summer reading

Now that summer is here, I have tremendous spot in my back yard,  am officially broke, and down to one job I have been reading a lot.  Let me tell you a little bit about the book I'm currently toting!

Source: barnesandnoble.com via Laura on Pinterest

I must admit that I haven't read much fiction lately and I didn't much know what to expect when I downloaded this little gem onto the iPad except that the title intrigued me.  I never would have guess I would be so addicted to it!  The basic premiss is that Alice wakes up from a bad fall and can't remember the last ten years of her life.  As the book unfolds she struggles to make sense of her life without any memory of the events that got her there.   Aside from the heart wrenching realizations Alice makes about herself, this book had got me thinking about my life...  What would my 22 year old self think of my life today?  Would she be disappointed or proud? 

So now it's your turn to tell me... what are you reading now?  Have you read this goodie yet?  What did you think? 

you just might find, you get what you need

Sometime in the first week of January 2009, I signed up for my first half marathon, to be run in April and for my first marathon, to be run the next January.  On that day, I had never run straight through more than 4 miles at one time and had participated in exactly one organized race.  A 5K.  In over my head?  A little, but in this case, ignorance was bliss.  I had no idea what I was really in store for.

Over the months I trained my butt off, finally got real running shoes, and asked more questions than a toddler from everyone whom I could possibly glean a sliver of insight - even the dentist.  In the world that existed then, there were no paces to calculate, no splits to aim for, not even a PR to beat.  I had no idea when I would finish the race or how I was going to make it 13.1 miles without music.  All I knew how to do was run and pray that I didn’t die.

Then it came, the April morning I had worked so hard for.  And it was raining.  And I was petrified.  Thankfully, between the enthusiasm radiating between my mom and my aunt, I mustered up the courage to line up in my coral.  As I stood there, protected from the rain by my motley garbage-bag-poncho, I surveyed the crowd and tried desperately to figure out what last minute preparations I was supposed to be making while I stood in line.  My mom has always told me that God would take care of me and even though this was the furthest thought from my mind, I had the luck of making eye contact with another lone runner.  We struck up what turned out to be a 13.1 mile conversation.

On that day, a stranger became a beloved and together we pushed each other to triumph.  Without her help, I would not have been able to run the whole race and with my help, she was able to beat her time goal.  I’ve often considered her an angel who showed up when I needed the support the most, even though I didn’t really think I needed it.

Today, on a glorious Easter morning, almost exactly three years to the day since that race, I ran with my Anonymous Beloved again.  It is only the second time in our lives that we have run together, or even spoken face to face, in our lives and yet it all just fell so naturally into place.  And again, we pushed each other passed our road blocks.

One of my favorite images of God comes from the “Footprints in the Sand” poem, when God tells the speaker that the places that only show one set of footprints are from when God was carrying him.  Maybe old friends, new friends, and strangers who become friends are the arms of God.  We weren’t meant to carry the weight of the world on our shoulders alone, sometimes we just need to be reminded.

starting from broken

Starting to run from scratch was difficult.  There were times when I did not think I could do it.  And there were many more times when I realized, in awe, that, despite the odds, I had.  

I remember dreaming of effortlessly running for hours and then the devastation when my lungs and muscles were screaming after minutes.  But I remember the progress, too.  I remember the first time I ran for 3 miles straight through - I was on a treadmill and I thought for sure that it was going to explode as I wondered if anyone had ever run that far before!  Ha!  I remember the first time I ran 7 miles.  I was at my favorite park, which I had been trying to conquer for years; I couldn’t stop smiling when I realized I had made it the whole way around, and then more when I realized I wasn’t even as tired as I thought 7 miles should have made me.  I remember when I finished my marathon, I cried as I crossed the finish line.  My dad had been very sick through most of my training, so sick that I almost stopped training all together; but, I am happy to say that he was there on the other end of the phone, waiting to celebrate my finish with me.  

It was this time last year that I started to feel the pain in my legs.  I was confident in my ability to run the distance that I was starting to work on my speed.  By the end of April last year, I was out of commission with surgery scheduled.  Nine months after surgery, after 13 odd weeks of physical therapy, after countless stretches, lunges, and squats, I am ready to start training again.  I have my sights set on a half marathon in June - the one I was training for last year when I tore the labrum in my hip.

Now, I am starting from broken.  And I think this time around it is harder.  It is humbling to set out for a 3 mile run, a quick, down and dirty workout before, and realize that I can’t do it yet.  I feel like I’m the chunky little kid of my childhood who wants so much to be athletic, but whose dreams are bigger than her ability.  My runs are leaving me frustrated and previous landmark triumphs taunt me.  I’m trying to be forgiving and understanding, reminding myself that I am starting from scratch again and that there will be good and bad days.  But I’m not starting from scratch and the bad days seem to be taking over and the mental scripts that I thought I had conquered are fighting to comeback.

This time, progress is going to be a mental battle.  I tried to remind myself today that even if I had to walk, I was still moving forward.  I have to remember that I am capable of the physical aspect, that is what drove me before; now it is time for a mental triumph.  It is a call to take accountability and control in a way that I have lost track of as so many things in my life are willy-nilly.  I learned once upon a time, in my non-runner life, that the cure to almost all ills is to keep my attention focused on the present.  I still have my sights set on that hometown half in June; but right now, I’m focused on three quality miles.