Turtles, stampeding through peanut butter...

So I’m following the Jeff Galloway runDisney Princess Half Marathon Training Program (http://www.rundisney.com/training/) and crossing off each day as I do it. (I mean it, the first thing I do after a run is go straight to the refrigerator and cross of that day’s training assignment with a big fat pink Sharpie.  Making that big pink “X’ is the best part of my running days.)  But I’m sore and still awfully slow and feeling sorry for myself.  

Okay, maybe I run slightly faster than a herd of turtles stampeding through peanut butter, but only slightly.  I’ve been running to Pandora’s Pop and Hip Hop Power Workout station and Sweet Lord they play an awful lot of Pitbull.  Also, there is the very delicate process in opening the apps on my phone required for my runs.  First Pandora, then Nike Run+ to track my mileage and time and then Two Timer, which is an app that allows you to build in walk breaks to your running time.  (Yes, I’m “fudging” a bit about how much I’m actually running, but more on that in a minute.)  When the third Pitbull song in a row comes on, I can’t just hit the “next” button because it messes up the Two Timer app and then I have to navigate over to that one to fix it.  (Imagine the Napoleon Dynamite “Gosh” right here. And yes, I am fully aware that this is a perfect example of a first world problem.)

Jeff Galloway is a proponent of the run/walk combination in completing long distance races.  You set a specific time to run, followed by a shorter time to walk.  You’ll switch back and forth between running and walking throughout your workout.  The purpose of this is to “rest” yourself before you completely deplete yourself.  Galloway has found that this actually results in faster overall times in marathons and half marathons for many runners.  I run for four minutes and walk for one and the Two Timer app keeps up with where I am and beeps when it is time to transition from one to the other. 

So the whole running thing has been really annoying, and I’d like to quit, but I really don’t want to quit, and I’ve put so much effort into this already it would be a shame to quit, but I am really annoyed by it, but I miss it when I don’t do it, but there’s way to much Pitbull.

Then I hear about Maickel Melamed.  He’s a thirty eight year old man from Caracas, Venezuela who has muscular dystrophy.  Last weekend he completed the Chicago marathon in 16 hours and 46 minutes.  He was the last finisher, and his message to people is “If you dream it, make it happen.”  And the amazing thing is that this is his THIRD marathon.  He has also finished races in Berlin and New York City.

Okay, I'm back on track now.

Zen and the Knuckleball. (And what does this have to do with running a half marathon?)

I didn't grow up with baseball.  My brother played and my dad coached for a few years, but we didn't follow a particular MLB team.  Our big sports tradition occurred each fall listening to John Ward broadcast Tennessee football games on the radio.

When trying to come up with a name for our firstborn son, Bart and I decided on "Aaron" as his middle name in honor of Bart's childhood hero, true home run king and outstanding human being Hank Aaron.  Little did I know just how much our family would embrace this sport, although Jay's first word ("ball") should have given me a clue.

Jay gravitated towards Chipper Jones as his sports idol and while I won't argue with Chipper's on-field performance, he doesn't quite provide what I'm looking for as an away-from-baseball role model for my sons.  (Mr. Jones is a nice guy and appears to be a good dad.  But he seems to have the off the field emotional maturity of an adolescent boy.  And I don't mean that as an insult, but when your own 10 year old is struggling with the emotional maturity of an adolescent boy, you want to shield him from idolizing men who still seem to struggle with it.)

We were at an end of season baseball party for Will's team at UT's Lindsey Nelson stadium when I noticed RA Dickey's name on the wall of honor as a three time academic All-American.  This was in the spring of 2012 as Dickey was starting to get a lot of media attention for his pitching, his memoir, and for putting his major league contract with the Mets at risk to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro in order to raise money and awareness to fight the sex trafficking of young women in India.  Smart and compassionate former Volunteer who was a professed Christian, Star Wars fan and pitcher of note?  We could work with this!

But he was famous for throwing a knuckleball, a pitch many consider simply a novelty or trick.  Aspiring pitchers (including the one in my family) want to throw hard and fast, they don't want to rely on a "gimmick" like the knuckleball.  But I like to encourage thinking outside the box, so I learned more about the knuckleball and those who have "mastered" it.

To a batter, a knuckleball looks like it should be pretty easy to hit.  It is much slower than a standard pitch so hitters think they have time to swing hard and crush the ball.  But a well thrown knuckleball has no spin, which makes it look like it is "floating" or hovering up and down as it approaches the plate.  You'll often see hitters smile or laugh as they strike out because each pitch looked so hittable until it wasn't.  

The interesting thing about throwing a knuckleball is that once you become proficient at the mechanics of the pitch you have to surrender to it.  The more a pitcher tries to "control" a knuckleball, the more hittable it becomes.  And sometimes, even when a pitcher is doing everything right he may still give up a lot of hits.  Fans, and sometimes even coaches and managers, love the knuckleball when it works but are quick to dismiss it as soon as a pitcher gives up a few hits.  Those who understand the knuckleball tell you that you just have to ride out the bad times and wait patiently for it to get better.  It provides such a great template for running, as well as for life.  Master the mechanics, understand that there will be peaks and valleys and be prepared to ride them out. 

It is interesting that the first ten minutes of a run are excruciating and I am always so tempted to quit.  The first ten minutes should be the easiest, right?  I’m rested and haven’t started sweating yet, the hills don’t come until later on in the run.  But if I ride out that initial physical discomfort and mental frustration, I am rewarded later on (usually after the first or second hill) with both my body and mind relaxing and starting to enjoy the run.  I won’t call it a “runner’s high” because it isn’t a euphoric feeling, it's more a place of contentment.  The feeling lasts longer on some runs than others but I can always count on it to be there for some of the run.

Finished the first official week of half marathon training and am very excited to see what happens in the coming weeks.  Still a little bit sore, but it is a happy sore, one I feel like I've earned.

If you ain't first you're last. That makes no sense at all!

As of yesterday, I am officially training for the Disney Princess Half Marathon.  Still not fast enough, and a little bit sore after my first thirty minute training run, but as Lao Tzu supposedly said, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” 

Or, to borrow from Butch Jones, I’m gonna build this program brick by sparkly, princessy brick.

It’s a relief to have a specific program to follow rather than having to motivate myself to run just for the sake of running.  I’m not a very entrepreneurial person (at least that’s what I always list as a weakness on performance reviews) but tell me something that needs to get done and it will be done.

We’re not all cut out to be leaders, and it took me a long time to come to peace with that.  I felt that as a fairly intelligent and ambitious person, I should seek out leadership roles.  But I don’t like “leading” people.  And I really don’t like “disciplining” people (unless I gave birth to them).  But “fairly intelligent” and “ambitious” don’t always equal “leader.”  Also, if everybody leads, then who follows?

In my very first post I wrote about coming in last place in a race my friend Becky “ran” (aka walked).  I’m so thankful that we were able to laugh about it, particularly when the really old lady passed us with about half a mile to go.  Oh, and also when the police car followed us the last quarter mile or so when we were obviously the only ones still on the course.  I'm not afraid of coming in last because I've already done so, and it wasn't the worst thing in the world.  We even laugh about it.

How many people don’t even run in the race because they are terrified of coming in last? 

Of course, later on in the movie Reese Bobby tells his grown son:

“Hell, Ricky, I was high when I said that!  That makes no sense at all!"

When first told about my half marathon goal, Jay immediately suggested that I could win the race and seemed a little disappointed in my settling for simply finishing.  I adore his optimism, it has encouraged (and will continue to encourage) me for the next few months.  But finishing is enough.