Just let me run!

I should probably be pounding out some hydrocarbon nomenclature right now-- not tapping out a blog post, but I did sign up to be Ms. Tuesday, and hopefully I can make up some of the ground I lost not following through on that the last few weeks!

Everything's crazy this year. I know, I know. When is a student/athlete's life not crazy? But there's something different this year. Last year we worked our butts off, ran in dusty, sunny 90s and sloshy, flurry-filled 30s, and finished 4th in the nation. Which we still got trophies for! Who gives trophies to the top 4? Don't get me wrong- last year was great. I couldn't believe I was running with such talented, driven people, or hanging out with a team who loved each other and loved running so much.

But I think I speak for everyone when I say, we're hungry for more.

For me personally, it's a season where I just want to see what God's going to do. I want to talk to him, hear his voice, run with him, let his joy become my strength. I want to see how far he'll take us when we run for his glory. I want to see what his strength can do when ours runs out.

I want to run.

the the unfortunate news of Mr. Zucchini Monster's passing

a collection of convo's and thoughts:
-I've started telling myself that Tuesday yoga from Dr. Weber is a 4-for-one: stretching, strengthening, balance, afternoon nap. I'm grateful for the subsidized service.
-I ran into Mark Moschetti today! He was right about to go for a run on the Burke. In addition to very kindly congratulating me on my Western Invite race & asking about my foot, he mentioned our upcoming challenge of breaking up Alaska Anchorage. We talked about Conference & our excitement for it! Mark makes me smile; the man is a dear (I'm not talking about the animal kind)
-Speaking of Conference competition, Jane gave us a well-informed report, based on racing the AA ladies at Pre-Reg. She said that once more teams (including women on our squad) are racing together, their once-intimidating pack of 5 will be broken up. Jane also found them easier to catch on the hills, esp the downhills. Also, she said that they were being coached through the whole race. In fact, she estimated that Western would be a tougher target.
-Jane believed that our workouts will have prepared us well for the terrain of Golden Gate Park (Reg race). Erika points out the similarities between our workouts and our future races, and we have the privilege of having many parks & surfaces to choose from. Ex- the Ravenna hill is quite a bit like the Apple Ridge hill.
-and the unfortunate news (it's a little belated):
Mr. Zucchini Monster (camp prank) has passed away due to neglect :(
I'm sure he will make very lovely soil in his next life, courtesy of Ceder Grove Compost, but he will not be re-appearing as next year's prank.

Thur. 10/08/09

Yay! I've finally caught up with all you faithful bloggers! =) Thanks so much for getting this going and sharing such wonderful and heart-filled stories. I am so blessed to have each of you as teammates and friends - and am especially thankful for your attitude/focus on God. It really encourages and challenges me to recenter my mindset and goals on Christ.

Just a quick little synopsis about today:
Another beautiful early October morning at Discovery Park for a 7am fartlek. Marg's favorite workout at Marg's favorite place! :) and Mary got to wear her glasses today instead of contacts because she had chemistry lab later ;) [she was quite pleased about it really]. Anyway, it was a beautiful morning and while everyone else did their workout, I got to walk around the park and eat blackberries and watch out for their guard-spiders! :) [Don't worry, I did a hard bike workout and weights when we got back...] It sounded like most everyone had a really good workout - Kate was starting to feel a little more like herself, Kelsey's knee didn't bother her at all, Natty still felt good, Kassandra said she felt good... all in all, it was a very positive morning. We did miss Lisa who was not feeling well, and the pre-regional racers who decided to sleep in...
Kayla and Lauren also had an amazing workout later this morning - they did this same workout last week, only this week they covered a lot more distance! i.e. they were running a lot faster! Yay ladies! :)

I have been feeling a lot better this week - my foot has been making great improvements! I can now walk almost indefinitely without pain, and I was even able to do some light elyptical last night! So that is a huge praise! So Please keep praying!!

I would write more, but I think I'll go to bed instead. But cadre was really good tonight! Natty brought part of a sermon from her pastor which was really good! It was about integrating our faith with our work, not keeping them separate, and how God is honored when we work hard and do our best in our work - including running, homework, etc. (Col. 3:23) There was more to it than just that, but that was the #1 part that stuck out to me. We bring glory to God by doing our best at whatever we're doing - even the mundane things like studying for a lab exam, or xtraining... :)

More later! Love you all!

Emerald City Invite and that gorgeous fall day

It was a beautiful September morning, and we spent it at the park, in each other’s company- wonderful! Seemed like the stepdown went well for most people. Jess & Lisar hit the track a bit afterwards- those speedsters! Thankfully, Kelsey had a good workout too, now that time & Active Release are getting her quite healed up. I did a race pace lap around Greenlake and even though I’m bummed that I made the mistake at ending before 3mi, I’m happy about how my time trial went b/c mile splits were very close. Mary & I had a nice warmdown lapping talking about how God works through the act & metaphor of running :] I love the support & freedom of expression that this team provides when it comes to spirituality. We can share what’s on our hearts and minds without fear.

Quite a few Falcon Fans came to the meet! Marie & Steph, from last year’s team, the Lerums, and Lauren’s boyfriend, Jaime. Also, we happened to see a few FRC campers doing a workout! The high & low reviews of the meet from the women’s team stick out to me- Kayla’s appraised the race as ‘great’ and Madel as ‘torturous’ (I summarized).

But to be honest, the biggest recent event of all is that *Mary now has a mobile*

Oh yea, and I don’t know if she was informed of this, but Jess’ former high school team (well, the boys team) lost to Bro’s high school team this week. Just gotta brag on the Bro-man! But he was really happy about their team & his individual performance, and that makes me happy too. Kinda fun that it happened to occur in a race against Jess’ team. (Nope, it would not have been possible for me to make my entries in the blog for the whole season w/o mentioning Bro at some point ;)

Hello Fellow Flocking, Blogging Falcons!!

So my day for blogging is technically Mondays. And I actually did write most of an entry on Monday night, but I didn't finish it because I just didn't like the direction it was going in.... I was writing about Stanford and just couldn't quite articulate my myriad feelings without sounding like a person who needs serious counseling. But my feelings were real and I think the sort of thing one should share on a blog. So I've modified what I wrote a bit, and here are some of my thoughts on the epic event of Stanford.

I tasted a little bit of hell and a little bit of heaven. Dramatic, I know. But allow me to explain myself...

It was a fantastic opportunity to race in a notorious Division I cross country meet such as the Standford Invite. Kind of a big deal. It was amazing; it was exciting; it was epic. Jessica, Jane, Lisa, and Mary all had really stellar races. They seriously all ran amazingly. There was a lot to be proud of and a lot to be grateful for and a lot of guts and sweat spilled over the course of six kilometers. As for me, the last of those statements would apply to me: a lot of guts and sweat spilt. And I probably left a little of my pride on the course too.

I think there were a few things contributing to how crappy--with a captial C, R,A,P,P, and Y--I felt but that is not what I am here to speculate about (though I can do the best I can to learn about what to do differently and what/how to fix) and there's no need to burden you with a long saga about how I'm going to mold that bad experience into motivation and hard work (with God's help).

Now let me explain what I meant by the whole heaven and hell statement. There have been times in my life where I have felt something--either strongly or subtlely--and had a thought/feeling/intuition that that was a glimpse of true Joy or Misery. During my race I felt mentally and physically broken down, and that was hellish enough in itself. But the real hell came in the subsequent overwhelming emotions. I felt worthless. Mainly, I felt huge remorse like I had disappointed my team, my coach, my parents, and myself. I felt unreliable. I felt so much remorse that I could hardly hold it all in. I wanted to scream and sob and run off alone for hours and hours. I did run off alone--but only for a handful of minutes--to the nearby large grassy field for warming up, where I threw off my shoes (Golden Arm can use her skills for unhealthy throwing too) and laid down under a tree and cried until a high school boys team ran past and I pretended like I wasn't having a break down but rather was just enjoying the shade of that lovely tree. Once they had gone by I started beating myself up again.

Goodness, you'd think I was a teenager in the depths of hormonal puberty with all this dramatic weeping going on. But I just had to get it all out before I could start sorting it all out in my mind and move on with life. And move on in a way that I would take what had happened and learn from it.

And here the glimpse of heaven comes in. I went back and found my teammates and we started cooling down together. I had gotten most of my frustrations out and had a level head by now. I ran with Jane and she encouraged me a lot and gave me some uplifting words. I really appreciated that. I was still pretty down though. We finished jogging and all started to stretch, do strides, etc. More encouraging and uplifting and optimistic words came, none of which down-played how bad I had done, which I appreciated and thought it was important that no one said, "You didn't do THAT bad" or "Don't worry about it, it doesn't really matter." Thanks in part to having such intelligent and capable teammates, the words were constructive and helpful rather than fluff and cliche. They encouraged me to seek out what I could learn from my race, and to use it as motivation to work even harder. What especially sticks out is Jessica reminding me of one of the core Christian messages. Christianity is about the paradoxical possibility of good emerging from bad, of redemption in the midst of despondency. Christ is the embodiment of hope. And redemption. And second chances (and third and fourth and seven-thousandth... Though I realize there is no time--and I have no desire to--have that many chances at a bad race. NO MORE!)

Then, the most powerful and memorable moment occured. We circled together and prayed; the five of us there, in sports bras and running shorts, sticky from all the dried sweat on our skin, California sun beating down on us from above, golf course grass beneath our feet; talking to God and just telling God how we felt, our hopes, our disappointments; pouring out our hearts in thanks, things just kept being brought to our mind of the many many many reasons we had to be filled with gratitude and praise of our Good God Above. But maybe not so "above"--God's presence was there with us, right among us, smack dab in the middle of our sweaty little circle and all of our hearts. I love those four girls prety dang much; but I felt like the Holy Spirit increased my capability to love right then, and my insides were burning with how strongly I felt for all of them. That love, that joy, that overwhelming assurance that God had us, and has us, in the palm of God's hand--THAT was, to me, a glimpse of heaven.

Shoe 4 Africa

Hey ladies!

Check this link out-- http://shoe4africa.org/sendshoes.htm. 

Is this something we want to donate to towards cadre? Or maybe just do a little shoe drive through our own team and maybe even SPU?

The Green Lake Buddy Run!!

This morning's cool, cloudy weather set the perfect atmosphere for an "intense" Buddy Run competition...okay, so maybe the GL Buddy Run isn't the biggest workout of the year, but it is still a fun tradition. This boy-girl partnering is one of the few times our workout is really integrated across the entire spectrum of athletes. Yes, Jess and Jane run with the guys during many workouts, but this time everyone got to mingle. I love the element of luck involved too. Now, those who won the smallest time gap and closest to predicted overall time prizes might not want to admit it, but it really is a matter of luck/chance. (I was pretty excited - I just took a wild guess on the overall time and was actually close enough for second place!)

I think a lot of the Stanford folks were still feeling a bit run down (at least I know I was), but that is sort of what this week is all about - being tired/not fresh but still getting the work done.

Kelsey and Natty were both able to run with us today!!! Praise the Lord! It was so great to have you two out there again. =) We really missed you.

Also, a little side-note...something I've been thinking about a lot since after Stanford is how much of running is mental. I know I have always known that that element is important, but I still usually focus so much on how my legs are feeling that I usually don't consider it enough. My goal for the rest of the season is to really remember the mental side of running all the time, in practices especially, so that when the races come, I'm ready.

Here's a little motivation for everyone: 23 Days to GNAC
what we do everyday until then counts!!!! Keep your eyes on the prize ladies...and start visualizing yourself passing an Alaskan-African or a white/blue Viking... (today, I pretended Kate was the "Rockstar" girl :P and i sang 'party like a rockstar'....haha. it helped)