Running on Faith

What a wonderful workout today. The temperature was just right and there was no beaming hot sun to drain my energy. Surprise!! I went swimming. Not recreational swimming.  I swam laps for a total of one mile.  It was such a nice break from all the running.

You are probably thinking, “She is doing a Marathon, why is she swimming and not running?”  Well, I like to mix it up.  I try to be well rounded and by swimming, biking and running, it keeps me from getting bored.

I also have an update on Claire.  Her dad said that she is coming home today after five days of Chemo.  He says that she is doing pretty well after five days of it.  That is the most she has had to do. They hope she will be up to going to the City swim meet next week.  Praying for you Claire, brighter days are ahead.

Today Tim and I decided to go run right before it was going to rain. One, it would be cloudy.  Then when it started to rain it would be cooler. I started out first then Tim quickly caught up to me and past me. I only saw him after that when he would lap me.  Good for him because he needs to go fast if he is going to qualify for Boston.

I was running faster and my first two miles were 10-minute miles. I did not even stop.  As of this point no rain just clouds and thunder in one area. The wind started to pick up by mile three and the clouds moved to another area but still no rain.  Mile four  I noticed these clouds circling around me but no rain.  Is Mother Nature playing Duck, Duck, Goose with me and just not picking me?  Well mile 5, I was back at my driveway and the only way I was wet was from sweat.  No, I was not picked in the game of Duck, Duck,Goose.  Maybe next time Mother Nature will let me play.  I did have a great run without the sun beaming down on me.

I am going to make this short and sweet: make a donation today so at least one or two  kids at St. Jude can one day enjoy a game of Duck, Duck, Goose.  Just go to the Donate button and let a child get picked to play.

You probably think I have  been slacking in my workouts. Wrong…I was in Alabama this weekend for Mason’s swim meet, which he did great in. I am so proud. While I was there, Tim and I went for a little run. Three miles in nothing but hills. I really did not think it would be that bad. I mean,I ran the hills at Memphis and I practice on the overpass. Well it was constant up and down with no flats. Two of these hills were straight up. I found myself struggling to get up these big hills. Out of breath and my heart racing,the good thing is that my legs felt good. I felt so out of shape; of course, Ironman Tim takes on these hills like he is walking in the park. That’s my man!!

Tuesday I ran a little over 5 miles nothing exciting. Just heat and sweat and heat. I normally pray while I work out. I pray for lots of things: friends, family, for God to let me make it to the next light pole and for the kids at St. Jude. I have been wanting to have a prayer person at St. Jude to pray for and send letters to but I really have not gotten around to it. Until God intervened that afternoon, when I brought Mason to Gonzales swim, I met a couple whose kids swim with Lara and Mason. Their kids have been swimming with mine for years. I did not know them because the team is 250 kids strong. One of their children has cancer. She is 13 years old and her name is Claire (I am not putting her last name untilI have her parents permission). No, Claire will not swim this summer due to treatments and not feeling well. She just got back from St. Jude Monday. Because of the type of cancer she has radiation can be done at Our Lady of the Lake in Baton Rouge. Hearing her story  made me stop and think. She is Mason’s age and at that point my heart sank just thinking about all the things she will miss and what she will have to go thru. I knew then God had just given me my prayer person. I am going to meet Claire this summer. I will keep you updated. Until then, Claire will be at the top of my prayers when I run.

It’s National Running Day so I decided to run 9 miles this morning in honor of this wonderful day. My IPod was fully charged, fuel belt loaded, and Garmin ready. I look like I was ready for battle. You know: all the ammo on the belt but no gun.

Things were going great until a mile and a half in when I was attacked by a swam or gnats. I escaped with no injuries. I did not even have to worry about a gun because they just hit me and died. Then another swarm hit me. And another one. This just kept on going the whole run. When I stopped to get a drink I looked at my shirt and arms and they where covered in small dead black bugs. I wiped my face and my hands were covered in them. Great, now I am running around the Swaggart Complex with black speckles all over me and my face looks like it had a bad breakout of blackheads. Gross!!

I know I have mentioned the overpass; well, when you are doing long runs that overpass can wear you out. So the last time I crssed it I knew it would be the last time. I was tired but still had 2 miles left and wanted the run to be over. I just kept going.I noticed a tennis ball on the ground when I had about a mile left. Funny I ran by that same spot at least three times and never saw the ball. Anyway, I decided to pick it up and keep running. I know that it is crazy to pick up a good tennis ball while you are running but Tim and I have picked up a Halloween sword before. Anyway, I had a half mile left and I just wanted to be finished. Before I knew it I was tossing the ball from one hand to the other while I ran. It was a great distraction and then I was done.

9 miles running- check, Covered in bugs- check, New tennis ball to sit on my desk- check.

It’s Monday and I chose to run today, so I brought Mason to swim and started getting my stuff together to run. I realized that my  iPod was dead. It became a run with no music.

My run turned out to be very good because I only stopped once in 4.5 miles to drink gator aid. Running without music forced me to hear the sounds of life. At one point it was traffic zooming by on Bluebonnet. The sound of a car horn now and then. Another part on my run was the sound of birds chirpping and the rustle of squirrels in the trees. Now that is what I enjoyed hearing. The slower tempo that God really intended for our lives to be. Not the hurrieness that we make it.

Speaking of tempos my life’s tempo has changed over the last three weeks. I am no longer working for many reasons. One my kids and all of thier activities. I thought it was going to be a summer where I would get to catch up on things at home. Instead I find that I spend most of my time in the car. It is a drop off, pick up scenario that happens 5 times a day all day long. ie. 7 am Mason swim, 11 am pick up Lara, 2 pm drop Lara off at  work, 5:30 bring Mason to swim, 9 pm pick Lara up form work. I am done for the day. Then it starts all over again the next. This will ease up in mid July when Lara gets her license. But until then it is a tempo that I have to get adjusted to.

The one tempo that has remained the same is my running pace. I figure why hurry that part of my life that I can enjoy without a time constraint. As far as the tempo of my life I will just have to follow the beat God provides. I like the birds and squirrels. God is great!

Starting today I get to do all my workouts in the morning when I bring Mason to swim.  Today’s run was around Crawfish Aquatics and the old Jimmy Swaggart Complex.  My run started out as usual: heavy legs, good music and what route to take.

Ran my first mile on the Crawfish side of Bluebonnet before hitting the hill (overpass of Bluebonnet to Swaggart Complex).  I ran past the usual parked 18 wheelers and other vehicles and noticed 3 trucks in a different spot: one white, red and a dark green.  I ran past them.  Really nothing strange about that.  Coming around to head back to the hill and I realized the dark green truck is now parked in a secluded spot away from the others with a man driving.  Too late to run somewhere else.  I was totally in the open.  It sat there as I ran by.  I turned the corner only to have it follow me at  a slow pace.  My first thought was the nearest building with people was  two parking lots away.

So how do I handle stalker man?  I had only run about 3.5 miles so my legs were not dead.  Just good and warmed up, but I know I am not fast.  I could throw my full fuel belt bottles at him.  How juvenile is that?  My only plan was to call 911 on my handy dandy cellular device.  Not much of a plan but I could get some words out that my give the authorities clues.

He finally drove past me and went as far as the 18 wheelers and stopped.   He then started blowing his horn.   Great now I will be out numbered.   I kept running with the thought that I was on church property and maybe I would be spared.   I reached the other side of the parking lot and here comes stalker man.   This time I slowed down and let him go first.   No, I was not running faster than he was driving.   If that were the case I would be qualifying with Tim for Boston.   Stalker man turned left I turned right.   Attack avoided and back to my run.

Headed back to the hill.  You will never guess who was waiting at mile 4  laughing: Horshack from Welcome Back Kotter.  Until I looked around and realized that it was me breathing. Thanks to my allergies my breathing had become his laugh.  You know the wheezing laugh.   I had to walk a bit to get rid of it.   I ran another lap and hit the hill again then back to the car with Horshack on my back.  I was glad no one was around because they would have thought I was dying.

Five miles of running, avoided stalker man, had my moments of impersonation of Horshack and glad I was done.  It is amazing what can happen in less than an hour.

I was never a runner.  In fact, I hated running.  In 2001, I started running because Tim was running.  And that year I did my first race ever, the “Fat Boy 5K”.  It was such a wonderful experience that I quit running after that.

It took a while, but about 5 years ago I started running again thanks to a group of women at the YMCA.  I entered a few 5K’s and actually had fun.  Of course by now, Tim had started doing triathlons and that became a possibility.

After some pestering by my friend, Susan Hayden, I signed up for the 2007 RocketChix triathlon.  I had to learn how to swim laps….a lot of laps.  And it was not pleasant at all.  I also bought I bike and discovered I love to ride.  I finished the RocketChix triathlon and wound up racing in a few more sprint triathlons.

Along the way I continued to run and ride my bike including rides up to 62 miles.  And I also supported Tim in his fundraising for his various charities.  And that is when I decided I wanted to do that.

I signed up for the 2008 St. Jude Marathon and started the team, Running on Faith, to raise money for St. Jude.  And all year long, I was quite literally running on the faith that God would get me through the training and the race.  Only a few weeks before the race, my knee began hurting.  It took a lot of prayers to finish the training and the race….and they worked.  I finished knowing that I had made a difference in a child’s life by being a Hero and raising money.

After that, I went on to complete the Half Ironman Triathlon(1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run) in New Orleans this past April.  This was my first open water swim and first race that long.  It was tough, but I did it!

Through all the training and racing I learned very fast that I cannot do this on my own.  God is with me every step of the way.  He has given me the strength and fight to keep moving forward with the tough training, two teenagers, a husband and a job.  He has also given the children at St. Jude the strength and fight to not give up the hope that one day they will be healed.