when do you know its time to let it go?

At the end of 2011

I started this blog over a year ago because the practice of running was such a sensory experience for me I wanted to capture what was happening and share it. At first I put down all my running sessions in a loose sort of log, and tried to write down the thoughts that opened up in me as I learned to run longer distances, live with the elements.  I found running to be spiritually nurturing. I definitely had to call upon God when I ran, and remember that it was through God that I could do anything. My blogs became more general and opened up to other experiences, particularly spiritual ones.

When I finally let go of the goal of running in the marathon in 2011, due to injury, and lack of time to train. I got up to 16 miles in a long run, but my goal of 20 miles the next long run ended after 10 painful miles with a heel spur.  I found I could no longer blog  perhaps because my blog was so wrapped in my marathon aspiration.  I did share my entry about my mentor, but it had led people this site who could learn my identity, and some of the most private things I shared about my relationship.  This scared me from blogging further, and I removed my triumphant post about Grete’s Great Gallop 1/2 marathon, because it would have definitely revealed me.

I don’t know if this is a goodby to this blog, as I write all this, or a reaffimation to continue.  I did not do a ‘post a day’ or even a week.  I am so thankful to this blog, and I am thankful that I am still running, although very short distances now.  It is a season for me of letting go, of slowing down.  I have a few days off, I hope to come back to my relationship with this blog and myself.  I thank my subscribers and wish them joy in this New Year.

Service in Remembrance of 9/11

Queensborough Community College is attempting to document 2,011 volunteers who perform an act of service between now and 9/11 in tribute to the heroes and the fallen of 9/11/01. It is participating in the 9/11 National Day of Service and Remembrance tradition that began in 2002.

Please “like” this site: www.facebook.com/Queensborough2011  and post any service you perform on the site.

Your act of service will keep on giving, providing an opportunity for financial support to Queensborough’s Service Learning Initiative on campus, providing authentic civic engagement experiences to students, while providing real service to the community of Queens, NY.

Hurricane Irene

I have been preparing to run the Bronx 1/2 marathon which just got cancelled. I am disappointed, but grateful that this week, I felt prepared to do it. I ran on Tues and Thurs on Fire Island, this time, through the communities on solid ground instead of the shore. All the work on the sand has paid off. And last night, the wind portended the fierce storm that is to come.

April Fool

WordPress is so mean…it told me I had 10 views but when I clicked on it, it said “April Fool’s” I actually had only one view…:(

Pray for Japan

not a small man

Last week, I ran only once…

It was a good indoor run on Friday evening,  45 minutes straight on the little jogging track which is actually 1/14 of a mile at the city gym in Flushing.  I think I did at least 3.5 run/walking it.  I was stopped by the security guard who informed me it was teen night and I had to go. So I did another 20 minutes on an elliptical, but only 1 mile because the incline was steep, I guess, or perhaps the movement just slowed me down.  I know I had better mileage on other ellipticals…
I was looking forward to a good Sunday run, outdoors as the gym is closed on Sunday .  I woke up in the middle of the night on Saturday in a sweat. (Menopause, right?)  I was fine about it, took a bath and read Runner’s World for hours.  This is a magazine that I must say has made a huge difference in my life.  I was running sporadically, got a magazine offer,  and chose Runner’s World, because I thought it might be inspiring.  It was truly a case of imagining before embodying.  I saw an article about finishing the new year right, not waiting for New Year’s Resolutions, and a blurb on the Saratoga 5K race.  Suddenly, I was in TRAINING, not just running. I find that I approach my magazines with new eyes as my weeks of running consistently are turning into months.  I read the articles with new understanding as I move to into more mileage and higher goals.

Then I woke up early, and realized I am still in PERI-menopause because I had another episode of a debilitating onset of menstruation.  This seems to happen to me once every decade, I would say. Unbelievable pain, both in the lower back and lower belly.  Add to this chills and hot flashes (new to the scene, didn’t happen in the last 2 decades) seemingly at once and I passed out on the bathroom for a moment.  Add to this I just had had lunch the day before with my pal who informed me that the symptoms of heart attack for women are dizziness and lower back pain.  So I lay on the bathroom floor and tried to think of God, because I thought I was going to die.  It lasted for ten minutes in that accute distress, while Ian and I debated about calling an ambulance (because if you are a woman, they definitely won’t think you are having a heart attack –my friend at dinner at a whole bunch of anecdotes, courtesy of the book WOMEN ARE NOT SMALL MEN:  Life-Saving Strategies for Preventing and Healing Heart Disease in Women by Nieca Goldberg M.D.).  But my meditation on God began to calm me, Ian was praying in the other room, because there is no room in the bathroom for more than one person on the floor and my cat Naomi decided to sit next to me and send me healing vibrations, and death seemed further away.  The Alleve I had taken kicked in at around 15 minutes, and soon I was resting comfortably.  But I was definitely not running on Sunday.

How quickly it can all break down.  Since I had been reading Runner’s World the night before, during the ordeal I was even thinking about the WALL, which I was experiencing in a sense without running a step, and how breathing and meditation did play into the experience positively, even when pain was still present. Even how the power of suggestion plays in, as my lunch time conversation really made me view the incident in a light I would not have thought of if I hadn’t had the discussion.   I had been on such a roll, and now I feel I am a few weeks behind.  I am leaving for San Francisco tomorrow, we hoped to run a 10K in Los Angeles on February 6, but I haven’t run 7 miles yet, something that is advised by some before one attempts this race.  Thanks to Jeff Galloway, I am feeling that I can do it with the run/walk method.  I look forward to running tonight.

It’s Here Now. Am I?

Bhagavan Das

Last week, Ian and I:

Ran 3.2 miles on Tuesday and 3.7 on Thursday.  Then we were waylaid by icy streets, and didn’t run on the weekend.

We tried to walk on Sunday, but the cold was getting to me.  We were also fasting on water and miso soup, so I think even a walk in the cold and wind felt brutal.  We found refuge in a Border’s and I found Jeff Galloway’s Marathon Book.  He advocated walk breaks, which I have always feared, taking pride in the fact that I RUN the entire distance I note..but I tried walk breaks on my own on Monday and I was really pleased with my distance of 4.7, the most I have done in awhile.

I was pleased about the fast when I was reading It’s Here Now.  Are You? by Bhagavan Das.  His first guru had him on a daily diet of a glass of milk and a slice of bread.  I was less enthused when I was reading Jeff Galloway and thinking about nutrition as a runner.

It’s Here Now. Are You? by Bhaghavan Das is the perfect book for me.  “God doesn’t care what you call him.”  He is the only other Born Again Christian/Kali worshipper I know. He makes me less lonely.  He even got into AA for awhile. “Then it got too AA”  The prose always conversational and amusing..  “He was a breathatarian.  That was his thing.  He was really skinny.”  I keep laughing when I read those lines. But then, there are these moments when he speaks of God.  That’s when I cry.