February 25, 2010 | Filed under: I Run Therefore I Am, Is She Still Talking?

I’ve had New Year’s resolutions to tell you about for, oh, the last sixty days.  Now’s as good a time as any to discuss them, as they’ll become important in a minute.

1.  Eat healthy foods, made from real, non-processed, organic/locally-grown ingredients.

2.  Exercise.  Sixty hours a week in front of a computer is not healthy.

3.  Do not let February steamroll you this year, as it has in so many years past.

That’s it:  three things.  Manageable, right?  While resolutions #1 and #2 are going … well, not great, but fine … I am completely and utterly failing on the February part.  (Five days into February, my boss resigned.  Then I tossed a hand grenade into my precariously-balanced relationship.  On the same day.)  It’s been an anxiety-filled three weeks here, and if you don’t believe me, ask my spice-loving co-worker who took a break from the sauce (literally) because it was eating a whole in his stomach.

But!  Tomorrow I’m getting on a plane, bound for New Orleans and the Rock’n'Roll Mardi Gras Marathon where I will drag my under-prepared self 13.1 miles to the finish line.  (The chance to run regularly would have really helped my stress levels, but DC was busy being buried under 54 inches of snow this winter.  Great timing, Mother Nature!)  While flying to another city to run 13 miles seems crazy, the real crazy is that it’s the best excuse I’ve had in a while to take two days off of work.

When I get back to DC, it will be March, the piles of snow will have vanished, and I will have survived another dispiriting February.  I may, however, need to keep that resolution on the list for next year.

January 8, 2009 | Filed under: I Run Therefore I Am, Is She Still Talking?

Eight days into the new year — high time to get myself some New Year’s resolutions. I’m not sure how much resolve I have, so let’s call these goals targets to shoot for pipe dreams.

If there’s one thing I learned in grad school, it’s that goals must be CLEAR and MEASURABLE. That means none of this namby-pamby “be more patient” sort of resolution. (I feel OK giving up on that particular resolution. Ten years running and it hasn’t worked yet.)

Therefore, here are some of my goals for the year. I’m sure it’s not an exhaustive list, but I’m too exhuasted to try to come up with the rest of them.

• Run 800 miles. Now, before you go thinking this sounds batshit insane, please note that 800 miles is approximately 15 miles per week, or three 5-mile runs each week. This is a totally manageable goal which will only become unmanageable if I don’t work out three times a week. And if I don’t work out three times a week, a lot of other bad things will happen, not least of which is becoming batshit insane.
• Blog at least once a week.
• Do not stress out.
• Add weekend days onto work trips so as to do something fun while in other places, rather than the fly in/fly out routine from last year.
• Finish furnishing the house.
• Do not stress out.
• Bike. Like, ever. Buying a bike might be a good first step.
• Send real Christmas cards. Before Christmas.
• Do not stress out.

Did you make resolutions? Have you blown any of them already? It’s OK, we won’t tell.

October 22, 2008 | Filed under: I Run Therefore I Am, Is She Still Talking?

I like to cook. It relaxes and soothes me. I often find myself cooking at high-stress times, or when I’m trying to fend off upcoming stress. Occasionally I cook because I need to eat dinner soon, but that’s often not the case. I know plenty of people who are stress eaters, and it’s probably a good thing they don’t live with me, because that could be a dangerous symbiotic relationship there. Cooking (or baking, my stress doesn’t discriminate) allows me to be creative and focus on a project and shut everything else out. This explains why, when leaving the office tonight, I had to beat back the overwhelming urge to come home and make chocolate chip cookies. Not only do I not really have the time for that sort of thing, I don’t have any chocolate chips.

I could be cleaning the house — another of my stress management techniques (now you REALLY want to come live with me, don’t you?) — but I’m blogging instead. I know I’m woefully behind here on the fascinating life updates, but I haven’t done a faceplant in front of strangers recently, so it’s been challenging to make the time to sit down and write. If it’s any consolation, there’s no doubt that I’m further behind at work than I am here.

As I mentioned a long, long time ago, I signed up to run a half marathon. It was…good enough.  (2:27:54, for the record.) Not great, no personal records, but a solid performance — only a couple of minutes slower than my best half. I’m OK with that, especially considering that the race course looked like this:

…a wee bit different than the half marathons I ran in Sacramento, which had roughly the elevation change of a straight line. Seriously, the program guide describes miles 6-12 as being “Boston-like.” Thanks, guys.

At any rate, it was a beautiful day and other than my stomach not enjoying the water and Gatorade I cruelly forced into it, I felt pretty good. There’s still plenty of room for improvement at this distance, so I won’t be tackling a whole marathon any time soon. (My training partner is trying to get me to do a marathon at our current pace; I’m angling for us to do another half at a faster pace. We’ll see who wins.)

Regardless of the outcome of the race, the training experience emphasized for me the fact that (1) exercise is really important to my quality of life, no matter how little time I have and (2) I like having a tangible goal to work toward. These are things I know, but every once in a while need to be reminded of. I like working hard. I like pushing myself, even when it doesn’t seem like much fun. And I like how utterly STRONG I feel after finishing a 12-mile weekend run.

September 7, 2008 | Filed under: I Run Therefore I Am, Is She Still Talking?

August, as I told a friend, turned into Mental Health for Katherine Month.  (Yes, I realize I missed 2008’s official Mental Health Month.  It’s been one of those days weeks years.)  She started to remind me about the flurry of activity that September was sure to bring, but I stopped her, imploring, “Please don’t ruin Mental Health for Katherine. Things were going so well!”

I spent less time at work.  I spent less time at the computer.  I spent less time being stressed out. 

Even better, I used those extra hours that I wasn’t working to do things that are important to me or needed to be accomplished. 

I think it may have worked — in the last two weeks, I’ve exercised more than in the previous two months combined. I finished all of the painting around my house.  I’ve hosted out-of-town guests and gone out of town and seen a bunch of friends around town.  I’ve read books — plural!  I’ve consumed copious amounts of alcohol in the spirit of being social, not as a coping mechanism.  I am, I think, a more pleasant person to be around.

In a moment when I suspect my mental health was in a frightening place, where thoughts like “Life is grand! I can do anything I put my mind to!” abound, I signed up for a half marathon only six weeks hence.  Because getting to the gym more than once a week somehow qualifies me to run 13.1 miles.  Mm-hmm.  Brilliant.

But, tra-la-la! I’m determined to make Mental Health Month for Katherine last through October, even if my legs don’t.

August 6, 2007 | Filed under: I Run Therefore I Am, Is She Still Talking?

Where did this weather come from? Saturday it was 102 and then yesterday it was 74. I’m not kidding — these stats came from weather.com. 74?!? In August?? Where do you think we are, Wisconsin? It was more of the same today — hanging around the house, I had to wear jeans. And a long-sleeved shirt, once the sun went down.

I took advantage of the cooler weather to open all the windows and doors and let the place air-condition itself naturally. And I used the oven. A lot. You’d think I was putting up a store for winter or something: bran muffins, 2 loaves of zucchini bread, a roasted chicken, and turkey burgers cooked under the broiler. The chicken stock is simmering on the stove now.

The weather also afforded me a glorious run yesterday. Not so glorious, distance-wise, as I got started too late for a long run and was chasing the last remnants late and was chasing the last remnants of sunlight by the time I finished, squinting into the dark to identify my car from fifteen feet away, but a gloriously not-overheated run — the first of its kind in weeks.

Speaking of running, I made an amazing discovery this weekend. Namely, I’m behind in my training plan. Again. Today is the first day of week 4 (of 12). I’m running another half marathon in October, and I knew it was in October, but I thought it was later in the month, so I haven’t really been worried about “training” so much lately as simply “getting to the gym.” When I finally counted the weeks back, I discovered I should have begun training three weeks ago. Whoops. And I’ve stepped it up to the “intermediate” training regimen as opposed to the “novice” plan from last time, which pretty much means I’m going to be kicking my own ass for the next 9 weeks. It won’t be pretty.

My sanity is still somewhat intact, however, as this race offers both a half and a full marathon and I’m opting for the half. I looked at the course and the entire marathon consists of running the half marathon course twice. The exact same course. Twice. In a row. I may be mildly deranged, but I am not insane enough to sign up for that sort of torture. Here I am, running past the finish line…oh wait! That’s only the halfway point. Now do it all over again! No freakin’ way. I know my limits, and if I’m going to run 26.2 miles, the halfway point had better be about 13 miles away from the finish line.

Finally, I think I should give up on watching Giants baseball. Perhaps then Barry Bonds will break the record and we can all go back to rooting against the Yankees. Ten days ago, when he hit HR #754, he did so while I flipped to a different channel at the commercial and didn’t get back to the game in a timely fashion. Saturday I put groceries away before settling onto the couch to watch the game. I turned the game on in the second inning, two batters after Bonds hit HR #755. Of course. (PS — Cubs? Please to be getting rid of that hot streak, OK? My Brewer-loving heart can’t take the stress. I’ll pull for you next year, I swear. Thanks much.)