles to run...but I made peace with the fatigue and kept saying "Eventually it will be over, one foot in front of the other and don't forget to be HERE". At mile 18 it was official, I hurt. My feet in particular were showing no mercy. I announced "In case you were wondering, this is the wall. It is a little dark in here but I am ok. I have a tiny hammer and a tiny pick and I am working on it" JC suggested some Jelly Beans of Optimism and that helped for a while. I had this headache that was like a stabbing pain through my L eye. I still am not quite sure where it came from but it was rude. I almost welcomed it as it didn't seem to invite me to walk but it did seem to be something other than my aching knees and feet to focus on. At mile 21 there was an aid station where a man was sitting having his blood pressure taken by some red cross volunteers. The one guy seemed to be struggling to obtain a BP. The lady who seemed maybe to be a supervisor said "here, let me try" when the other guy held the stethoscope out to her she said "Nah, I never use that thing. I can't hear it anyway, I just watch". It didn't even register at that moment how awesomely inaccurate that 210 over 180 likely was....I thought, wow, he should go to the hospital...in an ambulance....hyponatremia is a bitch...

My finish time was 20 min longer than Vernonia. I am fine with that. I am focused on maniacing not breaking PR for marathons. I won't have JC or AF with me for Forest Park and that frightens me. I lean on those girls for support in ways I probably don't even realize. But I also think that maniacing without my right and left legs as they have come to feel, is the real challenge. 50k will be tough physically and I am working on learning about nutrition and walk breaks to help me stay strong as long as possible. But, I think I have already proven to myself that I can do just about anything with those two women by my side. Now it is time to see if I can do it without them. I will have support for FP. SFF will be there along with some other friends and the Hubbs but it won't be the same. We have a routine the three of us. A routine of bursting into song, knowing who needs what side of "the bed", knowing when to suggest a walk or snack break. They learned to read my silence and I learned to take their advice. And now it is time to see how much I really have learned. I am even more resolute in my vow of positivity. I am trying to let it spill over into my whole life. That is not to say that a profanity filled rant is not a fun way to let off steam at dispatch or other drivers every once in a while but the difference is that I don't really MEAN it. Not when it boils down...Deep down I believe that people are good and trying their best, pain is just part of living and not really the worst part, and that I am capable of way more than I know.