Pre-Race Jitters

The Monument Avenue 10K race, which I am running on Saturday, is my very first 'real' race. Oh, sure, about 13 years ago, I completed the Charlottesville Women's 4-Miler after doing the training program. I don't remember my time, but I do remember I didn't stick with running after that.

There will be 42,000 people running this race, all cramming themselves into the Downtown/VCU area on Saturday morning. I am more stressed about the logistics than anything else. parking is going to be a small nightmare, which it always is downtown, and we aren't going to bring the kids (except maybe Kira, if she can haul herself out of bed in time), because they won't have anything to do for an hour or so while I run. But I haven't figured out what we ARE going to do with the kids yet, and I'm not sure how Travis is going to get me anywhere near the start of the race, and how I am going to find him after the race. I'm worried that he won't be able to find parking and will have too far to walk on his recently surgically-dealt-with knee to meet me at the finish. Basically, running the race itself is stressing me out a lot less than the logistical effort of getting there and leaving there.

Gah.

But I went and picked up my packet this afternoon. I got my nifty white official t-shirt, and a bunch of other things, stickers, a water bottle, keychains, and brochures for all kinds of other races and events coming up in 2012. I got a blue cowbell from Anthem, which Noah loves, and I wish I had gotten one for each of the kids, because when does life ever NOT need more cowbell? But then I remembered this is my family I am talking about and more cowbell is probably not necessary. I spoke to a woman from the local running club, who encouraged me to join their beginner group runs, and I talked to a gentleman who assured me I COULD do a half-marathon, seeing as how I was already going to be doing half that distance on Saturday.

I'm thinking about a half marathon.

It's been a long time since I reached for a very large, very challenging personal goals, and a half marathon just might be the thing. I crave doing something physically demanding.

I'm thinking about it.

But first, I think I am going to tackle the six miles I have in front of me on Saturday.

Running

I don't really love running. Not the act of slapping one foot down after the other, getting out of breath, feeling my lower legs decide to turn into rocks. Nope, I don't love it.

I love what it does for me.

I love that I burned 568 calories in 37 minutes this morning. I love the little head games I play with myself to get through my route (currently 3 miles). I love that not only are my legs getting stronger, but apparently so are my arms and abdominal muscles. I love the extra energy I have in the day of a run, and the feeling of being completely, contentedly tired at the tail end of a running day. I love mild muscle soreness, because it lets me know I did something physical. I love beating back my mental demons. I love thinking -- even for a little while -- that I am an athlete.

I haven't gotten to the point yet where I can truly release the physical effort and spend some time in my head, but I can tell that might be coming. A former dancer's power to dissociate is still powerful, and I find myself using it often. "Just to the black mailbox. Nah, go farther than that. To the end of the road."

Two weeks from today I will start the Monument Avenue 10K race, a HUGE and very popular race in Richmond. It's 6.2 miles I have never done before, but by this time on Saturday 3/31, I will have done it. My goal is to finish in under 95 minutes, which shouldn't be too difficult, but I am entertaining other thoughts now, like running 75% of it (4.65 miles) in total. I'm signed up in a walk/jog start wave, mostly because I was sure I could do that, and because my girlfriends who I was planning to do the race with were planning to walk it, but my training has really taken off and gone well. Now I'm planning way more running.

I have a 5 mile run planned for this Sunday, then two more running days of 3 to 3.5 miles each, and then one last long run of close to six miles before I start tapering down the week of the race to a couple of 2 mile runs. I'm really looking forward to it, I'm really excited.

I can't wait to see what I can do.

PS. I am so VERY proud of my training partner, Kim, who is running the Instant Classic Half Marathon trail race tomorrow! GO KIM!!!!!

Wren Rides

I said it last summer, when I took Wren to a local big horse show, that I was probably cultivating another horse lover in the family.I was right. Wren is completely horse crazy. We considered a number of different types of activities for her, but she loves horses, and she wants to ride. And so, she will.

This is Wren and her instructor, Kathy, leading the pony, Keepsake, back to the barn for her riding lesson. Keepsake is the perfect pony to learn on, a venerable 25 year old veteran of horse show, lessons, and hundreds of bouncy kids.
First, grooming and getting the mud off. It IS spring in Virginia, after all. There's LOTS of mud.

And you have to brush the horse's tail, too.

And you definitely cannot forget your helmet!

And then, Wren gets right up on that pony and she rides!! Never before has walking around in circles been so exciting and filled with so much possibility! Wren was so thrilled! I was, too. I love horses and riding, and I so much want to see her do this. She'll be going back.

My beautiful Wren!

Hunter's Ridge Equestrian Center

Powhatan, VA

Some days.....some days just cascade like a rushing waterfall, and you know you can't hold back the tide and you can't alter the flow, and there's nothing you can do but let it wash over you as you try to keep yourself upright against the torrent, and decide whether or not you will hold this pain that doesn't really belong to you, or let it roll down your back and away from you like so much water down the river.

Finding Joy

Last night was my first training session at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, where I am a provisional docent. Docent is a fancy word for tour guide, and it comes from the Latin, 'docere', which means 'teach'. Most museums that I know of use the term docent to describe the people who conduct tours of the museum's exhibits.

The training for VMFA docents is nine months long, with weekly two-hour sessions. We'll be learning about each of the museum's galleries and collections, and every other week is a lecture about a major period of art history, taught by one of the museum's curators. Next week we start with ancient art. I can hardly wait! I'm sure someday the excitement of being allowed in the galleries and in the library outside of public hours will dissipate. Actually, I kind of hope it doesn't.

The docent position is completely a volunteer thing, and people have expressed amazement to me that I would undertake such an involved process with a commitment like this in order to be a volunteer. But why wouldn't I? This is the state's museum, it's important, I love to teach and tell people about historical artifacts and the people who made them. I love to do research and find new answers to old questions - or new questions.

I am using this training and this volunteer position to determine how big a change I might make in my future.

It's a logical thing for me. Yes, the time is significant. No, I don't get paid. Yes, it means some schedule Tetris and some asking friends to help on occasion. But the rewards are great. I get to help my state's museum further it's mission to reach out to all people in the state and beyond, and to join the conversation about why art is important in our 21st century world. For me, it's not about teaching the people who already like art or know about art. It's the opportunity to show someone who thinks art is only for high-brow, highly educated, highly sophisticated people, a new perspective on the world. If I can do that, then that is worth it to me. With arts funding totally down everywhere, and schools cutting arts programs like a hot knife through butter, what better time to use my own enthusiasm to show people why cutting this out of our lives is a huge mistake?

After we learned about the docent programs and policies, and did a fun exercise in verbal communication and visual skills in the (closed) gallery, we were done for the evening. I get access to one of the largest museum research libraries on the east coast of the US, access to the curators if I need research questions answered, and the chance to teach, however informally.

As I walked out of the building that used to be the Home For Needy Confederate Women, dusk was falling and the streets were quiet. A sense of 'right-place' came over me and for a brief moment, tears welled up in the corners of my eyes. THIS is where I want to be, at least one day a week.

Art = Happy

This is what's making my heart and soul happy this morning....watercolors and crayon resist at the art table in the living room.

Of course, about half an hour after this, they were running through the house, and Noah smacked his head on the corner of our granite kitchen island top and raised a scary welt on his forehead (he's fine).

Sigh.

But there was an hour or so of early-morning art and peace and creating, and that was bliss.

Raspberries

The taste of fresh red raspberries will never ever fail to immediately transport me to summer, circa 1977, to my grandparents' house by Lake Ontario in Rochester, New York.

I have sweet memories of their above-ground pool, and the multitude of berry bushes that surrounded the pool and deck and lined the edges of their smallish yard. My brother and I would swim in their pool, and then, wrapped in our towels, we'd stand carefully among the bushes and pick and eat berries until we could eat no more. My grandfather, slightly stooped, always tan, and smelling of old cigarette smoke and after-shave, would help us find the biggest, juiciest ones. I remember some of them being as big as my thumb, dark red and bursting. We had to pick them gently, sliding them off their stems and popping them in our mouths, our hands stained red by the juice.

Ever since, and especially now that Grampa is gone and I am older, the taste of red raspberries has been a passport to those days, like a time machine in its immediacy.

That was before, this is since then.

Before we moved to Florida, and before the pool was dismantled and a new one put in, before the deck was taken down, and before they built the house next door. Before my uncle got married and moved into Grandma and Grandpa's original house, before the garden went in, and before some of the bushes got ripped out.

That was before my grandpa passed away.

Since then, I eat fresh red raspberries every summer and remember being seven and picking berries with my Grampa in the yard, and I think that this year, we should try again to get the berry bushes to grow, so my kids can pick and eat until they can't eat anymore.