Navigating to Wordpress

 Hello all,

I have switched over to Wordpress and would love for you to join me. My site address: https://laurasmithwriterme.wordpress.com/

Please join me there as I navigate through this journey of life!

Laua

Road to the TCS NYC Marathon: 5. Letting go of the Cram

I am a crammer. Is that even a word? I look at the time I have ahead and attempt to schedule in absolutely every single class, meeting, training session, and activity that I can within that allotted time. And the end result? Sleeping through an entire beautiful afternoon because I cannot seem to move my legs and all I really want to do is scroll social media. In 94 days I need to be ready to run 26.2 miles and in less than three weeks I am back into my full schedule. So I train and train and then crash. But maybe there is a case for this approach? Maybe if I take 3 fitness classes a day and run then when I head back into my normal routine things will feel easy? Or maybe I will crash and burn. There is one way to find out! Even though my unbalanced approach might not be the best way to go it is working for the moment. My running partner Luna is the subject of the picture below. This is her after a run!

Road to the TCS NYC Marathon: 4. Running with Luna

It is this face that gets me out the door each and every day. It is this face that keeps me on pace (excepting squirrel fartleks and olfactory explorations). 

For most of my running career I have been a solo runner, maintaining a run streak for the past 2641 days by waking before the sun and heading out the door, flashlight in hand. But on May 31, 2000 I brought home this 8 year old husky shepherd mix from our local shelter. She has been my running partner pretty much every day since (minus the few weeks after she leaped over the open tool box slicing a tendon). Both of her dominant breeds (husky and shepherd) are on Runner's World's list of best running dogs and rightly so. Both breeds are active working dogs. We jumped right in the day after I brought her home (she did not need much in the way of training) and have been partners ever since. There was a near miss the other day when we came upon a porcupine neighbor, but she has made training that much more enjoyable, if not interesting. Do you run with your dog? Post a picture below!

Road to the TCS NYC Marathon: 3. Training in the Moment

It is summer and I am a teacher. Which means that I do not have income coming in, but I do have hours of free time to focus on my training. Less than one month from now I will return to my hectic schedule: waking at 4am to attempt a morning run, a full day of teaching followed by coaching, and concluding with an evening of planning and prepping for the next day of classes. Which leaves me very little time for marathon training. And even though I still have almost a full month of smart (stretching, biking, icing, massage, and yoga) training, my mind is already thinking ahead to the days when I might not have the time to complete those activities that keep me happy and injury free. For example, I have been sleeping 8 full hours per night. I have been warming up for my runs and stretching afterwards. I have been cross training and foam rolling. In other words, I have been training the smart way. And it feels good. Injury pain has subsided a bit and I have energy throughout the day. The question is: How does one take care of one's body and work more than full time while training for 26.2? In the absence of the answer to that question, I also need to know how I stay in today, enjoying every minute of self care and recovery that the summer months afford? 

The Berkely Institute of Well-Being has a great blog post about staying in the now which includes 14 tips to stay present. The article by Tchiki Davis can be found here. Davis explores ways to practice mindfulness, and includes videos and exercises to help us to stave off anxiety and return to the present. One of her tips is to practice gratitude. This simple act of fosusing on what one is grateful for returns us to the present moment. Today I am grateful for this working computer, the ability to write and share my journey with you, this porch on which I sit, and the glorious summer day I have in which to write (and train). While practicing gratitude for the present moment this summer day, I can also look at how I can lessen my work load a bit, so that I can continue the healthy habits I have cemented during my vacation. Can I assign fewer gradeable assignments for the first few months of the school year or do I really need to be coaching in the Fall? What might my life look like if I attempted balance? To be continued! 
 

Road to the TCS NYC Marathon: 2. Taking it Easy and the Dreaded Ice bath

I have the coach. I have the PT. I have three new pair of colorful Hoka One One Rincon lined up and set to go. I have a hotel room booked and will arrange a sick day. Now the training begins. The marathon is not just a race; it is a way of life for four months. I have not run 26.2 miles since November 2019, and I believe my longest long run has hovered around 15 miles (Vegan Power 25k Virtual). In a previous post I wrote about asking for help, a huge step for me as I never want to admit that I even need help. Self -sufficiency has been a point of pride for many years. After all, I am the woman who went years without calling in sick, going to the dentist, and have self diagnosed more running injuries than I would like to admit. Yet here I am with the coach, and the PT. Asking for help. 

The goal this year is to run relatively pain free. Yes it will hurt, it is a 26 mile race, but I would like it to hurt the way it is supposed to (tired and sore muscles) and not because of my litany of running- related overuse injuries that have been following me for the past ten years. So I am cross training, strength training, eating strictly vegan food, sleeping, and the hardest of all, icing. And you know what? The injuries are subsiding because I am...wait for it...gasp...taking it easy. My coach recommended that I run not for distance but for time on feet, adding 15 minutes per week to my long run and possibly topping off at 15 miles. This will be marathon # 11 for me and my body knows what to do. Well, my tendons are a bit behind, but my muscles can run the distance. So now it is about taking it easy, listening to my body, getting rest and fueling my body with nutrients. 

In the next few weeks I am hoping to get my GoPro up and running, to test it out so that on that morning this November when I line up at the Verranzzano - Narrows Bridge, I can record the experience and post it here. For now though I will put my feet in a bath of ice, ignore the discomfort, and know that my body will thank me for it.
 

Road to the TCS NYC Marathon: 1. Asking for Help

I have done it before and I will do it again. The New York City Marathon. It was not my first marathon, that was Hartford in 2009, but in February 2017 I decided on a whim to put my name into the lottery for an entry. Had I run longer than 13.1 miles since 2009? Hell no! What was I thinking? I was thinking that there was no way that I would be one of the 11% whose name would be drawn for the run through the five boroughs in New York City. Flash forward to November of that year and I was slogging through the rain after successfully making it to the starting line on Staten Island. Yes I finished and might not have been able to walk for a few days, but the following February I put my name in again. 2018. Yes. 2019. Team TCS Teacher contest winner. 2020. Covid. 2021. Deferral from 2020. 

It is time to start training. I am beginning to build a base of fitness despite a history of running related injuries from a calf strain to Achilles and Posterior tibial tendonosis, to the newest addition to the familiy: calcaneal bursitis on both heels. I am keeping a physical therapis in business and have a share of the compression sock market. But there is a difference this year. Oh, I know I can do it, but this year I am asking for help. I have a running coach making me a training plan. I have a physical therapist making sure I stay straight to stave off injuries, and I am working with a strength and conditioning coach. I have my nutrition under control because of work with a plant based nutritionist, and I am taking time to, gasp, rest. I would love to continue to writing about this journey within the confines of this blog, to share images and maybe even video if I take the plunge and purchase that GoPro in my Amazon shopping cart. I would like to be held accountable for taking care of my body so that this year maybe I can run this amazing race with minimum pain. here we go.

The Narrative of Rejection

As a writer I should be comfortable with the idea of rejection. Yet somehow it always catches me, picks me up, and slams me on the floor. I lose my breath for a minute, or hour, before regaining consciousness. It is not the rejection per say, but the narrative that I create surrounding that rejection. I cannot simply accept the rejection as is, a statement that I would not fit into the environment in which I believed I would fit. I instead create the backstory, it is not only the employer, the publication, or the friend rejecting me, it is the greater community at large which does not feel as if I am worthy. I become the martyr in my own play, hated by all and on the path to ruin and homelessness. This narrative creation within my egomaniacal conscious mind can be harnessed for good as well as evil however. That backstory in which I recently indulged can be used as fodder for a short story. I can watch myself cycle through the stages of grief and rejection, of wallowing in self-pity and then meditate, have a smoothie, and sit down to write. I can cultivate gratitude for my amazing life, as it is at this very moment (minus the deer flies and humidity) and sit down to write a post. A close friend of mine says that "rejection is God's protection," and I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment (when I am not in the midst of being rejected). I have been ignoring that small voice inside that is telling me to write, to rest, to explore creativity, to pray, to hang upside down and then nap. I am attempting to fit my square pegged self into a round hole and wonder why I get stuck. So dear reader (or mom), I come to you rejected. But also relieved that the narrative did not play out, and that I can now head to Amazon.com and purchase a Gopro because I have an idea which is filling me with giddy anticipation. More on that soon!