My last couple of runs have been fine. Did 15 minutes straight yesterday in the KSO's, and felt good today. Calves were a bit tight, but this is probably due to not stretching afterward. Warmed up on the eliptical and did all my PT exercises today, though, to get the kinks out.
As I was hurrying to pick up Speedy for a doctor's appointment (and *not* stretching), I wondered: Do runners always cheat ourselves on workout time because the sport seems to attract driven over-achievers? You know, people who schedule 25 hours into each 24-hour day, expecting to run (literally or figuratively) through some of those tasks and make it all fit. Jesse had the same experience on Sunday, when he squeezed in his long training run between driving to the farm, picking up veggies, and taking care of Speedy while I went to back-to-back meetings at the Havurah. I think we both regularly catch ourselves wanting to run faster than our training plan requires, simply because of the other pressures outside of this one bit of "me" time in our days.
Showing posts with label musings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label musings. Show all posts
1.12.2010
11.13.2006
My baby ate my homework
Ok, he didn't really. Yet. But as I sat cutting out dozens of little chiclet-sized squares of double-sided mounting tape with which to adhere all the tiny pieces of my first model for class, even I was tempted to sample. Mmm...chewy...
Speedy turns 1 on Friday, and, right on target, he's cruising, babbling, and shoving fistfulls of everything into his mouth (including, sadly, this morning's Cheerios unearthed from somewhere on the diaper table). 1 is this magical age when babies apparently become invincible. Thursday: rear-facing carseat; no cow's milk, honey, citrus, or nuts; no duplo blocks or walk-behind bubble-mower. Friday: front facing, enough caesin to grow a baby cow, and his first lesson on excavation with the Bobcat.
I was reading the 12-15 mos section of Brazelton's Touchstones today, and could kinda identify with his description of the push-pull of toddlerhood. As an adult, I'm still bouncing from wanting to "do it myself" -- forging out to take more classes, biting of bigger designs than I can chew -- to getting scared and frustrated by all of the newness. Luckily, perhaps, I don't have the option to just let someone else take care of it all and remain dependent.
Had a great talk with my visiting mom about this (dynamic of adults wanting to be taken care of) at our final meeting. She was commenting on how even with grown children, it can be a challenge not to "do for" them. Likewise, it's a challenge not to ask someone else to do for us, or to find another way to pretend we're not responsible for our own destinies.
We joke about how much babies at the breast look like drug addicts -- their little eyes rolling back in their heads with pleasure, and then, "Oh, oh, I need another hit!" But one of the saddest moments I've had in the last year was seeing a businessman on his lunchbreak upending a sizable bottle of alcohol into his Dunkin' cup. Speedy was only maybe a month old, and I had the simultaneous thougts: (1) Please don't let my baby grow up to be an addict, and (2) How sad! This man just wants to be nurtured, to feel safe from the chaos of the world, to be accepted, loved, and cared for unconditionally, to slip into that same oblivion that Speedy has when he's nursing. Seems all of life is a series of weanings. Probably not what the Buddha had in mind when describing samsara...
Speedy turns 1 on Friday, and, right on target, he's cruising, babbling, and shoving fistfulls of everything into his mouth (including, sadly, this morning's Cheerios unearthed from somewhere on the diaper table). 1 is this magical age when babies apparently become invincible. Thursday: rear-facing carseat; no cow's milk, honey, citrus, or nuts; no duplo blocks or walk-behind bubble-mower. Friday: front facing, enough caesin to grow a baby cow, and his first lesson on excavation with the Bobcat.
I was reading the 12-15 mos section of Brazelton's Touchstones today, and could kinda identify with his description of the push-pull of toddlerhood. As an adult, I'm still bouncing from wanting to "do it myself" -- forging out to take more classes, biting of bigger designs than I can chew -- to getting scared and frustrated by all of the newness. Luckily, perhaps, I don't have the option to just let someone else take care of it all and remain dependent.
Had a great talk with my visiting mom about this (dynamic of adults wanting to be taken care of) at our final meeting. She was commenting on how even with grown children, it can be a challenge not to "do for" them. Likewise, it's a challenge not to ask someone else to do for us, or to find another way to pretend we're not responsible for our own destinies.
We joke about how much babies at the breast look like drug addicts -- their little eyes rolling back in their heads with pleasure, and then, "Oh, oh, I need another hit!" But one of the saddest moments I've had in the last year was seeing a businessman on his lunchbreak upending a sizable bottle of alcohol into his Dunkin' cup. Speedy was only maybe a month old, and I had the simultaneous thougts: (1) Please don't let my baby grow up to be an addict, and (2) How sad! This man just wants to be nurtured, to feel safe from the chaos of the world, to be accepted, loved, and cared for unconditionally, to slip into that same oblivion that Speedy has when he's nursing. Seems all of life is a series of weanings. Probably not what the Buddha had in mind when describing samsara...
10.15.2006
Endurance 50
I'm starting to feel like life is maybe under control -- the dishes are clean, I'm able to read a few pages a night, Speedy sleeps for longer than 2 hours at a time and feeds himself solid food... Soon the ground will freeze, plants will die, and my work will slow down for a couple months. Maybe I'll be able to post more now.
The Swadfather is running some portion of the Boston Marathon course with Dean Karnazes tomorrow as part of his Endurance 50 series. Speedy & I will be setting up shop on the back of the Black Sheep (my truck, so called because it's the only one in the fleet that's not white) to hand out fruit slices & water along the route. I'm excited, but I don't know whether to hope that the Swadfather finishes or sags, as he hasn't been training. I think both of us take endurance events with a grain of salt now that we're working parents. I mean, Dean's totally inspiring and crazy, but he also has a high-power job, endorsements, and a nanny for his kids.
Last weekend, Swad & I both ran totally unprepared, and did OK. Saturday, we ran the Somerville Homeless Coalition 5K -- Swad with a time of 27 min unladen, and me in 32:29 with a sleeping Speedy in BOB. While 10:27 miles are no PR, it was substantially faster and easier than the 13-minute miles I did last year. Of course, I was 8 months pregnant at the time, and my lungs were squished somewhere up around my ears... It was cool to come full-circle and run the same race with Speedy outside instead of inside. And I passed the same lady I passed last year, only this time I had the baby-jogger, and she was unladen!
Monday, I did the 30th annual Tufts 10K, an all women's race which I've done almost every year since I've lived in the Boston area. Finished in 1:03:27, which felt pretty good, given that my goal had just been to run the whole thing.
Running an all-women's race can be really powerful. About 8,000 women run, and many are first-timers, so the start can be a bit chaotic. You have to seed yourself optimistically, because a lot of the folks are up with 7-minute milers and plan to walk and talk the whole way. I wasted a lot of energy 2 years ago trying to break through the pack for the first mile. Anyway, when we were lined up and waiting around, the announcer was calling for various groups of women to raise their hands: sisters, aunts, mothers, etc. Lately when I've been close to hitting the wall on a run, I think about labor and delivery, and how much pain and effort my body can handle. So, when I my calves started cramping and planter fasciae were screaming in mile 4, I looked around me, remembered that approximately 1/3 of the crowd had raised their hands as mothers, and got all teary at the raw power that was surrounding me. I was on adrenaline for the last mile, and sprinted in to "Meet Virginia" on the iPod as we rounded the Common.
The Swadfather is running some portion of the Boston Marathon course with Dean Karnazes tomorrow as part of his Endurance 50 series. Speedy & I will be setting up shop on the back of the Black Sheep (my truck, so called because it's the only one in the fleet that's not white) to hand out fruit slices & water along the route. I'm excited, but I don't know whether to hope that the Swadfather finishes or sags, as he hasn't been training. I think both of us take endurance events with a grain of salt now that we're working parents. I mean, Dean's totally inspiring and crazy, but he also has a high-power job, endorsements, and a nanny for his kids.
Last weekend, Swad & I both ran totally unprepared, and did OK. Saturday, we ran the Somerville Homeless Coalition 5K -- Swad with a time of 27 min unladen, and me in 32:29 with a sleeping Speedy in BOB. While 10:27 miles are no PR, it was substantially faster and easier than the 13-minute miles I did last year. Of course, I was 8 months pregnant at the time, and my lungs were squished somewhere up around my ears... It was cool to come full-circle and run the same race with Speedy outside instead of inside. And I passed the same lady I passed last year, only this time I had the baby-jogger, and she was unladen!
Monday, I did the 30th annual Tufts 10K, an all women's race which I've done almost every year since I've lived in the Boston area. Finished in 1:03:27, which felt pretty good, given that my goal had just been to run the whole thing.
Running an all-women's race can be really powerful. About 8,000 women run, and many are first-timers, so the start can be a bit chaotic. You have to seed yourself optimistically, because a lot of the folks are up with 7-minute milers and plan to walk and talk the whole way. I wasted a lot of energy 2 years ago trying to break through the pack for the first mile. Anyway, when we were lined up and waiting around, the announcer was calling for various groups of women to raise their hands: sisters, aunts, mothers, etc. Lately when I've been close to hitting the wall on a run, I think about labor and delivery, and how much pain and effort my body can handle. So, when I my calves started cramping and planter fasciae were screaming in mile 4, I looked around me, remembered that approximately 1/3 of the crowd had raised their hands as mothers, and got all teary at the raw power that was surrounding me. I was on adrenaline for the last mile, and sprinted in to "Meet Virginia" on the iPod as we rounded the Common.
2.28.2006
Turning 30
I turned 30 yesterday. I thought it was no big deal, since having a baby accomplished in one fell swoop all that the 30s meant to me: stability; a shift of focus from activism and social life to family and work; losing my figure and gaining wrinkles. (I do have to wait for the 10 more years of worldly wisdom, though.) I was surprised, therefore, to start crying at my mom's funny card: close up of a dog, captioned, "At least you don't have that 'old person' smell." In spite of the Swadfather throwing me a great surprise party on Sunday, Speedy and I spent yesterday being cranky together -- our moods were a chicken-and-egg sort of thing. In between crying bouts (his), I did manage to do a couple of hours' work, and to obsess a lot about the childcare situation. I can't and don't want to stay home with him full-time, but I am dreading leaving him with a stranger. Any wisdom out there? One cool factoid from my work yesterday: OSHA regulations state that exposure to noise at 110 decibels for over 1/2 hour requires hearing protection. Any guesses how loud a baby's cry is? (I'll have to leave the sitter some earplugs.)
2.24.2006
Hitting Bottom?
At women's spirituality last night, someone used the phrase "hitting lowest bottom." It made me realize that hitting bottom can only really be identified in retrospect. It's less about how badly-off one is, and more about what one makes of the experience.
I've had worse times in my life than the past 3 months -- days when it really was hard to get out of bed -- but I never "got" that I wasn't in control. "Clearly," I thought, "If I could just be strong and get it together, I would be ok." Now, in contrast, I am generally functioning pretty well, even by my own standards. But I know that I cannot be a mom without the help of my friends, and that I am most definitely not in control. During my week-long blog hiatus, I realized that the tightness in my foot (from nursing in bed, and probably too much running without cross-training) is plantar fasciitis. Sunday, feeling totally trapped in my own messy house, without even being able to escape for a run, I had to dump Speedy on the Swadfather (who had a paper to write) and go over to friends' to cry. Okay...to cry a lot. They listened, and then said, "Do you have anyone who might want to babysit for an hour or two? Good. Why don't you call them right now. We'll get the number for you." Why not? Because then I would have to figure out what I wanted to do with time to myself, besides the occasional dispensation to work out. But, because my friends are both wise and good, I gave it a shot: Wednesday night, the Captain hung out with an over-tired Speedy, while I bought myself dinner and used the free wi-fi at O'Naturals. I returned home much more relaxed, to a baby who had consented to go to sleep, even though he's decided to wait me out rather than taking a bottle.
2.13.2006
Perfectionism and its Discontents
The women's spirituality group of which I am a part just started reading The Spirituality of Imperfection by Kuntz and Ketcham. I was not around for the decision to work from this book, but it seems tailor-made for my current life situation. To Cosmogrrl's recent posting praising FLYlady's method of getting organized, I replied that for me it was just further temptation to perfectionism -- a tendency that has only worsened in me since becoming a mom.
I remember reading in a pastoral counseling class that mental health is defined largely by having flexible, constantly-updating schema of the world and one's place in it. If you buy that -- which I do -- then parents should be, paradoxically, some of the most sane among us. Every day contains some tweak to the cosmic map: the ol' pinky-as-pacifier trick no longer works; you're no longer carded for beer; someone's actually allowing you to be a parent?!
Maybe it would be more correct to say that we won't stay sane for long as parents without a whole load of flexibility. The Swadfather pointed out to me the other day that my standards for cleanliness have gone up since having Speedy, even though all the books say, "Let housework go." Really, though, the kitchen sink is about the only thing over which I feel I have control. I'm hanging on to it. I try to let it go, but I'm to busy letting go of my whole notion of who I am, what I can do, what defines me. Even running, the one time when I still feel like myself, sure of the boundaries of my own body, requires me to let go of defining myself by my physical strength, my speed, my in-tactness.
Kurtz & Ketcham suggest that perfectionism is modernity's answer to a chaotic world. I would answer (and I'm not prepared to back this up) that a sense of chaos has always been there, as has perfectionism, in such guises as art, religious devotion, and militarism. Even Eve's "kaniti ish et ha-Shem" has been translated as, "I have brought forth a man, just like G-d has done."
It seems that from our very origins, we have been trying to get back to being divine. Perhaps the worst form of idolatry? Certainly, the cruelest to ourselves.
1.29.2006
An Intrusion of Realism
Grammy is gone, and it's back to solo mommyhood, with the added bonus of Jesse being sick. On the plus side, I spoke with my boss on Friday, and it looks like I'll be able to work from home a good bit this season, which lessens the "I'm only working so I can afford childcare" dilemma. Speedy is accompanying me to the largest landscaping trade show in the US this week, so we'll get to see how being a "working mother" in the most simultaneous sense plays out...
Today's run started out discouraging, but improved once I realized that "shorts weather" for running is a bit too cool for run-walk training. My legs weren't cramping because I was weak, but because I should have been wearing tights to keep the muscles warm during walks. So, I ended up shorting the walk breaks to a minute or less, and got home sooner than expected.
Maybe there's a good lesson there about new parenthood: when things don't work quite as expected, it's not (necessarily) because one sucks as a parent, but because the pace and climate are slighty different with a baby, a mommy-body, etc.
E.g.: I breezed into a noon meeting last week with hands full, coffee sloshing, having just devoured a muffin for "lunch" after running errands all morning. Par for the course for me, and previously not a problem, except now the meeting was of a new moms' group, and I'm trying to compose myself without waking Speedy as I remove him from the Baby Björn. (Other moms and babies look on, as if I just missed the complimentary Valium ingested by everyone else at the start of the meeting.)
Eh. Más se perdió en la guerra.
Today's run started out discouraging, but improved once I realized that "shorts weather" for running is a bit too cool for run-walk training. My legs weren't cramping because I was weak, but because I should have been wearing tights to keep the muscles warm during walks. So, I ended up shorting the walk breaks to a minute or less, and got home sooner than expected.
Maybe there's a good lesson there about new parenthood: when things don't work quite as expected, it's not (necessarily) because one sucks as a parent, but because the pace and climate are slighty different with a baby, a mommy-body, etc.
E.g.: I breezed into a noon meeting last week with hands full, coffee sloshing, having just devoured a muffin for "lunch" after running errands all morning. Par for the course for me, and previously not a problem, except now the meeting was of a new moms' group, and I'm trying to compose myself without waking Speedy as I remove him from the Baby Björn. (Other moms and babies look on, as if I just missed the complimentary Valium ingested by everyone else at the start of the meeting.)
Eh. Más se perdió en la guerra.
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