Clean eating

This is a long post, but I'm affording myself the luxury of a wordy entry...because I can't give up everything in one season.

Clean eating...it sounds like something an addict does in rehab. Typing the very words has me shaking for a Cinotti's apple fritter. Clean eating has been a fitting focus during this time of Lent because it's about giving up. It's a diet that gives up foods void of nutritional value for foods dense in vitamins and minerals. My particular clean eating plan is tailored to my running goals and omits most sugars, alcohol, and processed carbs (all micro obstacles to running fast...yes, even the little things matter). I haven't decided whether to view this regimen as performance based or penance based, but either way there's a lesson learned about sacrifice. There's also nothing like a day with out sugar, fat, and wine to bring you closer to God! On my not-so-springy runs this week ( I think I'm still in the detox phase and not yet benefiting from all the good, clean energy that is sure to come) I've had two thoughts about sacrifice:

One. Sacrifice should be done quietly.

It occurred to me that everyone knows running, dieting, or any sacrifice for that matter, can be hard...so why complain out loud? We risk pulling someone down onto the slippery rock of negativity where its easy to lose footing and fall off course. I'm not knocking the occasional bitch session to a friend...we all need to let it out sometimes, that thick, sludgy build-up of self pity, but overall, I couldn't find one valuable thing about complaining in the midst of sacrifice. As I was running through some of my own muck this week, complaining became my third leg, another dragging appendage that just slowed things down. In my seven short years of running, I've had the good fortune of running with some very positive women – women who can tell a “slap-your-momma” funny story at mile 20 and render painful knees powerless (that one's for you LL!). One run in particular stands out in my mind. On a cold December morning, I was meeting “my girls,” as I affectionately call them, for a 22 mile run, the last of three long runs before our eminent race. Months of training had beaten up our feet, toes and shins and we hobbled out of the Publix parking lot like bloody fighters pushed into the ring for one last whooping. There was about three minutes of “ahhhh,” “ouch,” “sh*t, that hurts,” and then there was silence. Even before the stiffness and soreness dissipated, we hit the highway and it was down to business...the business of keeping pace up the bridge, the business of making it through the miles, the business of having some fun. There was no option of turning back, so all of us just kept quiet (about the complaining that is) and left the expletives behind us, way behind before there was momentum. Momentum is a beautiful thing in running, and it's silent pull is ever so sensitive to whining.

Two. The self-denial of sacrifice is good and is all around us.

There's nothing harder than loving someone when you have the right to be mad at them, keeping quiet when you want to share your opinion, eating a brown rice cake when you really want a neon orange Dorito (I don't even normally like junk like this, but I think the fake cheese would quiet the processed-food-deprived voice in my head), or writing when you have nothing to say (this week, I remembered a college professor telling my to stare at a white page until drops of blood appeared). Denying ourselves builds muscle though...enlarging the heart muscle for a greater capacity to love, stretching the mind muscles to learn someone else's story instead of telling our own, and strengthening the leg muscles for enduring the pace. Practicing clean eating has precipitated a new appreciation of self-denial. Even more than physical and mental well being, clean eating has given me an awareness of something other than my desires and cravings. To be successful in clean eating, you have to learn to turn off the “self”, and that is exactly the moment when you become open to “otherness”. I don't think it coincidence, but in the last few weeks of turning myself off, I've noticed the sacrifices of others, so many times on my behalf. Self-denial is closer to home than the remote Buddhist monastery, and it didn't die out after St. Augustine. In the way you notice everyone driving your new car once you purchase the “limited edition”, I'm seeing self-denial all around me. My mom babysitting the boys when she probably needed a quiet moment to herself, my sister taking her kids to get new shoes when she could have used a night off, my friends waking up in the 4 o'clock hour to run so as not to disturb the household's morning routine...this is the stuff good people are made of. In fact, this is why I love my family, my friends and the girls I run with...because they know just as much about self denial, thoughtfulness, and doing something for the greater good as the monk who spends days on his knees. Not all of them know it, but this week I've been drawing from their steam. I can't honestly say I'm good at self-denial (my closet is full of Prada and Louboutin to prove it) and I'm too self-aware as a runner, but I'm gaining momentum from not giving into the donuts, from not whining out loud, and from mimicking the beautiful sacrifice I see in others.

Zzzzzzz....

I have never been so tired in all my life.  New born, nursing babies have nothing on marathon training. Like a post-natal mother, minus the swollen belly, I’ve been walking in a stupor the last few days, functioning on fumes of sleep, tons of peanut butter and the short-lived energy surge after morning runs.

I shouldn’t be divulging this fatigue…especially to my mother.  In fact, she reminded me that one tortures prisoners with sleep deprivation, and to watch out for signs of craziness.  This time, she’s only a little right to be worried.  I did miss my exit twice this week, backed up instead of driving forward in the atm lane (and yes, I tapped the car in back), fell asleep on my laptop while doing homework, and almost poured wine in my cereal.  But I dug deep, in my bathroom cabinet that is, and found a miraculous under-eye concealer called “well-rested”, and, by looking at me, no one would ever guess that I’ve run more miles than I have slept hours in the last few weeks.  If they were to step in my house though, that’s another story.  The 9 empty bottles of 5-hour Energy drinks that my kids have been playing with in the bathtub tell it all. 

I write this to excuse myself from a “real” and “thoughtful” entry tonight.  I did commit to posting every Wednesday and I can’t slip up just yet.  I need some rest though, to recover from the miles and recharge my body and mind.  However, there will be a supine moment before giving myself over to sleep when I will ignore the “craziness” of marathon training and thoroughly celebrate the accomplishment of an 8 mile run at a 7:54 pace.  And like every new mother acknowledges when talking of sleepless nights…it’s all worth it.

Buttresses

I’ll never forget the first time I saw Chartres cathedral in France.  I was barely 19, in a summer dress and backpack, gazing up at the gothic spire with my neck awkwardly against my back.  I’d never seen such magnificent height.  I remember that moment clear as the sky… I was living out my biggest dream, leading a bohemian college life in France, reading Hemingway in Les Deux Magots with my morning coffee, and dancing with French boys on the weekends.   I was on my own and I was brave…in fact, my dreams reached higher than the spires of Chartres and that was just fine with me…I would make them all my reality. 

I’m not sure where it happened, but somewhere between 19 and France and 32 and Jacksonville, I lost my bravery.  A few dreams have been pushed to the side and others have disappeared completely.  It was only this January, when I set a personal marathon record in Miami of 3:54, that I admitted how badly I want the ultimate novice runner’s high… I want to qualify for the Boston marathon.  Committing myself to running the 2012 Boston marathon and facing doubts about my racing speed has awakened me to the sad reality that I’ve been too afraid to reclaim dreams as my own.  I’ve allowed chances and opportunities to slip through my fingers simply because I was scared to hold on tight…scared I wasn’t smart enough, spiritual enough, fit enough, wealthy enough, pretty enough…and the list goes on.  Today, my fists are clenched, and I’m not letting this dream pass me…I dream of qualifying for Boston on October 9, 2011 at the Chicago marathon.  I have 185 days till Chicago, and although I’ve already started training (yes, it’s early training…I’m just a nerd like that) I have a long road of long runs, tempo runs, hill runs, and track runs ahead of me.  As if this weren’t enough work, I’ve self-imposed an additional training technique…journaling.  There’s one more dream I let go for the same aforementioned reasons…I dreamt of writing.  Despite a few scholarly publications and notable articles, I’ve never committed to writing “just for me”, giving a written word to the voice inside that’s been conjuring stories and ideas for years. So, in a way, this blog has become not only a journal to chronicle my training for Boston but a canvas for the words that have colored my thoughts on many long runs.  I’m hoping that this blog will be an exercise in running and writing.  In the past, when running was hard, I’ve walked.  When writing was hard, I’ve read someone else’s words.  I may not experience successes in running and writing at the same time, but hopefully, when one diminishes the other will peak.  For the next 185 days, I will run and not walk, and I will write and not read.

In retrospect, I overlooked an exceptional structure of Chartres cathedral.  In simple-minded awe of the towering spires and flamboyant stained glass, I failed to recognize the powerful feature of flying buttresses and a powerful metaphor for my life.  Heavy stone buttresses supporting lateral forces and a roof lacking adequate bracing were a necessary reinforcement for the buildings integrity.  Like buttresses, there have been many people in my life who have reinforced me and my dreams.  This blog will likely address most of them.  But for now, anyone reading this, anyone texting me to get out of bed at 4:30am, anyone helping me with boys, anyone sharing a dream of their own, anyone making me pasta, anyone letting me steal a nap is my buttress.