Stroke, Float, Sink...Repeat

The cold weather is slowly setting in throughout the Southwest over here in the good-old UK.  Barefoot running is more like numb foot running and my hips are acting up to much for me to even enjoy the sport at the moment so my runs have become minimal.  So I am trying to make the pool my friend at least once a week to take the pressure of my joints while I get the blood flowin and the heart pumpin.

Problem is...the water and I aren't friends or really even associates yet.  We have this weird relationship.  If I don't visit the pool on a regular and consistent basis then when I do get in I feel as if she is going to swallow me whole and then spit me out.  It's like she is back handing me and making me feel bad for cheating on her with the rowing machine or free weights.  I then feel I need to tell her it's not her...but me.  My confidence in the still body of water is still minuscule.  I can kick and stroke but not for very long or very far and if I can't put my feet on the floor then I don't go in...PERIOD.

However, that has to change because I have gotten this crazy idea in my head that I want to learn how to row next year and I want to join the Bristol women's rowing club.  But to take the learn how to row class I need to be able to swim 100 meters in light clothes - makes sense if I am to be in a BOAT in the middle of a BODY of WATER.

Now some of you might be thinking "Why would you want to learn to row if you don't necessarily like the water?"  Answer: "Why the hell not?"  See I miss a team sometimes.  I miss the camaraderie between teammates and the fun of being active with a group of people.  Plus, it's a good way of making friends in a new place where I am still learning the local ways of...making friends.  Besides, it just looks cool.

I mean let's face it - I taught myself to run long distances even when doctors told me I might not be able to even walk properly again.  I jumped out of a plane twice in one day attached to another person.  I got myself on a bike at age 27 and learned to not fall of.  I made myself get in the water and learned to at least get my feet off the floor and kick not long after.  I even found myself on a side of a mountain in snow on a new years morning with no crampons and a bad fear of heights, and got back down without killing myself.  So I figure if I can get myself to make the water my friend then I can find myself one day in the middle of a lake in a row boat with 5 other women working up a sweat and getting some definition back into my shoulders and back.

Today I got back into the pool.  Second time in two weeks.  I said hi to the water, took a deep breathe, and pushed off the wall all by myself.  I had Mike stand next to me instead of in front and I made it down and back again - stopping only 7 (ok maybe 8) times.  6 lengths total which is a nice start for me.  It's a shallow pool. I still have problems learning how to breathe, and my body gets tired quick with the new movements but dammit I will be able to swim 100 meters in light clothes so I can at least see if I can learn how to row a bit farther.  I'll keep you updated.

Oh and HAPPY AMERICAN THANKSGIVING to all...and to all a good day.

Storytelling

My dad was a man who use to tell stories.  Stories oozed from his lips like smoke from a cigarette.  Long drawn out stories from days gone past, my dad taught me about life through his elaborate tales.

I learned how to drink by listening to my dad recall his days of old.  My favorite? The time he says him and  two friends "accidentally" drank his grandpas potato moonshine.  From the "old country" my dad's grandpa liked to brew his own drink. To great-granddad beer was always room temperature and alcohol always homemade.  My dad was a skinny red head who didn't realize the difference between moonshine and regular vodka.  The only thing he remembered was drinking in the basement of his grandpas house and then waking up in his room in a rocking chair naked.  His car was on the front lawn and the front door wide opened.  His dad asked him what the hell happened and my dad replied "Well I was drinking grandpas vodka.."  His dad cut off by saying "that shit is pure moonshine.  Surprised your not dead."  The hangover lasted 3 days.  Lesson: Don't drink shit you don't know.  Easy enough.

My dad also taught me the fine art of enjoying my liquor.  To him a good woman should know how to drink whiskey straight and play blackjacks.  When I was 10 he sat me down with his good Jack Daniels cards (ones we were NEVER allowed to touch without him being present) and instructed me on the fine art of blackjack.  He showed me when to hit and when to call, and tried to guide me in the practice of bluffing (or what it also know as bullshitting).  These transferable skills of bullshitting are ones  I call upon often in academic writing.  I use my understandings of whiskey on the weekends to recover from the bullshitting performed during the week.

I also learned to appreciate the musical artform known as country.  A hard core country (and Elvis) listener, my dad always had 99.5 US 99 blasting from the radio on all car trips.  Brooks and Dunn, Garth Brooks, Wynona Judd, Reba MacEntire, and Trais Tritt were all some of my favorite singers in the 80s and 90s.  As the years went on I leaned away from my country roots, letting the opinions of others influence my music preference.  But then I moved to the South and my relationship with country was mended.  One of my dad's proudest moments was when I called him to tell him I bought my first real pair of cowboy boots at a cowboy store in Baton Rouge.  He told me "good job" and then proceded into another story about his first part of cowboy boots.  Apparently they were a bitch to break in and the first few times he put them on he looked like he was crapping his pants cause he was walking so bad.  So his advice was to start off small and break them in.

Being a know-it-all I didn't really listen to the story and its lesson until it was to late.   I was on the streets of New Orleans during Halloween in so much pain all the whiskey in the world wouldn't cure.  I still have the scares of the multiple blisters that appeared on my feet that night.  But I broke them damn boots and have been stompin in them every since.

I loved my dad's stories as they took me to other places and times.  When I was kid all I could every dream about was getting out of the Southside of Chicago and into the world.  Books, school and my dad's stories let me escape.  When he died I decided I needed to stop living in book and through his stories and make some stories of my own.  So I took a little backpacking trip to Guatemala 6 months after the funeral and it was there, in the back of a chicken bus on a old mountain road that I realized something that I have kept special in my heart to this very day.

I realized that I am my father's daughter...and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Running Barefoot

I went for a run yesterday.  My first in almost 3 weeks.  I had to...my body was aching for it and my mind could not focus without it.  In my last post I talked about being more gentle with my body so I was suppose to lay off the roads and trails for a while and hit the yoga mat with some new found enthusiasm.  Needless to say that lasted a whole...week.  Something was missing from my life but I didn't really realize it was running per se until I picked up a book.

That book was Born to Run and my love of, and desire for, running came back in full force.  You know what had me?  The second chapter when Christopher Mc Dougall went in search of the answer to the question "Why does my foot hurt?"  I have been asking that same damn question over and over again for months (along with why does my hip, lower back, knee hurt as well).  I almost bought into the idea I have been told over and over again by doctors, friends, and trainers since I was 22 that my body just isn't built for running.  Almost that is until I opened up this book and soaked up the story that Chris (yea we are on a first name basis now) unfolds in Born to Run.

Chris and I have a few things in common - we are both 6'3" and weigh around the same (240lbs - yea I said it).  While Chris is a middle-aged white male who writes for various men's magazines and sports journals and I am a late-20s mixed race female who is writing a dissertation, I felt a bond with Chris while reading his story.  We are connected by our body type: our height and weight somehow makes our bodies "wrong" to other people, in various ways, when it comes to running.  Like Chris I was also recommended to take up swimming or biking (both sports that I only recently learned how to do and do not do very well).  Years of playing high school and college volleyball left me sick to death of team sports and a herniated disc made me have an aversion to any kind of jumping.  All that aside I just like the feeling of throwing on some shoes, getting outside and having my body move at a faster than walking pace for a long duration of time.  My first half marathon in Prague this year left me not only sore but happy - a genuine happiness that didn't fade, even when my hip flared up at mile 10.   I was just happy to be there and be able to move with other people around me.  In my training I found myself a little giddy after an hour of running as my body was just moving in this fluid (well maybe not fluid but let's just go with that) motion for long periods of time (or what seems like a long time for me).

So long story short the book got me thinking about the benefits of barefoot running.  If Chris could go from being a tall big guy with a bad case of planter fasciities to running a gruelling 50 mile race with some of the best ultramarathon runners in the US and Mexico's Tarahumara people, and finish that race in one piece, by learning barefoot running then why not try it (or give a go as the Brits say).

Give it a go I did - kind of on accident.  Yesterday I went to the gym and took off for an outdoor run to the nearby open grasslands.  I started off in shoes cause I was still a little skeptical (plus the concrete and broken glass didn't leave me to thrilled about starting in bare feet).  But after only 5 minutes of running in those neutral cushioned shoes my right Achilles felt like it was going to tear and my right hip was getting that first tingling of discomfort.  So I broke into a walk for 4 minutes and started again with a light run.  This time the pain was instant and I was pissed.  I stepped off the walking path onto the grass, took off my shoes and socks,  placed a shoe in each hand and...took off.  I just ran.  Slow at first but as the minutes passed my confidence grew until I was running at a pace I hadn't run at in 4 years.  And you know what, it felt good.  I scared myself at one point cause it felt so good and I was going so fast that I just stopped and looked around. I was't out of breathe and my legs didn't feel like cinder blocks.   Damn - it actually worked.  It worked so well that I didn't realized I ran in the wrong direction and had to stop to figure out where the hell I was.

I put my shoes back on so I could take the marked gravel road and trotted on back the gym parking lot and arrived just as Mike was leaving.  I gave him a huge smile and said "I just went barefoot running!"  He said "Oh, how did it go?"  My reply "Amazing!" I felt like a kid again and for the first time in months I actually ENJOYED going out for a run.  But with the cold months coming I am looking into a more minimal shoe or the five finger shoes.

What I do know is it looks like I just brought my running, and sexy, back.

Gentle

While I was in yoga class today attempting to "relax" into a side bending, squatting, stretching pose (don't ask me the name cause I don't have a clue) I had a revelation.  I don't think it was the big  "Enlightenment" but rather a small "enlightenment" that made me realize I need to be much gentler with myself.   Let me explain.


Over the years I have engaged in numerous sporting events.  Basketball and softball throughout high school and volleyball all through college.  I attempted rugby at one point and considered playing football (American) during these times as well.  The list of injuries I accumulated is a never-ending one: concussion (I mean who slides into a brick wall instead of home plate?), sprained ankles, dislocated fingers, busted nose, strained shoulder, and one broke back and dead leg.  But I always thought, well I seem to heal fast so what the hell - just keep going.


Then somewhere in the back of my mind I realized that maybe team sports were not the way to go.  College volleyball wore me out, mentally and physically, and the thought of having to be on one more team with one more bitchy coach left a bad taste in my mouth. So I turned to running.


Running.  A sport of individuality that can be done in a group but you compete on your own. No fancy equipment really needed, just some decent shoes and breathable clothes, open space and on you go. But, that back injury and dead leg thing from my college days stayed with me throughout my running.  Once that was somewhat under control I then developed...fuckin sciatica!  So now I can put that to the list of injuries along with a tight IT band on my left side and a pinch nerve in my right shoulder (who in the hell pinches a shoulder nerve in running?  I do) and tense neck muscles.  Essentially I am verging (or am I already there) on being a HOT...ASS...MESS.


Today in yoga as my body protested with every upward dog, downward dog, side bend, back bend, kneeing and sitting posture it hit me that I need to be more gentle with myself.   Gentle is a word I don't use when describing my relationship with myself.  I go hard or go home - not use to any other way of understanding how to do things.  I powered through my education, never stopping on the quest to a PhD and I am making my deadline of finishing before 30.  I powered through grief of loosing my dad and of trying to loose all the weight it took me years to put on.  Now I am fully aware that my body just can't power through another damn run or gym session when it is obviously telling me to slow (or sit) the fuck down and chill out.  I think it is time to listen this time around.


So I am re-evaluating my physical activity goals and giving myself a bit more flexibility in my time frame for all those competitions I want to do.  I am keeping up this yoga thing cause "everyone" tells me it is good for my body and mind.  Even though I wanted to throw up and sit down at the same time while in class today I have to agree.  Come on, where else would I learn that I not only have tight hamstrings, tight hips, tight groin muscles but ALSO tight ankles (to the degree where me and child's pose are not even associates yet) and then LEARN how to "breathe" into the tightness to loosen it up?  


I could easily say F it and go back to what I know - pounding the roads and hitting the weights hard but...I really don't want to.  And that is a good thing I think.  Self-realization is a bitch, but when you actually start listening to your body the things it tells you are amazing.  So simple, yet so true.  That simplicity is what I forget sometimes.  Of course it makes more sense for me to take a few months and focus on my flexibility and hit the pool and bike to take the stress off my joints and nerves.  Of course it makes more sense for me NOT to train for my first marathon and run it while I am are also writing and scheduled to defend my dissertation so I can graduate after 12 years of higher education.  Of course it makes sense to practice activities that calm my mind so I can handle the current and impending stress.  But as my dad use to say...not all sense is common and not all people have sense. 

Work Plan

The hardest thing about writing a dissertation is trying to do to much.  I had a rough last week with overwhelming stress from writing and feelings of neglecting work and running.  This weekend I spent mostly in my house on my couch physically and mentally exhausted.  Downloading songs to run to from the 90s and early 2000s made me think back to times when I was less in my head and more in the moment.  It's amazing how powerful music is on the psyche and after an intensive downloading session Sunday afternoon I began to understand that I need to re-evaluate my work plan

So what is this work plan you ask?  Well, basically I don't need to do so much.  Period.  It really is simple in theory but harder in execution.  I am not writing a masterpiece and I don't want to. I actually can't stand the damn dissertation and once I am done want to go in a different research trajectory anyway.  This is not unusual  - after you spend anywhere from 5-10 years on a research project it essentially gets old and you move onto other interests.  I prefer to look more at economic inequality and the effects government policies have on disadvantaged communities if I were to take a research focused job.  I also prefer to write books - still figuring out what kind but I have an idea and a basic outline on paper for when I am finished with the dissertation.  Hell I wouldn't even mind writing speeches of press releases as long as I was able to use my brain and writing skills for some type of betterment of society.

But in the meantime I have to get my work plan in order.  Once running started to feel like another thing I needed to do I knew I had taken this school thing a bit to far.  Let's be real  - I am technically still a student and so I am technically still learning how to be a PhD.  The last step is learning how to write up a research project in a longer format than is really necessary.  Nothing more.  

But reality is setting in and once Mike has a job I will able to stop my current one and focus solely on finishing this degree.  Until that happens I know I need to calm my body and mind so I am starting yoga once again.  And I am practising on my breathing.  It's funny how the most basic thing a human needs to survive is one of the hardest things to learn how to do effectively.  

I can be dramatic, but last week was more than me being a dramatic Leo. It was a wake up call.  To slip in and out of depressive states at such an intensive rate is giving into the meanings other attach to life and not my own.  Lets be real - I don't want to do that.  When it comes down to it I want to listen to music, run in the woods, write in comfort and live a life that I can enjoy.  So I hope you all can enjoy a little bit of the music that reminded me of the joy of life this weekend.  

Suffocating

You ever get that feeling of suffocating?  You know when you throat starts to slowly close and your breathe becomes short.  When you can't seem to focus and all you want is one full gasp of air.  I sometimes feel like I am suffocating.  Like I can't just get a full intake of air.  My body is constantly tense, my neck a tight mess.  The feeling of being trapped takes over and I just want to scream and run out...run out, but I don't know where.

I don't write here alot anymore because my days are filled with endless writing for school and work.  By the time I am done I am so mentally and physically tired my body reacts with feelings of nausea and fatigue.  With headaches and body pain.  I finally saw a specialist for my pain.  I hoped it would just be a muscular imbalance, but he gently explained it was actually a mental and emotional one.  By body is reaching out to me and telling me to stop. The constant ache does not go away, but rather is there day after day...after day, reminding me that I need to stop and try to play.  But I am forgetting how - and I don't know when I will be able to really just sit, relax, and allow my body and mind the rest it needs.

I don't want to call it a depression...I guess I am in a recession.  That downward spike that will naturally occurs in any economy when there has been too many years of excess.  I don't know when that excess occurred but it must have -  I think.  If not then maybe I am preparing myself for a new horizon..a new game...a new something.  But for now I try and keep me head up high enough so that I can gasp the air I need now and then.

 I go back and forth with the idea of yoga - can I really fit in something else?  Can I try and learn something new?  Will this be the answer to my pains?  Will this allow me to become enlightened?  To find my direction?  No...I am already seeing my running as another chore, another thing I must "do".  Most of the time I just want to Fuck It and start anew.  Start anew.  Start anew.  I think I just want someone to talk to...

Birthday

I turn 29 Saturday.  Twenty flippin nine...and I'm still in school.  I've been in school since the age of 3 so my mother tells me.  Non-stop I have had a book in my face and a pencil/pen/keyboard in my hands.  As I near the end of this long (and I do mean long) relationship with education I find myself a bit confused and whole lot of tired.

Writing, that is all I do.  I wake up, get a cup of herbal tea, open my laptop, check the email/Facebook/newspapers for an hour and then start writing.  Sometimes I don't know what the hell I am writing, but I do know just seeing the page numbers increase makes me feel like I am doing something.  I treat it as another job - do something for at least 6-7 hours in the day, preferably between the hours of 9 and 5 and then stop.  Problem is I am also working in a "real" job that to requires me three days a week to do something in front of the computer, preferably between the hours of 9 and 5.  Balancing the work with school dissertation writing is already proving to be a bit to much, but what can you do when both need to get done and without one the other is just not as meaningful.

But this post is about my birthday.  I'm turning 29 in case you forgot - don't worry I do as well sometimes.  And...I'm still in school.  I don't know why but this is bothering me a bit more than usual.  I will graduate next May come hell or high water.  I can't stomach the thought of going into my 30s still in school, not taking a break since the age of 3.  It's like a bad haircut that you thought was the shit but over time realize that its a pain in the ass to up keep, expensive to boot, and the appeal start to slowly wear off making you just want to shave your head and start again.

I don't know what I want to do with my life if I am being honest.  I saw an education as way out.  A way out of the Southside, out of the State, out of my life.  I saw education as the ticket to a better life where I would be able to understand what was going on around me and contribute in a fruitful way rather than turn up another statistic.  Hell, so far education has lived up those expectations - I did get out and in the process traveld to places I would never had imagined, took up sports I deemed to be for other people not like me, met a man I would have never come across and moved to another country where I do have a part time job that has me knee-deep in politics, race equality and community activism.  Shit...I really couldn't have asked for much more.

But I am tired and it is wearing on me mentally and physically.  Education got me to where I am now, but I don't know if education will be able to get me to where I want to be.  That may sound weird cause really having the education is opening up my eyes to all the possibilities in front of me so I guess it will always get me to where I want to be, but I am not sure if that will leave me into the academy after I graduate next May.  The dream of being a professor is not there anymore and as I approach 30 the feeling gets stronger and stronger that the dreams of my 20s are quickly changing and morphing into new dreams for my 30s,  That is a little scary, but overall exciting as who in the hell know what will happen.

I feel as if I am saying the same thing over and over, but it is like I have to in order to get it into my head that it's ok to change - physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.  I am still trying to come to terms with my physical changes and have just now realised I was self sabotaging myself every time I was getting closer to my "dream" goal size/ability.  I don't want to do the same with my career goals - I spent to damn long in school and racked up to much debt to allow that to happen. (Again Sam if you can help me with the to, too situation I would be very appreciative)

 So...I turn 29 on Saturday and all I want are good vibes and good times.  I want to reassure myself that I can finish this dissertation and that I can start a new career path, whatever that may be.  I can "not be in school" and I look forward to that day.  I don't expect some rosy life is easy picture to magically emerge once I leave school and enter into a job, but I do expect something different that still challenges me mentally.  As I leave my 20s I want to leave behind a lot of the insecurities and self doubt that plagued me and welcome my thirties with an open mind and heart.