Trying in 2011

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 18 – Try. What do you want to try next year? Is there something you wanted to try in 2010? What happened when you did / didn’t go for it? (Author: Kaileen Elise)

It's another one that seems a little repetitive.  Or maybe it's just that my life isn't that interesting!  I'd say the thing I want to try the most in 2011 is to get a new 5k PR.  On the big 5k in September where I got a PR that I wasn't expecting, I still missed the ultimate 5k goal (for now) by 2 seconds.  My goal for the 5k is a little strange in that it can't be defined too well -- all I want is to beat Adam.  And he's not running very much right now, so if I can do it in the first few months of 2011, I probably only have to improve my current PR by 2 seconds.  But if he races again and sets a new PR, then I'll have to beat that.  So maybe it's a dual strategy.  Train hard and make a few strong attempts at the PR while the weather is good for running.  And second, ply Adam with cookies, alcohol, pizza, etc. to make sure he doesn't set the current bar any higher! 

As for something I wanted to try in 2010, I definitely wanted to try to beat him.  As I've mentioned before, I went for it a few times in the spring and never suceeded.  Then I almost did it in September.  I got a new PR, but missed beating him by 2 seconds (and I missed the tie by a mere 1 second).  It was a fun goal for the year, and even though I haven't accomplished it yet, it will keep me working hard in 2011. 

I might be able to offer a more interesting answer for something I want to try in a couple weeks.  I go home tomorrow for Christmas.  One of my projects is going to be to work on my 2011 resolutions.  I might be able to come up with some other good things to try, but right now I'm distracted by (and procrastinating doing) my to-do list to come up with a good post.  Fun things like the bank, the post office, buying the January book club book (Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, any thoughts?), loading up my carry-on (hopefully adding some grapes or other snack from the grocery store), washing whites and adding to the suitcase, shopping for blank or Italian cards (still on my list!), finishing my two "work-required" gifts, a bit more wrapping, etc.  But instead I'm reading blogs and watching Hoarders...

I ran a quick loop of the lake this morning with a few friends.  One had to turn off early and on the second half of the lake, there was a new path that has recently opened up, the Santa Fe trail I think it's called.  Anyway, I saw it last weekend during the 5k with my co-worker's daughter, but we weren't in a position to run on it, so I just looked.  This morning when we hit the part with the new trail, I asked my running buddies if they'd be okay with adding a mile or so to our route.  They agreed, so we turned onto the trail.  I grabbed hands with Fred and Joy for my first few steps on the trail (an odd personal tradition, held hands with two of my besties first time on the pedestrian bridge at the lake, held hands with weekend friends on my first little part of the extension of the trail near our house).  We ran almost half a mile on the new trail and then u-turned back.  It was really cool.  A little strange that there is a fence on each side of you for much of it, and the fence is right next to the running path, so there is no dirt or grass alongside the path for people who like to run on the softer surface (or for dogs to poo, which seems to be a problem, there were several piles in the path). 

I'm not sure what I'm going to do for running while I'm home.  The high is 21 on the warmest day.  Ugh.  I have 2 gym mornings planned on Wed and Thurs, but think I'll be outside the rest of the time.  If I could push myself to do 8-10 miles outside on Mon and Tues, then 8-10 on the dreadmill on Wed and Thurs, then I can take off on Fri and Sat, see if I can get motivated to run outside on Sunday, and then I'll be back in Dallas!  I will aim to run on at least a few days early in the week and maybe do weights once, then Fri is the traditional New Year's Eve lake loop, then Sunday marathon training will officially begin with 8 miles, at least according to the rumors I've heard. 

Lessons of 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 17 – Lesson Learned.  What was the best thing you learned about yourself this past year? And how will you apply that lesson going forward? (Author: Tara Weaver)

It seems like some of my answers touch on the same topics as other answers this month, but I guess it's logical.  The big memories, lessons, etc. of the year aren't infrequently related I suppose.  My lesson was running related:

No matter how experienced and/or strong I get, I need to remember all the basic rules of running, they still apply to me.

Like build your distance back gradually if you take more than two weeks off.
Like pace yourself from step 1 of the race.
Like watch what you eat the night before a long run (for me, NO DAIRY! and not a lot of veggies or protein).  Only bad things come of that. 
Like I need to stretch after all my runs -- and this is getting more important as I get older.
Like dress for the weather as if it's 20* warmer.
Like I still can't mix gatorade or similar drink with gu or blocks or other fuel.  Only bad things come of that too.
And while it's not so much a general rule, a specific rule for me:  Don't stop pushing in a race because you think your goal is impossible because you make frequent math errors and even if you miss your goal a solid effort makes you feel better. 

Some of the rules I'm now okay with breaking, like not doing anything new on race day, but it's only with new things that I consider safe or races that don't matter too much. 

My biggest mistake of the year was either not running on our very long vacation, or jumping back in where I left off when we got home.  Hard to say which was the problem.  I could have changed either and had much less pain. 

This is a good reminder for me since I looked at a picture from early this morning of our Spring vacation destination:  Italy!  Snow in Calabria!  Woo-hoo!  Copied the picture from someone in the town where hubby's family lives. 



And on this trip, I may attempt to meet a blogger, Michelle of Bleeding Espresso!  I don't know yet exactly how far she is from where we'll be, but it would be fun.  We don't have all the details of the trip worked out yet, but I think the plan will be Dallas-Boston-Pittsburgh-Lamezia-Paris-Dallas.  I'm getting excited.  Right now I'm mostly getting excited about going home (will be there in less than 48 hours!  and the temp won't be above 25 the whole time I'm there!  yikes!), but I'm also letting myself get excited about the spring trip because otherwise I'll probably be kind of sad when I get back to Dallas after Christmas.  It's hard to be away from my family.  Those of you who live near your families are very lucky, though I know there are always different headaches that come with that (but right now, I'd rather be in that boat).

Friends

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 16 – Friendship.  How has a friend changed you or your perspective on the world this year? Was this change gradual, or a sudden burst? (Author: Martha Mihalick)

Hmmm... I think my friendship with our neighbors has changed my perspective gradually.  While we love to do tons of things with them (last night we went driving with hot cocoa to look at Christmas lights, last weekend she came to help me with all my baking, we regularly eat dinner together and sometimes watch movies or do other things), one of my favorite things to do with the female half of the couple is to walk.  She doesn't run but loves to walk and we walk quickly, faster than I walk alone.  We usually average about 15-15:30 per mile, which always surprises me. 

Anyway, of course while we walk, we talk.  She has been married much longer than we have and her comments about her husband, their relationship, and my husband and our relationship have shaped my perspective in many ways.  Since I have been married, or even engaged or before that dating, I haven't lived in the same state as my mom, so maybe I've missed some of her commentary on the ups and downs of marriage.  And most of my good friends who are married have been married less than ten years.  Talking to my neighbor is always interesting and fun, but in many ways it's given me a better view of what to expect and how to handle problems.  It was almost shocking to me that even though they've been married so long, it isn't always easy.   I think sometimes I expect that at some point, it turns into a cake walk, but you always have two personalities, two backgrounds, two different perspectives, etc.  It's a never-ending series of compromises, even if you're on the same page about most things.  Her friendship has opened my eyes to thinking about what we'll be like as we get to be married as long as they have been.  It's fun to think about. 

While I love her perspective on marriage and relationships, it's the overall friendship I treasure so much.  There are a million things we talk about all the time and I love it.  It's so odd that we met each other and happen to live next door to each other. 

I feel like I know very few of my neighbors, but on the day they were moving in next door, a truck was blocking my exit from my garage.  Very frustrating since I was on my way to work and am usually in a hurry to get there.  I can't remember if I honked my horn or got out to find someone to move the truck, but I met the male half of the couple.  I introduced myself, we exchanged brief pleasantries, and he went to move the truck or to get someone to do it.  His wife came out at that time and he introduced us.  I could tell immediately that she was foreign and I thought maybe Italian.  I asked where she was from and found out she was indeed Italian, from a town in Puglia where I spent some time in college.  She couldn't believe I knew the city, so I quickly ran in the house to grab a photo album.  She laughed to see her town's amphitheater and a couple churches.  The bond was formed.  She met her husband in Italy while he was in the military and then they moved here.  They go back fairly often as her sisters are all still in Italy. 

She's on board with my plan to transition to speaking Italian mostly in my personal time in 2011, so that will be nice practice for me!  The only bummer is that I think my Boston marathon training program is really grueling, so I'm not sure if I'll have as much time for walking when I have a serious running schedule.

As an aside, this morning one of my weekday buddies and I decided to link up with another running group to run a different route.  I got there and recognized someone from the Italian conversation group in which I met my husband.  He was even there the very night we met.  We haven't seen him in years.  He was always a Spanish teacher and so Italian was less important to him, but now he's learning German as well so he said his Italian is fading.  He seemed so surprised to see me and made several comments before the run about how different I looked, and then after the run he seemed shocked.  He kept asking me what I did to get so much faster.  My weekday buddy and I still trailed behind him a little, but we basically kept up.  The pace was faster than I wanted, but tolerable.  He had run a couple miles with me during my first disastrous White Rock marathon (the one that included vomit, no PR, and a time way longer than wanted/expected (which I've since beaten by hours, yes, hours plural!)).  He couldn't believe the change.  I told him I attributed it mostly to getting serious about cross-training, doing weights and abs, etc.  Either way, it was fun to catch up and see him again!  My husband laughed when I told him how surprised this guy was.  Hopefully once he gets a lock on the German language, he'll come back to speak Italian with us again! 

Forgetting in 5 Minutes

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 15 – 5 Minutes.  Imagine you will completely lose your memory of 2010 in five minutes. Set an alarm for five minutes and capture the things you most want to remember about 2010. (Author: Patti Digh)

I don't like this one that much.  My simple answer is that it wouldn't matter too much because now I have this blog!  I could just read this to remember things. 

In terms of what I'll remember about 2010 many years from now, far and away I would guess it would be knowing it was the year I qualified for Boston.  And the year I paced my friend for White Rock.  Strangely enough I can still name all the marathons I've done (about a dozen) and what month and year I ran them.  So both marathons this year will probably stick in my mind. 

Maybe that's a better starting point to determine what I'll remember about 2010.  What do I remember about 2006?  2003?  Some other random past years?  When I tend to look back at past years, the things I remember are (1) family weddings, (2) deaths, (3) births, (4) big vacations and (5) marathons.  And I guess some major news events (but even those, sometimes I don't really remember exactly what year it was). 

There were no close family weddings this year.  I hopefully will forget about how my heart got broken this year (just last month actually) with the big engagement.  Is it just me, or is it starting to feel a little like they're flaunting it in my face?  Sigh.  It still hurts. 

Fortunately there were also no deaths of anyone in our close family.  I'll less happily remember 2010 as the year someone in my close family had some fairly major health issues.  I didn't write about that much here, but touched on it in September when the aftermath of the May surgery became apparent.  Very stressful.  And it was the year the sister of one of my very best friends found out she has stage 4 (non-smoker) lung cancer.  She's younger than us and has a very young daughter, so it seems particularly tragic, but so far her treatment is going well, it doesn't seem to be advancing much more, which is very good. 

More happily, 2010 was the year my cousin came to Dallas to have his baby, who then had open heart surgery a few days later.  He and his family were with us for Thanksgiving, making the holiday extra-special, and we had lots of fun working out and running with cousin and getting to spend more time with him.  And their baby is doing well now, already 3 weeks old and out of the hospital, though he will need more operations in the coming years.  But his healthy birth and swift recovery are definitely stand-out things from 2010. 

I'll definitely remember 2010 as the year I finally got to go to Russia.  Somewhere I'd dreamed of going since at least junior high.  Going back to Sweden was also great, plus our vacation time on the east coast.  That trip is certainly well-preserved in photos, but it's also something I remember in mental pictures, inside jokes with my husband, and new friendships.  One of the most amazing parts of the year for me. 

So I'm happy to report that most of my 2010 memories will be positive.  Hopefully the negative things, like some drama at work and some missed PR attempts (including a couple crash and burn races) will fade with time.