First 26.2 Recap :: AJM

Two days ago I ran my first full marathon, after two attempts in 2016 (melanoma side-railed training that time) and 2020 (a trail fiasco to keep it short, lol). 

Our local Andrew Jackson Marathon lived up to its challenging reputation of being very hilly (see the elevation in the below image 🤣😱😳. I actually like hills. But whew.). The race was not crowded, but it was routed through residential and commercial neighborhoods we frequent often. I loved seeing so many people I knew in the race and on the sidelines. It was soooooo pleasant to be running "alone" but to not feel isolated. 

Training went well for the most part, but three weekends before the race my left IT band threw it’s not-unusual fits about all the running I was doing. I was devastated at first, but my husband told me I’d worked too hard to give up. I got a pass to swim at a local gym, and I was told about a physical therapist who could help me with dry needling therapy. I love swimming from a year on a high school team; and then this physical therapist is athletic and confident, which helps me so much more than timid or doubtful pt’s who make me feel like once I am broken, it’s never gonna be the same. So yay for experience and confidence! One of the reasons I like running is to combat negative and stifling misconceptions we all have about so many things in our world, especially what we believe about ourselves and other people with false shame or grandiosity. It pounds out reality on the pavement, with a lot of courage and pain and triumph or disappointment along the way. 

The first half of the marathon went great. Runners for the half did one loop, and full-marathoners did two loops. A friend had warned me it would be very hard to pass through that first loop, with some being finished at 13.1, and realize I had to do it all again. And she was right; that was probably the hardest emotional moment for me. And then to see half-marathoners not yet finished as I made it along my second loop made me realize just how hard this is. And that was hard mentally too. 

Mile 16-18 is where I realized that gravity all of a sudden felt 5,000 times more powerful against my exhausted leg muscles. My lungs could have gone all day, but my legs were shot. It was liberating to walk up some hills at the end. I knew that I could run again if I recovered a bit. And that’s true. It’s not constant degradation; it’s a cycle of fatigue and recovery at that point. I believe if my last three weeks of training had gone as planned, with runs and strength exercises, that would not have been as hard on my muscles. But I guess I’ll have to test that out next time (which I am already fantasizing about). 

So many dear friends and family encouraged me. Wow. 

My mom and stepdad drove to several places and were tireless PR agents to keep me smiling and feeling loved. 

My sister’s house was on my loops four times, so my adorable nieces and nephews pumped me up. 

My husband had my boys at the start, middle, near the finish, and then at the finish. 

My close friend came from her home a few hours away and slept in our guest room and drove me to the pre-dawn start line so Justin didn’t have to drag our boys out too early. She knew how much I wanted this first 26.2 to finally work out! (And she and I are flying to Canada in less than 11 weeks to hike and explore and for me to run a half marathon in Glacier National Park in Montana. We are EXCITED BEYOND BELIEF! Thanks to our hubbies!!!)

A friend who works at the running store that runs this event gave me so much encouragement and support the whole training session and was running the half course that morning. So I also saw her family that is so dear and encouraging to me. 

Another new friend who used to coach cross-country and is an experienced marathoner had been helpfully advising me throughout training, and she and I unexpectedly ran a lot of the first half together.  She did the half this time, and I was right behind her to get her high-five after she finished her race that day. 

We’re part of a new small group, and my friend, Jill, drove to find me a few times and cheered me on. She was so unexpected and encouraging, and she has an amazing marathon success through injury, so she knew what I needed. 

A generic icy hot patch on the sorest place where my quad attaches to my IT band at the hip mostly numbed that issue for the event. As soon as I removed it afterward, my IT band let me know it was still angry at me. 

When the race was finished, I wasn’t sure if I loved it or hated it. It hurt more than I could imagine. Before I got injured I really think I had a chance of qualifying for Boston (3:35 or less), but the hills made that iffy. After I got injured, I really just hoped to keep it under four hours. I missed that by a few minutes, which would normally disappoint me. But I am just so amazed and thankful I got to do this! A full marathon is HARD! And I am now a marathoner!!!!!! And I want to do it again. Lol.

I got second place of the only two females in my age group, and the trophy ceremony was hilarious. Every runner was doing the “limp of glory” to get their bling. The woman in my age group ahead of me passed me as soon as the second half began. She did awesome at negative splitting (running the second half faster than the first. “Don’t be a fool in the first half and don’t be a wimp in the second half.”). With my injury, I wanted to make the most of every step I had, and I think I did it wisely under these circumstances. But “on paper” I crashed. 

I could barely walk at church yesterday, but it was such a fabulous souvenir to remind me that I really DID just become a marathoner. And Justin and the boys were sooo great to encourage my resting. I did walk slowly as much as I could around the yard and played a light game of Pickleball with Justin. Keep the blood flowing gently to recover. 

I wrote this fast while I waited for my eye exam appointment. I ain’t got time to be as wordy as normal, and y’all don’t have time to read it all. Lol. But thanks for making it this far!

For future racing, just a reminder to myself that my pre-night supper of salmon and sweet potatoes still works great. And my banana and peanut butter breakfast are fab too. And when I avoid my fav stove-popped corn and chia seeds for several days, my tummy is happier. 

Still not a big fan of any gummies. Blahhh. I did make one potty stop at mile 18, and it really wasn’t too bad. But if I’d been trying to qualify for Boston, it would have made me angry. Ha. I do prefer wearing my water bladder than stopping at tables along the route for cups. 

A dear friend reminded me of this as I uncertainly approached the start line with an injury. I am weak; He is strong. Whatever I do may or may not be fun for me, may or may not have any significance; but it is for Him regardless. Whew. 2 Corinthians 12:9 “‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”

Top 9 From My Collection of Injury Prevention

I've been running for half my life, since high school. One of the things that used to frustrate me the most has become one of my favorite aspects of the sport: injuries. I would prefer not to deal with injuries, but having learned how to better care for my body by discovering and applying solutions to strengthen my weaknesses fascinates me and definitely makes me better than I otherwise would be. I am paused for a while, only to go farther than I imagined. 

I have had three babies, and my body has the abdomen gap known as diastasis recti. I didn’t even know it was a thing until our second boy was 2. By then I’d incurred damage with intense exercise I so far can’t heal. But the rest of my body has adapted, and I feel wise and healthy about the solutions I’ve collected and applied to my workouts. The evidence shows strength and fitness. Maybe I won’t run Olympics trials, but I get to have adventures and stay healthy and bring home some bling. Here are some of my favorite solutions. One is for plantars fasciitis from a long time ago, and the rest are for my hips/glutes/IT band. I hope they can help other runners stay in the race. 

1. I’ve had this one a few years, since my first half-marathon training in the fall of 2015. Plantars fasciitis is when the ligament on the bottom of your foot between your toes and heal is inflamed. This stretch has left me free of any pf symptoms since I discovered how effective it is to sit on my heels with my toes curled under. I do it for 30 seconds before and after every single run, and sometimes when I am getting laundry out or finding a pan in a low cabinet. It feels soooooooo good. It saves time to do it when I’m changing into my bra and running shirt beforehand, and afterward I do it while drinking water through a straw. Seriously one of the persistently effective stretches I have. Don't do it more than 30 seconds, though, or it gets too rough on your toes.
   
   
   
2. This is a move from a free Rebecca Pacheco yoga video that she did for runners:  Click here to view it. It’s called Figure 4, and it can be done standing or while lying on one’s back. The supporting leg is strong through the glutes, while the bent leg resting on the other knee receives a deeply satisfying stretch through the hips and IT band. 

  

   3. Also from Rebecca Pacheco’s video, this move, a lizard lunge with a pigeon of some sort (I know my yogi vocabulary is expert...), opens the hips and stretches the quad. If your back foot can reach your hand, then the stretch is deepened. If not, then pushing against the front thigh adds resistance to increase the stretch. 

   

  4. After doing the lizard-pigeon-thing in the last move, this deep squat with flat feet    and straight spine is an amazing hip stretch of opening and adjusting proportions. This one took me a while to achieve, and now my hip flexors are much happier. 

5. 6. 7. These moves all help me activate my glutes. Each day I always do 20 donkey kicks (and then fire hydrants (not pictured) with a resistance band. Who knew such a simple move could have profound stabilizing effects on my hips and glutes. After these, I choose to do either squats OR lunges, not usually both on the same day. Deep squats and lunges, intentionally using my glutes and hips, not just my quads, have really helped me use my hips as a fulcrum in my form, with help from my glutes. It has really changed my fitness to realize how my glute muscles have to be turned on before I begin my runs. Otherwise, they let my quads do all the work. And that makes my IT band sad. Glute activation—so many ways to Google and explore. In the picture of the squat I have a balance board (from Five Below for $5 a couple years ago). That has also helped me focus on finding my core strength, to do squats while not wobbling.

8. 9. I saved my favorite injury prevention tool for last. Gua sha muscle scraping massage has saved.my.running. I wrote a blog post on it months ago, so I won’t go into detail again. Research it. Pros are using this ancient Chinese blood flow tool to recover injured muscles AND prepare muscles to not get injured. It healed my IT band woes of years that physical therapy and rest didn’t affect. The initial therapy was painful and caused intense bruising (last photo), but after a week or two, the muscles were recovered. Now I do it every day before and after my runs on my IT bands, as well as the tops, bottoms, and backs of my feet— no pain and no bruising, just simple injury prevention through deep tissue blood flow. You can find a range of prices on Amazon for Gua sha blades. This is the one I got : Stickon. The dull side of a butter knife also works well, so know you don’t have to spend ridiculous prices just because those tools exist. 

Running is such a blessing because of how it intensely requires a harmony between mind and body, breath and tissue, muscles and bones. Our bodies require lots of warming, stretching, and repair to grow in this sport. As much as aging can discourage a person, I keep praising God for how my body repairs so many parts between each day’s run. My body will last less than my spirit. Scripture tells so much of how Christ repairs and progresses our souls. Running magnifies the glory of that for me. 

Isaiah 40:31: "But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint."

1 Peter 5:10: And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast."

2 Corinthians 4:16-18 "Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."

True Peace and recovery to you!

Not Allowed to Harm Myself, Am Allowed to Help Myself

Loving our kids has melted my hard heart into a malleable ball of ever-transforming-in-love magma. My whole life has been filling my heart with ingredients, some good and some bad; and now God is mixing them up in a refining boil, removing the harmful ones and deepening the nourishing ones. He continues to create something beautiful in me, and I know he won't give up until the work is complete. The sensitivity I have to what I collected in my heart, how much it hurts to relive or reorder some of the difficult things, the parallel of past trials with present ones, makes supporting our children's hearts an epic journey of humbling proportions. The trek spans the spectrum of emotions from bitterness to gratitude and everything in-between. Everything belongs, taking one step into the next. We make mistakes, our parents make mistakes. We do things right, our parents do things right. We support our kids in ways they'll never understand, our parents support us in ways we'll never understand. God supports us all. 

The way I used to perceive my relationship with God, a very volatile connection based on my weakness, harmed me. What point did I serve, except annihilation? Now that I can digest and process how my existence--the good and bad responses--is contained in the gracious salvation of Christ's not-prudish, not-immature, not-elementary, not-competive-doctrine love for me, I can grow and move forward. Knowing my kids, in all their very human glory of weaknesses and strengths, are more than imperfections to be annihilated, helps me feel more supportive of myself and others. Grace abounds. Each created person is an impossibly complex and dynamic combination of experiences, feelings, and thoughts.

I happy to be a very neurotic person, who holds every.failure.ever (my own and others') too close to my heart. Shame for the past isolates me, fear for the future paralyzes me. At the peak of my depression, two to five years ago, I turned a corner in my journey. I claimed that spirit of power and love and self-discipline that Jesus gives me. I still have to claim it most days, intentionally choosing not to be timid and fearful. Some days I have to choose it multiple times. I sometimes even hit an invisible START OVER button in the air over my head on days that call for tactile support.

Getting my thoughts in order is a journey, not at arrival:

First, I listened to my counselor, husband, and family and started an antidepressant. I admire the dutiful mentors in my life, who have the mental fortitude to survive wars and dysfunction, literally. I tried to push through the minefield of my brain chemistry with sheer will to stand in those ranks. But then my counselor gave me a helpful metaphor for how our brains move our thoughts: All of us experience anxious thoughts, and healthy brains can wave goodbye as they pass; but brains with a chemical disorder will trap those anxious thoughts in a mental tunnel of Velcro, until there is no way to see around them. And if all a person can see are fears, then (s)he'll likely sink into depression. It took a few adjustments, but after two+ years of taking medication, YES, that metaphor is true. It is powerful, loving, and disciplined to accept help. My lens affects the people I love the most.

Then, once I got my thoughts un-constipated, the flow of healthy psychological tools and biblical support in my heart could rush to the places that needed healing and continue reconstruction. A list of cognitive distortions can easily be found on Google. The amount of automatic lies we tell ourselves is devastating. Learning what those lies are is the beginning  if a battle against what is false to claim what is true. Once I know how to confront my thoughts, become ever more sensitive to what is true and what is not, the biblical truths can be what they're meant to be: strength for walking in salvation through a world of unpredictable weather. Saying goodbye to blind optimism and toxic cynicism is a journey worth enduring. That's why I am sharing this now. Jesus is part of the ongoing physical, mental, and spiritual creation of this world. And how amazing is this time of psychological pioneering to walk hand-in-hand beside Him as he points at the beauties of what He made. Don't discount psychology.

My bookclub read Dark Matter by Blake Crouch a few months ago. A physics professor is kidnapped into an alternate reality in his multiverse. It seems impossible for him to find the way back to his reality, so when he wants to give up, he repeats:

"I am not allowed to think I'm crazy. I am allowed to solve this problem."

When I get bogged down by the heartaches of others; by my own inadequacy to heal my own aches, much less others'; by my own weaknesses as I train for spiritual warfare or a marathon or one day parenting teenagers; by disappointments in my heritage; I repeat that mantra to myself move forward.

And I have different versions for different situations:

"I am not allowed to drown in this pit. I am allowed to climb out."
"I am not allowed to step forward off this cliff. I am allowed to take steps back and find a different route."
"I am not allowed to injure myself. I am allowed to either rest or gently test my adjustment edges."
"I am not allowed to predict the future. I am allowed to take the next right step."
"I am not allowed to panic. I am allowed to take a deep breath for calm."

Here is a note card that my counselor wrote years ago to help me identify harmful thoughts:

Solutions are everywhere, and God made us incredibly creative to grow in His strength and courage. Peace and joy to you, friends.

You're Not a Baby to Throw Out With Bath Water

"Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." Proverbs 4:23

"...but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up into eternal life." John 4:14

"If anyone is thirsty, let him come and drink... streams of living water will flow from within him." John 7:37&38

Our first son turned 9 this week. Each day of parenting is full of reflections on past impacts to make positive changes for the future, and birthdays concentrate all those feelings and thoughts exponentially. That’s really true of being a person, regardless of whether one is a parent or not. We’re set in a cycle of time — rapid or deep breaths and heartbeats in orbiting hours, days, seasons, years. How I used to look at my maturation process in time became dangerous for me, until I accepted something new about my unchanging Christ, something I’d always heard but never accepted because I'd frosted my heart with mean things I'd believed.

The Bible is a beautiful story about God’s love for people, and it’s a narrative that includes incomprehensibly complex notions of time and culture that have been further complicated by people’s grasping, insecure demands. I accept that my God is absolutely good and constant. I reject that my (or anyone's) little pinprick of logic, emotion, or any combination of the two can possibly have all the answers for a perfect character. As a kid, learning about existence, I interpreted flowing, transforming truths of life as concrete, brittle facts. Eden was God filling up a perfect bath, setting Baby in it, and Baby better keep that bath water pure or we’re going to have to toss out Baby with the nasty bath water. Decline and annihilation. 

All my life I have heard sermons and conversations about how “no person is perfect,” “none is righteous,” “we all need Jesus to save us from our sins” — all very true. But underneath all those words, all the interactions, were unforgiving expectations of perfection and a rejection of the individual suffering process through Christ’s long-suffering power. My life became dirty and useless the first time I soiled the bath water with envy, lust, or bitterness. The first time I disappointed anyone in charge of me was the end of my worth. And I sat in it, begging Jesus to help me not hate myself, because what other choice was there in that scarce supply of goodness? I was about to toss Nicoll out with the shamefully filthy bath water.

Without surrendering to the flow of Jesus's forgiving work, my heart is a cesspool.
Endless praises to Him for this not being my reality.

As a new wife, I viewed our marriage as this bath water I had to keep clean. As a new mom, I viewed our child’s wellbeing as this bath water I had to keep clean. As a friend, I still don’t have a lot of comfortable friendships because there’s no way to do life without some disagreements or judgments that feel uncomfortable. So would I rather sit, isolated and paralyzed, in this falsely clean water, only to despair when I realize all my best intentions muddied it up anyway? And although I’ve had heartache and struggle, I come from a goody-two-shoes culture of privilege. What hope could there be for people who’ve been significantly harmed or were born into bad situations? The gigantic global hopelessness became suffocating.

The simple, easy-to-take-for-granted cliche “Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water” has come to mean so much to me, a recovering neurotic, especially in light of Jesus’s identity as Living Water. He promises that He will flow from me, from any of us. Instead of a scarce supply in a limited tub, His righteousness is an Abundant Flow from a Everlasting Source out of my control. Nothing is as either-or/black-white/worthy-useless as we striving-for-approval-despite-logs-in-our-eyes humans make it seem. I can’t understand it. But I sense its reality now that I’ve surrendered my heart to His mysterious ways. I need constant reminding and practice, part of my point. Flowing water keeps me clean. It keeps me refreshed. Even when I bleed the mud and debris of storms or am invaded by the pests of the evil one, Jesus keeps flowing and healing me.

When depression and anxiety catch me in a riptide, when I fight with everything I have to be anyone but me, I practice surrendering to my humanity ... or I'll lose to my weakness in the forces out of my control.

I will never have all the answers, but I can find solutions.

I will make mistakes, even willfully harm myself or others by selfishness, but I can face them and apply positive changes. 

I cannot control people’s perceptions of my best-laid plans, but I can learn how to please my Audience of One.

My love may go misunderstood, but I’ll do it anyway. 

I may continue to find out each decade what an ignorant jerk I was “back then,” but I’ll rejoice in growth.

In the icky failures, I can also accept the clean realities: the responses of strength and hope because of mercy and grace in love. They may have been small, they may have been floating alongside fear, others may have mocked them; but I let Jesus hold them close to my wellspring of life for His glory and work, while the imperfections slide by into wherever He can refine them through this flow of Living Water.

When my husband and I fight, we find mutually constructive compromises that make our team stronger for the next obstacle. 

When we yell at our kids, we show them that everyone loses control — and can gain it back, apologize, and move forward together. 

When our kids make mistakes, we get to share our weaknesses and how God finds strength and weaves grace into them when we engage with His loving purposes.

When someone in our community disapproves, we get to find common ground and either support each other on separate paths and/or join together where possible. 

When we learn concepts that take us on a different trail than our heritage, we get to keep what is good and let go of what is bad to blaze a healthier future.

We get to practice and learn. 

And practice some more and learn some more. 

It never has to be all or nothing nor now or never—because Jesus is a river of peace and healing, who lasts eternally. He isn’t as urgent or impatient as we are because His vision is eternal, not political or temporal. He is an ever-patient and kind caregiver, no matter how late bath time is after an exhausting day or how many splashes make a mess all over the bathroom. 

Peace-that-passes-understanding like a river. 

The cleansing flow. 

Wellspring of daily life.

Never give up. Love never gives up. Don’t throw out the good things you have because of the bad things. Discover every tiny treasure inside and value it as God’s work that He *will* complete, no matter who else appreciates it or not.

Run LBL! Half-Marathon Recap 10/26/19

RunLBL! Half Marathon Recap

I was soaking wet and full of JOY afterward!

Race recaps are fun to relive moments that might get lost as time sweeps brain cells, and also to return to for help with successful training or diet or mental tips. This training cycle was really important to me, as I had to overcome some mental barriers after our third baby and find physical solutions that took courage for risk or newness.

Grand Rivers, KY, is a charming little town; if I write a book, it might be set in this real-life Stars Hollow-esque place. Durbin Race Management is a running company that finds little towns with struggling economies to host races. If a bunch of runners come in for a weekend, the lodging, food, and entertainment businesses get a boost, and families learn of quality places to go together at any time. The October race draws more than 100 people, and their trail runs in March have ~800 runners on trails for various long distances. This was my second October event (the other was 2015). At the end of yesterday’s race, the race manager shook my hand. He asked if I’d ever run the trails in March, and when I said no he told me to email him and he’d like me to come. I think he could see how much fun I had! So I am registered for a trail marathon on March 14. I am so pumped and feel like it’s such.a.gift. It will be more about endurance than speed because it’s a trail event, not road. I read a review that says I’ll have to check my ego at the start, so I think that’ll relieve a lot of pressure I put on myself as I cover 26.2 miles for the first time. I really like the idea of speed in a marathon, but I’m finding myself drawn to ultra marathons because of the nature experience versus big city crowds and hubbub. One race at a time, one appreciative experience for what it is at a time. 

I was SO happy about that dark green running hat. I wear the gray one from four years ago all.the.time because it is so comfortable. Race swag is always fun.

I also take my running health reverently/cautiously/seasonally because I know through the months of training that any sort of injury or health concern could derail my plans. When melanoma stitches thwarted my full marathon training in 2016, it was like an idol came crashing down on top of me. (I read Isaiah 40 and 41 as I journaled before the race, which gets me in the right mindset.) God keeps me really close to Him; I cling to His fingers as I stumble along in my fear and shame, desperate to be free, knowing He’s strengthening me and gently healing me from all my clumsiness and weakness to live with Him everlastingly. Running is a tool for joy and connection to others in my life. God is the one who provides the tool, and He’ll provide the right ones at different seasons. I want to be ready to receive them, whether or not they’re for “my” plans. That’s what’s so hard about life, isn’t it? Accepting gifts in the form of relationships, opportunities, or possessions in the moment, without controlling them or worshipping them at the cost of our opportunity and possession of relationship with our Maker, the One who initiated us and sustains us and continues to build us?

Today, though, I feel really happy with running, and the opportunity I had yesterday and the hopes I have for the future. 

This October half-marathon is half trail/half road, so the terrain makes it a little less speedy than others. I overcame my IT band pain with gua sha muscle scraping in September, and now it’s a part of my regular workout routine. (My last post is about that, and you can Google how elites use it for their recovery.) And then I developed tendinitis in my right foot, but it doesn’t affect my running. Whew. Some of my training had to be lower impact while I worked out those niggles, but to think how I would not have been able to run yesterday if I had not discovered my gua sha tool startled me with happy shock. The healing of inflammation in angry muscles is a lifelong gift for health, athletic or not.

Yesterday’s time was 1:50:06, officially, which is my worst time yet... but I am amazed at the strength and joy and speed I could still garner after the last few years, so I am floating on a happy cloud of thanks for health, will, and strength. 

It was pouring rain the whole time, which was so fun. I read the night before how I should wear as little clothing as possible to prevent chafing, especially no cotton. A lady at the soaked start was wearing a long-sleeved cotton shirt and made a comment about my tank top being too cold for her. I smiled and said I’d warm up pretty quick. I had a lot of lanolin left from newborn breastfeeding days (hahahahaha), so I coated my feet in it, as well as all the other places clothing would rub while I ran. No chafing. Score! The rain gave the advantage of staying cool and not feeling parched, but the disadvantage of being really heavy to carry up 1,000 feet of elevation in all my clothes. I could hear my feet sloshing the whole time, but my feet were never uncomfortable with the lanolin and compression socks protecting them. And when no one was looking I totally held my mouth open to the sky to wet my tongue with God’s drops. A child-like glee.

I started out at a 7:40 pace, which became too fast by the third mile of going uphill. Two women, one 59 and the other 60, passed me then, and they stayed just where I could see them the rest of the way, running side by side as friend. I was SO encouraged that these women passed me. Our culture has instilled a negativity about hopeless decline with age, and I felt so happy people who were going before me in age were going before me in the race. (Look at the picture of the top ten finishers’ ages. And genders. Stop letting negative meanness reinforce bitterness in yourself or others I'm talking to myself here too.) I really wish I could have asked them questions about negative splits and their strategy and history... but I couldn’t find them at the finish because the pouring rain sent people to dry places fast. I kept about an 8:30-9:10 pace for the rest of the miles. I passed a large guy at mile 11, who really impressed me with his speed. He said something snarky that made us both laugh, about me finally passing him after having to hear me pitter-patter for four miles. He’d almost slipped on some random cobblestones at mile 8 that were covered by leaves. He warned me, and I’m glad he did. 

Every race has different pools of people, but the gender and age diversity for the top ten finishers of this little race make me happy for all of us.

The first seven miles of this race are a lot of big up and down hills. Miles 7-9 are rolling trails, my favorite part that I remembered from four years ago and was so happy to experience again. Mile 6.5 had a hugely steep hill before the Moss Creek Campground turnaround that is just as terrifying to go down as it is challenging to go up, so miles 7-9 are such pleasant ones. Miles 10-13 are covering some of those big hills from the start in reverse, and the finish is at the bottom of a nice downhill slope. 

The race management had cheerful volunteers every two to three miles with water, and port-a-potties were spaced along every few miles.  I don’t take in fuel for 13.1 miles, but sometimes I wonder if it would help at the 45-minute to one-hour mark. Maybe I’ll test it out one day. Food and digestion are big parts of my races. My mental and physical health thrive on healthy fats and high fiber grains, fruits, and veggies... but those are recipes for pooping too much on the race course. So the few days before a race I totally change my diet. I eat simple carbs and lean proteins to stock my muscles with energy and recovery. I try not to go hungry or to eat things that would be regrettable on race day. So far, I’ve done well with that. I baked salmon and sweet potatoes for supper the night before, along with homemade white ciabatta bread, to microwave in the hotel room. I ate half a bagel, half a banana, and a Tbs of natural peanut butter for breakfast, two hours before the race started. That has been my go-to breakfast for all my races, as far as I can remember, and it fuels me well with no tummy upsets. As I go into training for a full-marathon distance, I will have to adjust my diet so I can get through workouts without runs to the potty. 

I got a full night of sleep the night before the race, which is unique. My husband and our three boys were going to come with us, because I still breastfeed our toddler, but my husband encouraged me to get some filling solitude (that makes my introverted self so happy)... and then he wouldn’t have to wait in the rain with three little boys while I ran. It worked out well. I really missed them at the finish line, but the quiet stillness the night and morning before were better than any doctor could have ordered. I'm working on weaning our toddler. We both need the sleep and maturation in our bond, and I need the calories as I up my training goals. 

My husband is so supportive, and I feel so thankful to be with him. I’ve known competitive/codependent love... which has good intentions and some comfort, but unhealthy, drained results. Justin’s is supportive love. His makes abundance for us all to share the joy in a balanced way. 

If you're on Instagram, find me @theclaimrunner.

My dear friend Claire moved away two days before this race. Four years ago, she and her family met us at a restaurant after my first half-marathon. Then three years ago she got me those socks for the birthday following my malignant melanoma removal and dubbed me "Flash." She made the sign for a 10K I did earlier this year, and she saved it for me when she cleaned out her house. This was moving day. I am filled with love. 

Experimenting with Muscle Healing: Gua Sha

Summary Background Info: Three and a half years ago, in the spring of 2016, my IT band became injured when training for my first full-marathon (which I still haven't done). Instead of slowly returning to my training (during the 20-mile run week), I jumped right back in as hard as I could, after two weeks of no running because of melanoma stitches. I dropped back to the half-marathon a few weeks after that because of the pain, and my IT band has bothered me off and on since (...especially because I carried and birthed baby #3 in there. Diastasis recti, a gap in my ab muscles, is one of my physical flaws that affects my core strength. I've been told by two physical therapists that its size makes them believe only surgery will close it. And I don't want to do that. I have been very active, despite it, and I feel like I am doing what's best, experimenting with activity about a problem that is still pretty new to modern medical professionals.)

Before, it has taken two to three months of no running to get my IT band and angry quad muscles to relax enough to run with no pain. I rode my bike, got a month's pass to the local gym with swimming lanes, and saw a physical therapist for a couple of months. It.took.forevvvvvvverrrrrrrrrrrr. Or at least it felt like that long; looking back, I realize how healthy I am to exercise the way I do. But when my IT band started bothering me three weeks ago, after my 11-mile run for a current half-marathon training cycle, my heart dropped. My next half-marathon will be my fourth, and it is the first since baby #3 was born. On October 26, less than two weeks, I look so forward to running the autumn-colored hills of Land Between the Lakes in Grand River, KY, just like I did four years ago in my very first half-marathon. My IT band hadn't bothered me at all this year, after I took off some time and focused on yoga at Christmas. I exercised so much self-restraint each week since New Years, gently adding mileage and speed while dutifully performing my strength exercises and glute-activation exercises before *every* workout. I had done my part... all the parts I could know to control at this time in the process. So I was utterly discouraged. For a couple of days I was certain I would not be able to run this half... and forget about all my full- and ultra-marathon curiosities.

BUT

Then I remembered something I'd recently seen on some professional runners' social media accounts: muscle scraping, also called "gua sha." I obsessively read several accounts and personal experiences for five days, after Googling it. In short: A couple thousand years ago, Chinese observed how tense muscles caused a block in bloodflow. If blood cannot flow freely, then all of the healing elements in nutrition aren't getting to the centers that need repair. So using ancient stones or crystals (or stainless steel in current days), they realized that lubricating the skin over tight muscles, and then applying pressure in a downward motion repeatedly for a couple of minutes, reached deeper muscle tissue than typical massages. Capillaries burst, bruises happen, and new blood rushes in to heal what has been hardened by tension.

I am not a gimmicky person, and I do not like instant fixes that are nothing more than masks on decay. I also fear a lot of health issues, and I was unsure how to feel about all the bruising I read would occur if I gave gua sha a try. Some sites I read advised massage therapists to be sure their patients realized how bruised they would be after a gua sha session because they could be accused of abuse. Yikes!

But I was desperate, and athletes I admire and respect as people and performers have been doing it for years as an effective warm-up, pre-hab, that reduces injuries.

My IT band was injured on September 21. That's when the pain became unbearable for running.
One week later, September 28, I received my affordable stainless steel gua sha tool from Amazon. This one, if you're interested: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07J1JW38F/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I was so nervous to do it. I texted my closest friends. I was even trembling. I guess I was worried I'd give myself a blood clot or damage my muscle beyond repair? I am an irrationally fearful person, enneagram 6. I did NOT read any accounts of either of those terrible things happening. (If a person suffers from any clotting or thin blood disorder, they are advised not to do gua sha, or to at least consult a medical professional. I have no blood disorders.)

If you don't like gruesome photos, then skip ahead. The first day I did it for less than five minutes on several lanes of my left thigh. It hurt while I did it. I put some essential oils on my skin to ensure smooth gliding of the tool. The skin was not scraped or scratched. Capillaries under the surface, in the muscles, burst into bruises that called for attention to healing. I am so happy I took this chance. It hurt excruciatingly while I did it, but when I stopped it was just sorely stiff like a bruise for about 48 hours.

Immediately after my first ever gua sha, Sept. 28

This was a few hours after the gua sha that same day.

This was the day after, September 30.

This was a few days later, Friday, Oct. 3. The bruising steadily decreased each day. I haven't seen bruises in a week, even though I have used gua sha every day in the same location. That is evidence of healing, as are all the miles I have put in. :)

My half-marathon is in less than two weeks. I still feel the discomfort in my IT band because I am strengthening my hips and adjusting to a new running gait, but the pain is absent. I gua sha every day, before, sometimes during, and after all my workouts. The tension and bruising ceased a week ago. Where the band attaches to my hip and knee, I feel some remaining hardness, as well as on the spot right above my left glute, and they lessen every day.

When professional runner Sara Hall (2:22 in the Berlin Marathon a couple weeks ago) showed followers on Instagram how she has done this massage therapy as a warm up for eight years, I knew it was okay to experiment with it consistently for my own health.

Gua sha massage enables me to run as I figure out why my IT band is over-compensating on my left side. Feeling the band while I run, and engaging the changes I study about in my glutes and hips, helps me adjust because I can actually feel the changes while they need to happen. Also, think of all the healing those muscles have experienced because the gua sha cleared a path for healing nutrients to contact what was hurting? I am amazed, and I want my athletic and non-athletic loved ones who experience muscle tension to at least be aware of this technique and perhaps research how it could positively affect daily activity.

Googling "gua sha" will show how celebrities have been using this massage for facial youth and rejuvenation. I have done it while washing my face a few times... and see that "not-a-hickey"?

I ran the half-marathon distance in my workout yesterday, with lots of gua sha. I may not get a PR in this half, but I feel so encouraged about this gift: my health, knowledge of gua sha, the tool to do gua sha, the courage to try something sorta unheard of and painful as an investment in healing. I think gua sha is the next big thing, and I wanted to share my experience. Please consult medical professionals you trust if you research this and have any concerns. I do NOT want anyone to harm him or herself because of my positive experience.

Claim the Space Between Past and Future: Now

Find the support of my roots and the freedom of my seeds.

My life feels like an exercise on a tightrope. I take the indecision between binaries too seriously.

As I tremble through this incomprehensible salvation between past and future, today, I sense that Christ retains the meaning of the struggle while miraculously cultivating me. Maybe he is the tightrope in this metaphor, the space stretching to connect me from where I came from to whom I become? He would be the best tightrope, never letting anyone stay fallen, ever empowering the challenge to overcome. I can cling to Him when I falter, yet confidently step when strong because of his everlasting hugeness across not only my life but all of time and space. 

Now is between birth and death. 

Eden and Heaven.

Resurrection and return.

Innocence and sin.

Sin and mercy.

Disappointments and hopes. 

Wounds and scars.

Successes and humility. 

Certainty and trust. 

Childhood in Montana and settling in... Tennessee? This real-life example gives broad reflection for many griefs of mine. 

We moved away from Montana more than twenty years ago, when I was 11. And I am still realizing how hung up my heart strings have been, like loops of a knitted sweater caught on a splinter, unraveling as time pulls me onward.

Yesterday my husband and I and our three boys headed to camp in North Carolina for fall break, and we are excited to see the coast, which sounds spectacular in recent readings of ours. And even though I’ve been east of Tennessee a few times, this time is different.

Last year, after a trip to my hometown in Montana for the first time with all my guys, my heart finally retrieved (most of) those hung up strings and brought them back to where I actually am. Maybe it makes no sense, but if i couldn’t be in Montana, then I’ve pretty much been uninterested in any person or opportunity God’s given me the past two decades, kind of like a ghost in my own life. At the time I didn’t knowingly refuse to engage life post-Montana, but looking back I can see a lot of my OCD behaviors and depressive anxiety were barriers against falling in love with any other home I might lose. I continue repairing the holes.

I’ve had to claim this big sin in my life, looking back, so I can find footing to move forward. From it stems guilt, fear, bitterness, envy, rage, despair, hate, and the reasons I bury the one talent I have out of fear of losing it, not loving people in the first place that I don’t want to lose, forsaking all the others I could possibly gain. If I’d invest in the exercise of drawing strength from my roots and flourishing from my seeds, I could let old things out of my opened hands and new things into them as God sees fit to give. 

I used to be an either-or person, and I still have that tendency. The fresh mountain air of Montana has always been the very competitive and boastful winner over the deplorably humid heat of Tennessee. The northwestern sense of newness has always been preferable to codependent southern etiquette. My childhood seemed like the peak of life, and the rest would just unravel to nothing better. See how sinful that is; how I have missed so many relationships and experiences with that attitude? Ugh. Forgive me, Lord. Forgive me, friends. 

But lately I can see the good in claiming all the homes I’ve had, leaving the future open to other directions God has in mind (or not). I have deeply caring friends of all generations all over the country who are already part of my eternity in Jesus, and I have new family and friends every time I turn around. I am blessed with a reasonable perspective of the nature of human groups to understand the similarities and differences between the subcultures of the northwestern and southern Unites States(, which helps me stay sane during political seasons).

Two steps forward, one step back. Sometimes I roll back down the whole mountain I struggled to climb. But I am gaining strength and resilience. And joy.

Since we got back from our Montana trip last year, I am struck every time I get home to our house on the end of our street: 

It isn’t fancy, but it IS beautiful. In a world filling up with clutter, look at all of God’s things surrounding us? I get to see the sunrise, the trees, creatures, my kids can run wild and free. Justin and I have done a lot of unseen heart work on that acre. Thank you, God. 

And as we drove through the Smoky Mountains this morning, no photo could justify their charming beauty. I am so sorry I have not claimed their significance, just because they weren’t in Montana. Here is an attempt at capturing a picture: 

What are some hurts of the past that pull you out of today, preventing you from grasping strength for right now?

What’s your favorite part of the United States? Care to share? And why?