running

Confidence

/ Tracy Abell / 28 Comments

I’ve set a running goal for myself to place in the top fifteen in my age group this Memorial Day in the Bolder Boulder 10k.  I’m dedicated to making that happen; I participated in a winter training group and am now in a 10k spring training program.  I’m following the weekly workouts.  I have a coach available to answer questions and boost my morale when necessary.  I’m confident I’m going to reach my goal.

And now I’m trying to figure out how this whole confidence thing works.  The good thing about running is the results are objective; the clock doesn’t lie.  So when I’m running intervals until my lungs burn I try to remember that the pain is an investment in my 10k performance, and I push on through.  But it’s more difficult pushing myself in the writing life.  Lately as I work on revisions, it’s easy to falter and second-guess.  I know my writing has improved in the ten-plus years since I began my first novel but instead of measuring up against a stop watch, my performance is evaluated by editors.   So far I haven’t placed, much less in the top fifteen.

My hope is that as I continue to train, getting stronger and faster, my runner’s confidence will overflow into my writing life. 

“If I have lost confidence in myself, I have the universe against me.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
                            

Friday Feel-Goods

/ Tracy Abell / 29 Comments

1)  Yesterday I sent a letter to the editor in support of paper ballots and hand-counts.  Today the Denver Post published my letter but edited out several key sentences (my letter was over the word count).  I called the letters editor to let him know I was unhappy with what he cut and that I would’ve preferred cutting the letter myself.  He offered his direct email address for submitting future letters and said he’d let me see edits before publishing my letters.  Then a couple minutes later I received an email from him letting me know that he’d restored my letter in its entirety for the newspaper’s online version.  Plus he let me know he’d like more letters from me regarding verifiable voting because it was an important issue, one of great concern to the Post.  I’m so glad I took the time to call.

2)  Today is sunny and warm.  For the first time in forever, I’m going out on the trails to run.  It might be muddy in places but I’m willing to risk running in 15-pound shoes just to get off the streets and into the open space.

3)  Revisions are moving slowly on my middle-grade but I’m making progress.  I’ve read the opening pages about a billion times and whenever I read a certain line on page four, I crack up.  I might be the only one who thinks it’s funny but for the time being, I consider it a good sign.

4)  My shoulder and back muscles are sore because last night I did circuit training for the first time in about three weeks.  Sore is good because it reminds me I did all those push-ups.

5)  Wildebeest wasn’t turning in assignments so now has to have a weekly progress report signed by all teachers.  Last night he checked the online portal to make sure he had everything done but discovered a science assignment incorrectly marked “missing.”  He immediately wrote a note to himself and stapled it to the blank progress report so he’d remember to straighten out the no-name mix-up with his teacher.  Believe me, that’s a big WOW coming from him.

Here’s wishing lots of feel-good moments for everyone this weekend.

                 

It was my race and I honked ’cause I had to

/ Tracy Abell / 39 Comments

I just got home after running a three-mile race. I haven’t run in a month because every time I ran I got a horrific headache from sinuses plugged with pollen (my medical diagnosis). I even stopped running the trails out in the open space to avoid getting coated in yellow pollen and just ran the streets but still felt mighty shitty when I finished. And where’s the fun in that?! So for the past month I’ve focused on hooping and feeling groovy in my living room every morning.  Pollen-free!

Well, Zippy and Wildebeest ran this same race last year and planned to do it this year but then got free tickets to the Broncos game so they opted out. I didn’t think I wanted to run but yesterday my neighbor called to say she wanted to sponsor me.  Wow!  A sponsorship!  I felt very NASCAR (or something).

So I went down and signed up the race which is for  a really good cause. The Second Wind Fund was established to prevent teen suicide after four local high school students committed suicide in a nine-month period during 2001-2002.  This is serious stuff and now that I have my own hormonally-challenged teen, I figured I could stagger around a three-mile loop to support those efforts.

Oh my.

My exercise-induced asthma was so bad today that people ran alongside me asking if I was okay.  I was practically honking.  One man asked if I was all right and I gasped that I was fine, thanks, and he nodded and ran ahead.  After a few more steps, though, he stopped and turned and asked me again if I was all right.  Very kind of him, I know.  But then when the teenage girl asked and the older man asked and all those other runners ran past staring at me, I started to feel like a freak show.   With a really annoying soundtrack.

So I walked.  In a three-mile race.  I didn’t just walk once, I think I walked four different times (I can’t figure out how to get the splits off my watch and Zebu isn’t here to help).  Honking away the entire time.

When I crossed the finish line, I got a bottle of water and found an out-of-the-way place to cool down and stretch.  And I had myself a good cleansing cry.  Truly, it felt good and productive to get that frustration and embarrassment and disappointment out of my system.

HONK!

    
                                              
 

Random Stuff

/ Tracy Abell / 44 Comments

I just watched a great blue heron wading in the run-off pond near my house.  That’s what I want to be in my next life.  (Um, a heron, not a run-off pond).

The Bolder Boulder photographers just sent the link for me to check out my race day photos.  Yikes.  The photo of me running in the stadium toward the finish line shows one very tired woman.  Zippy had five photos taken of him and I’m in three of them, running behind him like some oxygen-deprived stalker.

The official race results are now available and I discovered my time was nine seconds faster than I thought.  Woo Hoo!  But even more exciting, out of the 448 44-year-old women in the race, I had the 26th fastest time. (Technically I’m 27th but one of the women is listed as “Steve” which Zippy insists is a mistake.  I pointed out there was a female character named Ralph on “Green Acres” but he insists that fact is not germane to the discussion).  Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised by my race position and it took the sting out of getting a much slower time than I’d hoped for.

I’m trying to sort out plot issues for my middle-grade WIP but started feeling overwhelmed by all the possibilities.  I was writing ideas, many of which were “maybe X does this because such-and-such…”, and I started to feel panicked by not having anything to hold onto.  So I started a THINGS I KNOW list.  I’m writing one-liners about story details I know for sure, and it’s helping me figure out what else I know.  Now I don’t feel like I’m drowning! 

Wildebeest had his last day of 7th grade on Wednesday and Zebu finishes 5th grade today.  We’re all quite happy putting this school year behind us.  We plan to celebrate tonight with some dinner and bowling.

This morning I went to the nearby tech school and bought a bunch of perennials from the student greenhouse which means I need to get outside and figure out where to put them in my various flower beds.  I bought two forget-me-not plants because they remind me of Alaska.  Now if only I could get a moose to come hang out in my yard………

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend.