Photo of Me: Gross, consider yourself warned

I'm participating in Reverb 10 for the month of December. Each day has a new prompt to encourage participants to reflect on 2010 and manifest what’s next in 2011.

December 25 – Photo – a present to yourself.  Sift through all the photos of you from the past year. Choose one that best captures you; either who you are, or who you strive to be. Find the shot of you that is worth a thousand words. Share the image, who shot it, where, and what it best reveals about you.

Tough, since I don't really like pictures of myself and wouldn't really want to post one for the world to see (and possibly criticize). 

But here's one of me taken today (Dec. 29, 2010) by me at home in our bedroom.  It's gross, so I'm posting it at the very bottom of this entry. 

I already wrote about the subject a bit -- as I mentioned before, while I was home for Christmas, I got to go to a couple gyms a couple times each.  I wore worn out running shoes hubby and I have stored with family across the country.  The shoes are great for a few miles of running (and they happily carried me through many training miles).  The shoes I learned are not great for much more than a few miles.  I ran 8.1 miles on Monday on a treadmill and felt a bit of arch pain.  I took Tuesday off, then ran 9.3 on a treadmill on Wednesday in different (but also old shoes) (and I commented about how these shoes seemed better).  Then I wore those same shoes Thursday.  That day I (1) ran fairly hard for 22 minutes, (2) did a workout with my mom that she got from her trainer (lots of plyometrics, things like short sets of push-ups, squats, etc.), (3) got on the bike for an hour (until it timed me out and I'd almost finished reading my book), and then (4) got back on the treadmill to round out my distance to an even 8 miles.  I wanted to run for longer but the arch pain was back.  It continued to hurt the whole drive home.  I took off my shoes and got my pa to look at it since I was afraid -- sure enough, BLISTER.  Ugh. 

I don't usually have issues with blisters on my feet while running.  It happened once this summer in a freak occurrence (same socks and shoes as always, same terrain as always, etc.) (oh, and if you follow that link, just ignore all that marital stress/frustration stuff, living with someone can be hard!).  And now it's happened again this year, but this time the clear cause is old shoes.  Possibly treadmill-induced gait change also contributed to the blister, but particularly since it's just on one foot, I'm guessing I would have been fine in my current not-worn-out shoes. 

But as gross as it is, this photo describes me well -- I'm very committed to running right now and I have been for a few years.  It's sometimes not easy, pain-free, or fun.  But this year I put in a lot of work to reach my primary running goal of qualifying for Boston.  This photo represents the work I've had to put in to reaching this goal. 

The photo describes me both as who I am and who I strive to be.  I am someone who's running regularly, despite things like blisters.  And I strive to be someone who keeps running with this same dedication for many years to come.  But as I've admitted before, whether I remain this committed after Boston will require some serious soul-searching. 

So here's the photo.  It's the blister on my foot.  With a coin for scale, which is a tactic I learned from another blog I've read for a very long time (in theory, a dating chronicles blog, but lots of stuff about life and knitting, which is where she uses the coins).  Brace yourself, it's pretty gross. 

Ordinary Joy

I'm participating in Reverb 10 for the month of December. Each day has a new prompt to encourage participants to reflect on 2010 and manifest what’s next in 2011.

December 27 – Ordinary Joy.  Our most profound joy is often experienced during ordinary moments. What was one of your most joyful ordinary moments this year? (Author: Brené Brown)

I've said it before on this blog, but I'm aware of how lucky I am to have lots of "ordinary joy" in my life.  It's hard to pick a single one, so I'm going to pick two, though even that is tough.  And both happened many times over the year.

First, I would pick lazy Saturdays with my husband, which seem to occur about once a month, which is far too infrequent in my book.  We really only spend every other Saturday together, and it seems like every other one of those is filled with errands or friends or other commitments.  But I get so much joy from the ones that we're able to reserve for ourselves.  My best friend would sometimes put "BBD" on her calendar on a weekend day, which stands for "Big Blank Day," meaning nothing scheduled.  It was fine if things ended up getting done, but there could never be a list.  I'm trying to do the same thing.  Then we have the option of sitting and watching movies all day, cooking something unplanned and wonderful together, going somewhere just for fun, playing a game, napping most of the day away, going for a walk or a run or to the gym or the pool, just doing whatever we want.  I love those days when we just hang out and relax.  There never seems to be enough time for that otherwise.  During the week, we get home from work and hurry to eat and then get to bed since we both wake up at 5 or earlier every weekday. 

Second, something I've posted about before, I ran with a great group of guys during the week this year, a few of whom I've run with for years and a couple new people.  It was all male except for me and one other woman, though she was out for a few months with injuries -- though we haven't logged as many miles together, we'll hopefully have many more in 2011 as she's also Boston-bound.  Anyway, the other day on FB, she sent an email to our little group and asked if we were up for about 8 miles early tomorrow morning from a Starbucks right by my house.  I responded saying that it was so early, but of course I'd be there because I missed them like crazy. 

The second half of December is always an odd running time for me (and likely many others in Dallas).  The big local marathon has just finished, and training for spring races doesn't start until Jan. 2, and then with people on vacation, etc., it's been routine for the last several years to have no routine.  You run with a few people on random days whenever schedules coincide.  I'm looking forward to next week Tuesday, Jan. 4, so I can settle back into my weekday running routine. 

Running with more guys sometimes means there's a lot more discussion about sports than I want (particularly during the months I was the only female there, and the weeks/months of brackets/division assignments/coaching changes/World Series/all kinds of stuff I kind of tuned out) but some of them get roped into watching The Bachelor by their wives (one of my guilty TV pleasures) or other such things and will happily talk to me about that for miles. 

But seriously, I feel a lot of ordinary joy when running with them.  We talk and vent about so much, jobs, marriages, families (or pressure and decisions about whether to start families), hobbies, vacations, politics, news, life, pretty much everything.  We share a lot.  I once read something about how it's sometimes easy to talk in the car because people are facing forward and sometimes that can encourage you to share things you might not otherwise if you were looking at someone directly.  Well, that's also true of running. 

And besides the ease of conversation, there's also the quantity!  It's rare to spend so many hours of free time with the same people and be talking the whole time.  I don't spend 3 hours a week talking to my best friend on the phone, so these people end up being a lot more involved in my daily life. 

My running buddies provide me with a lot of ordinary joy in my life.

Defining Moment 2010

I'm participating in Reverb 10 for the month of December. Each day has a new prompt to encourage participants to reflect on 2010 and manifest what’s next in 2011.

December 29 – Defining Moment. Describe a defining moment or series of events that has affected your life this year. (Author: Kathryn Fitzmaurice)

Another kind of repetitive response for me.  I've already posted an official race report that kind of summarized the whole race, but the defining moment for 2010 for me was probably sometime during mile 25 of the Twin Cities Marathon.  At about that point, I realized it was pretty definite that I'd qualify for Boston for the first time in my life.  I'd slowed down over the last 10k, but at some point I realized it was a given, even if I slowed down even more.  By the time I hit mile marker 26, I knew I could just walk to the finish line and I'd make it with time to spare, but of course I ran.  As I mentioned in my race report, there was a huge flag suspended by cranes hanging at mile marker 26 and I thought that was the finish line so I went for it -- only to get close and realize the finish line was still a ways away.  But I knew I had it. 

I've posted before about what the Boston dream was like for me, particularly since I don't think I have any natural speed or running ability.  I started off as a slow runner.  Boston wasn't even a goal b/c it was outside the realm of possibility.  But this year, it became a reality.  Now I just need to run it! 

Even if I were to stop running completely after Boston (or even now I suppose), having qualified is a badge of honor and something I think I will always view as a defining moment in my life.  It seems like there are few moments that have been so important in my life.  My wedding day for sure, probably also the day we got engaged.  Maybe the day I became a vegetarian, but at the time I had no idea how long-standing or important that decision would become.  But even big things like the bar exam didn't really count as a defining moment -- that was 2.5 days of exam, then 3 months of waiting for the results!  Qualifying for Boston was my moment this year, and the realization over the few miles before the finish that it was really going to happen was so exciting. 

Everything's Okay...

I'm participating in Reverb 10 for the month of December. Each day has a new prompt to encourage participants to reflect on 2010 and manifest what’s next in 2011.

December 24 Prompt – Everything’s OK. What was the best moment that could serve as proof that everything is going to be alright? And how will you incorporate that discovery into the year ahead?

What a fitting topic for a Christmas Eve prompt, as I think of that day as one of my perfect moments of the year, showing me that all was right with the world -- and will hopefully remain as such!  This is kind of a tough question though because I don't think I really doubted that everything is going to be alright.  I have had numerous moments over the last two years, particularly the week before our wedding, where I actually worried a little that things wouldn't be alright, that in some ways things were too perfect and I was just waiting for some shoe to drop or for something to come crashing down.  But instead my life has remained so blessed!  But one of the final pieces, my brother's long dating relationship with this awesome girl, was still missing. 

Our day on Xmas Eve was great -- hubby and I woke up kind of early and hung out in the kitchen with others as they woke up.  Ate a small breakfast and then an early lunch.  My mom made two kinds of soup, both vegetarian, a potato chili and a bean soup.  Then we all went for a ride in a "two-horse open sleigh."  The sleigh ride was especially exciting for my husband who adores horses but is also allergic to them (though slightly less so than I am).  It was cold but spectacularly beautiful.  We rode for a while then stopped at a bonfire where we had a few spiked hot chocolates and just sat around.  Then we got back in the sleigh and went back to our cars.  From there, we all went back home and then my brother's proposal happened.  They came back into the house and we all drank champagne and watched them change their facebook statuses to "engaged" and called her family and friends to share the news.  Next thing we knew, it was time for dinner.  Usually on Christmas Eve my mom makes kind of an appetizer dinner, lots of little things like dips and sometimes a cheese fondue or something.  It's good but I prefer a regular meal.  This year, she made three casseroles, so it was awesome.  One was a turkey tetrazini (my grandma's recipe, one of the things that makes me miss eating meat), one was pork country spare ribs over homemade sauerkraut and mashed potatoes (also not for me), and then a macaroni and cheese...  I'm going to have to do a post showing how good this meal was when I finally get around to sorting through all my Xmas photos.  Anyway, after dinner, we got ready for church and made the long drive.  We left a little earlier so that we could stop at a bar in town for a pre-church drink, which has become a new tradition over the last few years.  Then we went to church.  First several carols, then the service. 

My moment where I knew everything would be alright was during Silent Night, the second-to-last song of the service (it ends with Angels We Have Heard on High, possibly my fave Xmas carol (tied with Silent Night)).  I was standing between hubby and my baby brother.  They dim the lights in church and the acolytes take their flame things down the aisle and light the candle held by each person on the aisle, then they in turn pass the flame to candles in their aisle.  So I lit my candle from my brother's, and then hubby lit his from mine, my newest future sister-in-law lit hers from his, etc.  We were singing and I grabbed my brother and pulled him closer to me and then moved right up next to my husband, so we were all standing shoulder to shoulder, singing a beautiful song.  I felt so loved and safe and peaceful and satisfied and happy, everything was alright!

As for incorporating this reminder that everything was/is going to be alright into the next year, I guess the best thing I can do is remember it.  As I've mentioned before, with two brothers getting married in 2011, I'm guaranteed more family time than I got in 2010, so I guess that will add to my feelings of peace and happiness.