14 Jan 2010

I Need Your Help to Run Today

Posted in: Inspiration by Sara Grace

UPDATE: TODAY’S RUN: 5.8 miles total, 62 min. YT: 48.9 miles. Thanks to you dear people kindly beleaguering me all day, I got my mileage in! Believe me, I would have Never. Left. My. House. at 8 when I got home from work if it hadn’t been for you. So thank you, thank you, thank you! Also, while about 10 of you commented, over a 100 of you visited, which made a record for my two week old blog. :-) Peer pressure: It works!

TODAY”S RUN?? I found out that I have the Evil Jury Service today – meaning no long run this a.m. Meanwhile, I really need to get mileage in: I’m not behind yet, but I can feel life-at-large starting to shoot its sprightly tendrils into the deep, loamy earth of my 20 mile per week goal. (This purple prose is supposed to make you giggle.) News that I’m going to NY next week for work adds to the anxiety of getting behind…

So, here’s the plan. I’m squeezing in 2 miles this a.m. DONE. But I need you, the few happy souls who have already found their way to my blog (a.k.a. my favorite people in the world), to LEAVE ME A COMMENT that HARASSES ME (defined however you choose; friendly support is good too) to do at least 3 MILES tonight.

I know myself: Getting this body to run at night is like trying to shift Mount Fujiyama. But I think if I come home and face a wall of comments, I just might do it.

Can you help? I promise an update tomorrow, plus a “real” post.

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12 Jan 2010

Happiness Is Contagious

Posted in: Inspiration by Sara Grace

I love Hockney.

Today’s run: 5.5 miles, 1:07 minutes. YT: 43.1. Run started well: Palm trees in a wet suspense of fog. Then things got hairy. Twenty minutes in I remembered I had forgotten to call in for jury service. Ran home. Called. Dialed wrong number and got an affordable one-on-one sex hotline. Dialed again. No service! Merciful God. Back on the road. Now I was plagued by thoughts about sex. Which finally lead me to the True Blood nightmare I had had the night before. Which literally gave me a chill and slowed my pace. Then I got my period. I know: Overshare. Shove it!

“Happiness is more contagious than unhappiness…each additional happy friend boosts your good cheer by 9 percent, while each additional unhappy friend drags you down by only 7 percent.” – Christakis and Fowler

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1 Jan 2010

Perspective

Posted in: Inspiration by Sara Grace

Today’s run: 6.3 miles, 1:10. YT: 6.3 miles. Ran on the beach as far as the power plant at El Segundo. Sluggish at first but finished strong. Saw Kooky Groovy Lady, a leathery late 60s broad who moves down the path, headphones on, like she’s grooving at Woodstock. But awkwardly. She must “groove” every day, year round, because I think I’ve seen her every time I run there.

The more I read at DailyMile and elsewhere, the more I realize that in the big, bad world of running, 1000 miles ain’t nothin’ special. I’m feeling a perspective shift as I start to inhabit a world where people run a sub 4:00 marathon a month.

In any endeavor – athletic, creative, or otherwise – there’s always going to be someone doing it arguably bigger and better than you. And if you’re like me as a judge, you reactively give yourself a handicap. That’s why it’s important to stay focused in exploring your experience, without judgment.  If nothing else, it’s unique to the world, and that’s something.

So: Keep doing. The doing is playful, animating, reaffirming. In passivity, we risk analyzing our best impulses to death.

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31 Dec 2009

Suffering Is Optional

Posted in: Inspiration by Sara Grace

Today’s run: 5 miles, 1 hr. Blue jetstreamed skies and 70 degrees. But I felt like I was carrying last night’s buckets of wine and midnight Hinano burger around my ankles for most of it. Superfun night, not a superfun run. :-)

In yoga, they’re always talking about “lubricating the joints” with bends and stretches. After a great run, I feel like every cell of my body has been lubricated. I feel purposeful, and clear. I can handle every challenge. Everything else seems relative to my run: That is the ultimate challenge, the real life, the center of things. I feel grounded, and yet completely light. Is this “runner’s high?” Endorphins, fairy dust, whatever – it feels good and solid.

I started Murakami’s book on running, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running – his purpose with it is so close to mine here that reading it makes me feel honored.

Anyway, I loved this: “This book does contain a certain amount of what might be dubbed life lessons. They might not amount ot much, but they are personal lessons I’ve learned through actually putting my own body in motion, and thereby discovering that suffering is optional.

Suffering. Is. Optional.

I’d like that to become the mantra of this blog.

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