A Virtual Run for Sherry Arnold

Shut Up and Run's Original Message

Please see the above. Sherry's cousin says it all much better than I could.

Eyes up...

When I was working at a horse farm for a  year (don't ask), I learned one thing about riding horses. Only one thing. You have to look where you want them to go. I have no idea why this works, but it works. The rider is sitting on the back of the horse, and they train their eyes on an object, and somehow the horse (who clearly must have eyes in the back of his head) knows where it is to go. Of course, there are some other physical things involved with getting the horse to go where you want it to go, but if I heard my equine-oriented friends say it once, I heard them say it a thousand times, "Eyes up! Look where you want him to go."

So I ran eyes up today. 11.51 miles. 2:12.45. And I'm a jackass for not running an extra .11 because that would have put my overall mileage at 70 for the month of January. But that's beside the point. (I'm running 3 on Tuesday, the 31st, that will put me over the edge). The point is that I ran eyes up today.

I tend to look down when I run. I'm guessing that if you saw me moving alongside the road, you might even call me a jogger, although you would likely have no idea how just how offensive that term is to me. I don't have a beautiful stride. My knees don't come up. My heels don't kick back and up. My shoulders aren't back. My arms don't swing the way they probably should. I don't look like any sort of an animal that you'd associated with running. When I run, and I don't see my reflection in the glass or my shadow on the ground, I feel perfect. I feel fast and light and amazing. But if I look at my reflection, I see all the imperfections (and can almost forgive someone for thinking I'm out for a "jog" since most of the world doesn't understand that running is as much a mentality as it is a physical event).

But today, I left the house and decided to look up. I kept my eyes on the horizon for the entire run. One  drawback to this. I like to give cars the ole three-finger, "What's up?" wave when I'm running. I do this largely to get them to make eye contact with me in the hopes that if they make eye contact with me, they won't hit me. It usually works. But running eyes up meant that I couldn't look down at every car that passed.

A positive? It meant that I wasn't looking down to see my shadow so that my uber-critical inner voice could harass me for my running form. I don't know. I'm thinking that if I want to correct my form, I need to start by making some small changes. I strongly doubt I'm ever going to run Kenyan (and I mean that in the most respectful, "Man, if anyone ever told me that I run Kenyan, it would be better than someone telling me that I look like a supermodel" kind of a way. But I did notice when I ran with my eyes up that it kept me much more oriented on where I was heading than dwelling on every ache and pain I was having in that moment.

Maybe the horses know something I don't.

Do you know Sherry Arnold?

If you don't, you should.

She was a teacher. A mother. A runner.

She set out from her house on an early January Saturday morning at 6:30 in Sidney, Montana to do her routine run, and she didn't come back home. They found one of her running shoes.

The FBI arrested two men for aggravated kidnapping, and they believe that she is dead and have asked farmers to search their fields for her body.

I am angry. Surprisingly few stories make me feel sick to my stomach, but this one hits so close to home. Saturday morning run. A mom. A teacher. A runner.

I look over my shoulder when I run now. I don't know what I expect to see, but on the two-mile stretch of country road on my routine route, I run a little scared. I wonder if the feeling will pass. I wonder if it should.

I ran past a couple of guys standing in a driveway chatting the other night. They looked a little rough around the edges, I judged. (Yes, I judged. Because when you are scared, you sometimes make snap judgements.) And I wondered whether I would be better off greeting them or acting like I hadn't seen them. Would it make a difference?

Put on a pair of shoes and walk out the door. Sure, you can get all geared up (trust me, I have the gear), but the beauty of it is that you don't have to. And I, a woman, someone, anyone really should be able to walk out the door and run without having to even think about running scared.

I don't know how to think about this. When I run, though, I don't want to think about this. That's the point of running. And perhaps the best way to remember Sherry Arnold is to keep on running.

1:43...9 miles. 40:something...4 miles.

It's been a decent running  week. My goals for training for the Flying Pig largely involve consistency. So I give myself five stars for a week if I manage to get in two runs during the week and then a Saturday and Sunday run. This week was a four star week--one run during the week and then the Saturday and Sunday runs happened. One of the hardest parts about starting a marathon training program post-baby is recognizing that having a two-year-old baby means that you have to make choices between training and family time, and family time is often going to win.

4 miler--Jessie Beam Frozen Four Mile
We entered a benefit race on Saturday morning for a student who had a serious infection this fall, and the money from the run was going to benefit the family. It was supposed to start at 9:34, but we had a snow fall on Friday that actually caused the course and park to be too frozen for the run. Irony. The race started at 1:30.

For me, it was a decent run for where I am right now. Something like 10:12 average for the run. I was cold. It was on gravel paths. I started out a little fast, so my third mile was my slowest. Low point? The finish. Some chick decided to step in front of me right when we were crossing the finish line. Okay, let's take a moment here. First, it's a benefit race, and I was placing 123rd overall, so neither she nor I were going to take home any hardware. Second, I'm not actually sure that she stepped in front of me, but the guy at the finish line said that she did. I'm too stinking competitive, really. A) She's a jackass for pulling that nonsense at the finish line and b) I look like a jackass if I complain about it because if it really doesn't matter, then why should I care?

Sunday long run...9 miles
We are all sick. Ruby started on Thursday. Kevin started on Friday night. I started on Saturday. Saturday night was misery for us all. Ruby was up for most of the night because when she wasn't up, she was coughing. And when she coughed, she ended up nearly vomiting or vomiting because her cough was so strong. So by Sunday morning, I think I had had about four hours of sleep. Kevin was on the couch coughing. I just wanted to curl up in bed. But, as I told Kevin, when you've committed to a marathon, you don't get the luxury of skipping a long run. So I strapped on the shoes and headed out the door.

There isn't really much of consequence to report other than that I covered the distance. This week's head game was to count to 1,000 steps (yes, you read that correctly) and then take a one-minute walk break to fuel up with water or gel. That worked really well up until about mile 7 and then I started to feel run down and took breaks after 500 steps.

I must not have been in really awful shape at the end of the run because I was able to do the math (amazing how the ability to do math has become my fatigue gauge over the years) and figured out that if I hold that pace (11:24) for the marathon, I'm looking at a five-hour marathon. My PR for the marathon is 4:31, and my PW is probably in the 5:25 range if you don't consider the times on my Ironman marathons (I have no clue what those were right now). I'd rather be in the 4:45 range. I've got to get my pace down to at least an 11 minute mile to do that. I ran a 2:29:20 half marathon in October. Hmmm. Maybe, for right now, I should say I'm shooting for sub-5.

Now, where's that cold medicine?

55 in January...pretty sweet

Ran 8 miles today. It's the end of the first week of marathon training for the Flying Pig full marathon in Cincinnati at the beginning of May. I'm slow as hell. But I'm in hella better shape then when I re-started my running career last June in prep for the Indianapolis half-marathon in October. So that's good news.

I haven't done much (any) writing in nearly two years on this blog. I haven't done much racing. I've done much other stuff. But I've missed here. I've really missed running. As cliched as it may sound, it is who I am. I am a runner.

Today's run was one of those days when I get a half mile down the road and realize it isn't going to be slow, it isn't going to be fast, it isn't going to feel bad, it isn't going to feel good, and the wheels aren't going to fall off the bus. It's just a run. So it's funny that a run of such little excitement merits my first post in two years. I'm shifting the focus of this blog, though, to be solely on running and training.

New shoes coming. And they are pink. That's about it.