What I'm Loving Lately

• A holiday weekend
• Fresh green juice in a bottle at Whole Foods
• Non-humid weather on May 24
• Spoleto plans for this weekend and next
• Running all I want with no problems
• All that running making me a better runner
• Laughing with D
• My Fiat
• Plans with friends all weekend long
• A sweet blonde pekingese who always wants to cuddle

curating

Something's gonna change, I can feel it..

Things have been subtly yet profoundly shifting. Maybe it's turning 40, I don't know. But I have much less tolerance for things and people that don't bring positive energy. I don't have time for that! Life is short and I'm getting old.

It may sound negative, ironically, to put it that way, but it doesn't feel that way. It feels like I'm clearing some space to make room for a few changes that will put me in a place that is more challenging and exciting. In which I am engaged and in the zone more often than I'm bored and stagnating.

I have some ideas about what that looks like, but I can't really share it yet. Just send me your positive vibes, please, because the downers are no longer welcome up in here!

spring cleaning

It's been a strange few weeks. Ah, who am I kidding? It's been a strange couple of months. Turning 40, an amazing celebration, the usual, ongoing health issues, work disappointments, running my third half marathon, two big work victories, hooking up with old friends and feeling let down by newer ones, a cold spring...yeah, all over the place. Leaving me feeling all over the place, moody, scattered.

I really need to get refocused and recentered. I so need to:

• be more organized and productive at work
• improve my diet even more to alleviate ongoing health issues, which modern medicine can't figure out (I should actually probaby do an elimination diet, but I don't wanna!)
• decrease time on Twitter and Facebook
• cook more and eat out less
• read more
• get back into a regular weight training program
• run 4 times a week instead of 3
• do more yoga.

Just minor tweaks! What's stopping me?

run for boston

It seems like half the people I know have asked me about the bombings at the marathon yesterday, saying "when I heard, I thought of you."

I guess I'm really a runner.

All I know is that yesterday I started the day tweeting and facebooking about Boston, I watched the livestream all morning other than during a 10 a.m. meeting, I got tears in my eyes when Shalane came in 4th, then I heard that Kara, finishing 6th, immediately asked "how did Shalane do?" Even more tears for these training partners who compete so closely against each other, but support each other so strongly. Everything running is about. I continued to watch the coverage of the regular people crossing the finish line until the livestream ended. Coupled with my wonderful experience on Saturday, I was basking in the glow of how much I love running and everything it stands for: overcoming what was previously impossible, supporting other runners, working and training to improve.

And then at 2:50 I started seeing the tweets that something had happened. The early reports sounded so awful, they had to be exaggerated. Had to be. Unfortunately, it seems not to be so.

If you're a runner, you can't not think of the people who have come out to watch you finish a race. I thought of D popping off the sidewalk Saturday just before the finish, to give me that last little mental boost I needed to make it. The faster runners who have already finished and stick around to cheer on us middle-of-the-packers. The volunteers who don't know you but take the time to stand on the side of the road and cheer on strangers for a few hours. Those are the people who were most badly injured and killed.

So much eloquence has already been written about running and runners and how we are the wrong group to attempt to terrorize. We run because we crave that euphoria that comes from beating the odds. We get injured, recover, rehab, and come right back to running. We go out there day after day after day to improve just a tad.

It's been so wonderful to see the social media reaction. My twitter feed includes many, many runners and running publications, as do my facebook friends. The overwhelming reaction: to go out and run. To qualify for Boston. To run harder, faster, more, and better than ever before for those who cannot anymore.

Because that's just what we do. We are runners.

just half, my ass

So, yesterday I ran a half marathon just for the hell of it.

And because I could.

I'd had the race in my mind since shortly after the Charleston Half--close in time to that race, but not too close, local, easy logistics (it was held at an outdoor mall so parking and facilities were plentiful). And, as it turned out, other than a few weekends in March, my long runs stayed around 8-10 miles since Charleston (and before that, since November). So a couple of Friday nights ago, after a couple of glasses of wine (all it takes these days given my near-abstinence), I said what the hell and registered.

Last week wasn't the best week health-wise. I spent about 4 hours with doctors and at the hospital getting checked out for my mystery stomach ailment (that is the cause of the near-abstinence from wine and any food even resembling junk), and a solution I had to drink for the h. pylori test was so sugary it gave me a migraine. I also had an extremely bad day at work on Thursday, long story, but it kicked the stuffing out of me. Then a storm and Ruthie getting sick kept me up half the night that night. And the race had a 7 a.m. start time 20ish miles away.

All of that led to my nearly deciding not to do the race. Until I drove out to the burbs to pick up my packet after work on Friday, I was about 50/50. I knew if I got the bib, I'd probably be hooked.

And I was.

And I ran a really great race, hitting 6 miles right at 60 minutes, just like Charleston. I had the most amazing runner's high for several miles in the middle of the race. But in the end, the hills kicked my ass. I've run Charleston twice, and, as you might expect, its course is completely flat. This course was much hillier than I expected. The description euphemistically called them "rolling hills." I had much more descriptive and less pleasant-sounding words for them as I ran them on the way back on the out-and-back. From mile 8 til the end was the epitome of digging deep. The kicker: a half- mile-plus incline of an on-ramp from one 4 lane highway to another, at mile 12. SO many people were walking, including me. At that point my legs didn't have a long hill in them. Hell, they hardly had any running left in them given all the hills we'd already done. I've never wanted to quit so much in a race. I wanted to quit even when I could see the finish.

But, of course, I didn't. D popped off the curb with just a few hundred yards left, and gave me a boost. And my time blows my mind: only a minute 34 slower than Charleston, the race that was so perfect. If only I could have walked a little less on that hill. If only there had been one fewer hill. If only my phone alarm hadn't gone off twice in the first few miles, forcing me to stop, take it out of my spibelt, and then restart my music. I could've had a PR.

I'm trying to focus more on doing nearly as well on a much tougher course, during a much tougher week, and with less-ideal training. Because that shows I'm getting stronger and better, and it doesn't get much better than that.

How to Beat a Crappy Mood in 5 Easy Steps

Blog about it: within about half an hour of putting yesterday's post online, I started to feel better. Huh. Should've complained sooner!

Run: yes, of course. A 3.27 miler on the treadmill with some sprints was just what the doctor ordered. I almost didn't go because my gall bladder was aching (pretty sure it's going to be coming out within months), but I made myself. After the first--very painful--10 minutes or so, I started feeling amazing.

Eat vegetables: After eating too much during the day yesterday (though there was no junk, it was too much non-junk--AND not enough fruits and vegetables), we hit Whole Foods post-gym and I made a monster salad topped with just a touch of baked cod.

Snuggle up: After dinner, D, Ruthie and I all ended up on the loveseat together for several hours before bed. Oh so cozy.

Sleep: Eight hours last night. Unbelievable. And according to my Sleep as Android app, 60% of it deep sleep, which is a new record.

And just like that, I'm back to my normal upbeat self. Finalizing agreements for upcoming hearings, eating just what I should to feel fabulous, itching to get out of here to run, pitching wellness initiatives to the health point person for my agency, and alternately freaking out/psyching up for my half marathon on the 13th. The usual.

What I'm Not Loving

I've been in such a good place since my birthday, just calm and contented for 85% of the time, focusing on the good, minimizing the bad--that it all snuck up on me.

The Charleston spring fever. It's been quite a while since I've had the pang. The overwhelming desire to just BE on the streets of the peninsula. It hit me hard on my way home from the office yesterday and when I got home, I spent an hour on a tumblr of Charleston photos pulled from other blogs. People here--even D--don't understand what the big difference is. Why that place pulls me the way it does. Why I can't just be happy wtih Columbia (well, D doesn't agree with that). If you talk too much about Charleston up here, you're a snob. Or you just don't know enough about Columbia and all its wonderful options. All I know is that I've now lived here for 5 years and it's closing in on me. Everyone knows everyone. You see the same little Cool Kid Clique at every event--which is why I don't go to the events. It's absolutely cloying. I'm happy you're happy, and I'm not trying to convert anyone, but this does not do it for me.

And then there's the delayed-reaction turning-40 existential crisis. I read Fast Company and the Charlie 50 Most Progressive issue and blogs and profiles of people nonstop--looking for that inspiration, that answer to the question. Because this can't be all there is: driving away from the "city" out to the Irmo suburbs every morning to sit in a state government building all day long. In many ways the job is wonderful: most of the people, the work itself a good bit of the time. But there's no avoiding feeling like a failure for going from a well-respected downtown Charleston firm to a red-headed stepchild of a state agency.

I want more. I want better. Something's gotta give.