Mid-Year Catch-Up

Before I started writing this post, I was thinking to myself, “Not much has happened this year. What am I even going to write about?” Then I started going through my photos on Google and I realized, actually a lot has happened so far this year. Six months have gone by and when I look back, it seems like it’s been much longer than that. Let me catch you up.

In January, my daughter told me she wasn’t going to have to take her end of semester final exams and wouldn’t need to go to school that week later that month. Our December had been pretty stressful so I started to think maybe we could take a vacation that week. I started checking flights and hotels but nothing stuck out to me. Then I saw how cheap flights to Hawaii were and I quickly booked those and made hotel and car reservations.

We spent the entire week on the big Island, which I had been to before, but she hadn’t since she was almost 2 years old, so she didn’t remember any of it. What was new for me was the part of the island where we stayed, which turned out to be a great decision. We saw an active volcano (my daughter wants to study volcanos for a living so this was especially exciting for her), hiked in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, went to botanical gardens, ate our weight in shave ice, and so much more. See my posts here: Highlights of Kailua-Kona in Hawaii- Hiking, Turtles, Coffee, and Historical Sites, Exploring Hilo on the Big Island of Hawaii.

February was my birthday month, but a few weeks before my birthday, I ran the Krispy Kreme Challenge. This is a race where you run 2.5 miles, eat a dozen Krispy Kreme glazed donuts (or as many as you can but you aren’t considered a “Challenger” unless you eat all 12 donuts and run the entire 5 miles), then run back 2.5 miles to the finish. This was a race I had wanted to do more for the experience than anything. I don’t even care for glazed donuts, to be perfectly honest. They would be the last kind I would go for in a box of assorted donuts; actually, I probably wouldn’t even eat them at all if that’s all there was. Anyway, for my full race review, go here: The Krispy Kreme Challenge.

In March, I took my daughter to a college in the mountains of North Carolina for a campus tour. She had already decided she wanted to go to school there the following August but because of covid, we hadn’t been able to go inside any of the buildings or see much of anything on the campus outside of walking around the grounds. The tour cemented the fact that she wanted to go to school there.

The first week of April was when my daughter’s spring break was so we went to stay with a friend of mine who lives in Miami. The last time we had gone to see my friend, my daughter was in grade school, so it had been a while. As usual, she took us all over the place, including to a botanical garden, the Everglades, treated us to a homemade Chinese hotpot dinner with lobster and shrimp our first night there, and so much more. You can read all about our adventures in Miami here: Everglades National Park, Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Coral Gables, Florida, and Figuring Out the Public Transportation System in Miami.

The end of April, I got covid. This was the first time I had ever had covid and it felt like the flu. Unfortunately it affected my breathing when I would run for several weeks so even when I was able to run again, I knew there was no way I could run the race I had signed up for. Nor could I run the 10k in South Carolina I was hoping to run in May. I’ve since fully recovered but it basically knocked me out of races through the end of May. Since it gets hot and humid here in June and races taper off in May, I knew that meant I wouldn’t be racing for quite some time unless I run somewhere much cooler than here. However, I was able to get my paddle board out in May and take it on the lake.

In June, my daughter graduated from high school. She had a large, extremely competitive class, and this on top of the fact that she had missed so many days her junior and senior years because of illness made it even more special that she graduated with honors. Needless to say, I was one proud mama!

Less than a week after graduation, we went to freshman orientation at the college in the mountains we had gone to in March. It was information overload for me and her as well, but we left feeling like this will be the perfect school for her. I’ve never met a single person who didn’t say they loved their time at the school and I’ve only heard good things about the school and the people there. Honestly, I’ve never been anywhere so full of genuinely kind, helpful people who only want the best for one another.

I also put my house on the market the week of my daughter’s high school graduation. Hectic is an understatement. Things were extremely stressful for about a week with all of the showings, but thankfully the house sold quickly so I could focus on finding a new house. I’ve already found another house to move into, just about 30 minutes from my current house, but in another city and county. I move next month. I’m looking forward to exploring the area and finding new running routes!

That sums up my year so far. Not exactly the boring post I first thought it would be (well, I hope it hasn’t been boring for anyone!). I’m looking forward to the rest of the summer, more SUP, running for fun (I actually like running in the heat; yes, I know I’m crazy), moving my daughter into her dorm, and exploring my new neighborhood and surrounding area.

How has your year been so far? Anything you care to share?

Happy running and travels!

Donna

Book Review- Choosing to Run by Des Linden with Bonnie D. Ford

Yes, yet another book by an elite runner, in this case, Des Linden. There has been a flood of books written by elite female runners lately, perhaps prompted in part by the timing of the start of the pandemic and races everywhere being cancelled. Whatever the reason, Des Linden apparently felt the need to share her story and joins others with her memoir. All that being said, Linden’s book is unique enough to give it a read.

First, some background. Des Linden has been a professional runner since 2006. She ran in college at Arizona State University where she was a two-time All-American in track and cross country. She is a two-time Olympian (London in 2012 and Rio in 2016), where she ran the marathon both times. In 2018, she won the Boston Marathon, becoming the first female American to win the event in 33 years. In 2021, she set the women’s 50k world record.

Choosing to Run is almost entirely focused around the 2018 Boston Marathon, although there are some flashbacks throughout the book to help tell the story of Linden’s running journey. The story of Linden’s epic win at that race is what sets this book apart from the other female elite runners’ books. If you’re not aware, the 2018 Boston Marathon was one of the worst weather-wise in many years. There was rain and hail throughout the day, heavy at times, with temperatures in the 40s F and gusty winds. Linden proved that much of a marathon is in the runner’s brain and how you deal with poor race conditions, as she gutted it out to the finish line.

Another theme prominent throughout this book is how she was often the underdog. Unlike some other runners around her age that later became elite athletes, Des had to basically work her butt off to get to the level she did, with no handouts. Even when she was offered a deal when she went pro with the Hansen-Brooks Distance Project (a collaboration between two brothers named Hansen and Brooks Sports) in Michigan, she still had to work at a store when she wasn’t training; they couldn’t (wouldn’t?) pay her enough to “just” run, so she had to have a part-time job to pay her bills. Many elite runners that go pro are paid high enough salaries that they don’t have to work on top of running, but this wasn’t the case with Linden, at least not initially (eventually she was able to quit that job and focus on running).

Linden is a private person and there aren’t many personal moments divulged in her memoir, or perhaps not as many as some other elite runners have written about. She focuses primarily on her running journey, with little sprinkles of her personal life thrown in here and there. She does write about her sister and their travels together, and briefly about her parents when she was growing up. We get a tiny glimpse into her life with her husband and their story about how they met and later married. It’s clear this book was written to primarily cover one story, and that is the story behind the 2018 Boston Marathon. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with how this book is written or the content chosen; I can appreciate Des’s need to not wear her heart on her sleeve, as the saying goes.

One personal journey that Des does write about in her book is dealing with hyperthyroidism, something she says she never discussed publicly before. It caused some nasty side effects that effected her running, but she has worked through them as best as she could with the help of doctors. I found it ironic that she had this diagnosis (that went untreated for some time), given that elite runner Kara Goucher’s former coach Salazar told her that she had hyperthyroidism and had a doctor treat her for it even though she never truly had it. As a result of Goucher taking thyroid medicine for many years, it basically shut off her thyroid’s natural release of hormones, making her reliant on thyroid medicine for the rest of her life. In comparison, Linden actually does have hyperthyroidism, but yet both women ended up having to take thyroid medicine, likely for the rest of their lives.

The book ends with a brief section about the pandemic and how Linden had to get creative with running since races were cancelled. In October 2020, she came up with the “Destober Calendar Club,” during which she ran the number of miles equivalent to each date, so 3 miles on October 3, 30 miles on October 30, and so on. She also writes about how she broke the record for the fastest 50k (31.06 miles) by a female in April 2021 and describes the process behind that race.

At 250 pages, this book was a quick and easy read and one that I enjoyed. If you’re a person that likes to listen to audio books, Linden reads this book herself, and it would be a quick read (listen?), at 5.5 hours (in comparison, elite runner Deena Kastor’s audio book is 9 hours long). I prefer reading paper books myself, but I know many people like to listen to books and it occurred to me I should mention that here.

Have you read Choosing to Run? If so, what did you think of it? Is it on your list of books to read?

Happy Running!

Donna

Five Words That Describe Me

I’m borrowing the idea for this post from fellow blogger Darlene. When I read her post on this topic, I found it an interesting one https://myfirst5kandmore.com/2023/04/14/fff-5-words-that-describe-me/. Choosing five words to describe yourself isn’t as easy as it seems. When I was choosing mine, the first four popped into my head right away, but fifth took a bit longer to come to me.

Thinking about the first four words I had chosen to describe myself: driven, realistic, curious, and active, these all seemed like good words to describe me. These words describe not only who I feel like I am but also how others see me, or at least how some people I know have described me. After thinking for a bit longer, the fifth word came to me. Resilient. The first four words represent the many positive words that describe me, or I should say the words that represent me based on positive things in my life that have happened.

However, resiliency doesn’t come from things in life generally thought of as positive. Only after doing difficult things and coming out stronger on the other side from them do you become resilient. In other words, you have to go through some difficult things in life to be more resilient, which some people wouldn’t always choose to do (although marathons and other hard races are exceptions). Either you get through the hard thing in life and learn and grow from that experience or you dwell on the negatives, hold a grudge, are angry and resentful, or worse yet, bury your feelings deep down inside. Let’s just say I’ve been through more than my share of hard things in life and fortunately I’ve somehow managed to grow and learn from them.

Now let me back up for a second and go back to the first word I chose: driven. I feel like I’ve always been driven to “succeed” in life, whatever succeed even means. Since my mom was a poor single mom, if I wasn’t driven, I never would have gone to college through graduate school and certainly wouldn’t have the job I now have. If I wasn’t driven in my running life, I never would have run a half marathon in all 50 states, which took me 21 years to accomplish.

Realistic is my second word. I chose that word because while I like to think of myself as an optimist, I actually feel like I’m more of a realist. I don’t think everything will always turn out beautifully and perfect and be easy but I do think things will turn out how they’re supposed to and we can influence the path our life takes but not control it 100%. I prefer to do the best I can and rest in the knowledge that I’ve done what I could in life but some things are out of our control. For instance, with running, I’ll put in the hard work to prepare before a race but sometimes just about everything goes wrong on race day (bad weather, upset stomach, course is too crowded/hilly/poorly marked, etc.). Such is life, which is why I go into a race with realistic expectations and adjust my goals accordingly if need be.

I’ve always considered myself a curious person, which is probably why I became a scientist. Without a thirst for knowledge and curious mind, I’d be a terrible scientist. Instead of just accepting things at face value, I’ve always questioned why something is the way it is or what happens when I do this, or add that, or change this part of my experiment. With running, I’ve also been curious about ways to improve or tweak things. What happens when I try a different running plan for my next half marathon? My stomach doesn’t do well with this kind of athletic chew, so what does sit well with my stomach and what seems to give me more energy than others? These running shoes look unique, let me try them and see how they work for me. Sometimes things work out, sometimes they don’t, but I always stay curious and keep learning.

My fourth word is active. When I tell people I plan on retiring early because well, I can, they sometimes say things like, “Oh no! You can’t do that!” When I ask why not, they respond with answers like I would be bored or lose my purpose in life. What they obviously don’t realize about me is that even after I retire, I fully plan on staying active, both physically and mentally. I can’t fathom ever not being active, so in my mind, I’m certainly not going to all of a sudden start lying around on the couch watching Netflix day and night once I’m retired. Currently, I like to run, go for walks and hikes, go standup paddle boarding, do strength training with weights, and practice yoga, just to name the activities I currently do the most. If I didn’t have to work I would have time for even more activities like riding my bike and working in the garden more often. I would also have time to volunteer and mentor more than I currently do plus explore things like painting and other forms of art work.

What five words would you use to describe yourself or what one word do you think most describes you? Choosing just one seemed really tough at first but for me, it’s the one that was my fifth word, resilient.

Happy running!

Donna