New Column: The Most Important Mile of My Life
The last mile of Ironmother was not the best mile of my life, but it is definitely in the top 3. And I love that this picture captures how gratitude oozes from my pores, something I feel after nearly every mile.
The run Katherine and I did on a random weekday morning in preparation for the 2007 Nike Women’s Marathon, was almost over, but we were supposed to bookend the four miles with four strides, short bursts of gradually increasing speed. On the fourth stride, my heel didn’t exactly crack, but I imagine it splintered, like a shell of a hard-boiled egg does when you lightly tap it.
I knew immediately I was injured. With a capital “I.”
While those strides weren’t quite a mile, the four laps up and down the path drew a big crack in my life: on one side, pre-stress fracture and on the other, post-stress fracture (SF).
Pre-SF: I was training to sprint away from post-partum depression (which, in a lovely twist of fate, turned out to be “regular” depression that chases me almost daily); to feel like I was more than the sum of my mundane chores (wash bottles; write five-ways-to-lose-10-pounds-in-1-week articles that I knew were BS but paid the bills; bake chicken nuggets; sing “backpack, backpack” a la Dora about 4,000 times a day); to cement a friendship that I sensed was as vital to my well-being as meds were; to prove that 26.2 and motherhood weren’t mutually exclusive terms.
Post-SF: I had a choice. I could stop moving, heal up, and maybe hit another marathon. (Which, let’s be honest, wasn’t going to happen.) Or, every morning, I could take off my monster black boot, fasten on a much slimmer, albeit uglier, orthotic, stiff-soled shoe, and pedal, pedal, pedal. And hope that I could find a taste of the sweaty solace I found pre-SF.
I hung on after that mile and through 26.2.
And almost seven years later, this mother runner continues to—depending on the day—thrive, curse, smile, celebrate, plod, and hang on, mile after mile.
What was (or will be) the most important mile of your life? We want to know.
We’re going to make this an ongoing feature on the website (and potentially include some important miles in our yet-to-be-named third book, out in spring of 2015). Best way to submit is to email us your story with a picture: runmother {at} gmail {dot} com with “Most Important Mile” in the subject line. Please try to keep your mile stories under 300 words. Thank you!
Tell Me Tuesday: How to Do a GU
How Another Mother Runner Does GU Running Gel
My can’t-run-long-without companions.
While we don’t judge, Dimity and I are always slightly aghast when we meet a mother runner who tells us she ran a marathon or completed a long training run without taking in any calories. We’ve run long and far enough–and interviewed enough sports dieticians and nutritionists–to know you’ve got to give your engine fuel (read: carbohydrates) to keep going strong. For us, GU energy gels, in a panoply of flavors, works best, so here’s the 411 on how to do a GU.
-If you’re going to be running longer than 60 to 75 minutes, plan on ingesting a GU every 45 minutes on your run. E.g. When running for two hours, suck down a GU 45 minutes into your effort, then take another one at the 90-minute mark.
-If your calorie-flame burns brightly (usually happens in highly trained athletes, those lucky ducks), you can take in a GU every half-hour. But don’t take in more than about 350 calories/hour (each packet o’ GU has 100 calories) as that’s tough on the gut and diverts blood from hard-working muscles.
-Don’t eat just half a packet: A packet of GU is formulated to be consumed all at once, and an open pack is just a mess waiting to happen. (Think frosting + baby’s first birthday.) If you really only want, say, 50 calories, chew a few GU Chomps instead.
-Drink liquid whenever you ingest a GU–it helps your body absorb the carbohydrate-goodness in the gel. Don’t double-down on carbs, though: Water or a low-cal electrolyte drink is ideal.
Salted Caramel: The new GU flavor that’s so dang popular, it’s almost as elusive as Sasquatch.
-Unless you’re a pro at rubbing your head and patting your belly, or other multi-tasking moves, I suggest walking as you take a GU and follow it with a liquid chaser.
-Experiment with different flavors. I usually favor fruity flavors, but the new Salty Caramel is supreme deliciousness!
-Stash packet in bra, pocket, or warm hand to warm it up. Not crucial, but warm GU slides down easier. Especially true in colder months. So when I know I’m taking a GU at Mile 4 of half-marathon, I clutch one in my hand or stuff a packet in my bra around Mile 3.
-Give yourself an extra jolt with a caffeinated GU. Studies have shown caffeine can lessen pain during exertion, allowing you to push harder or at least not feel so draggy. GU Espresso Love (Dim’s fave flave) has 40 mg caffeine (that’s roughly equivalent to the jolt provided by 4 ounces of java), while most flavors have 20 mg. Strawberry Banana, Lemon Lime, Peppermint Stick, and Peanut Butter are the only non-caffeinated flavors. Pull out your reading glasses to see caffeine content printed on the “neck” of each GU packet.
-Bring at least one more packet than you think you’ll need. Whether you fumble one mid-race or start feeling wonky in the final mile or two, you’ll be glad to have an extra GU to suck down.
Now you please tell us: How do you do a GU?
Putting Myself Back Out There
Down and dirty in Chicago.
As we planned for our our C3 (Cleveland, Columbus, Chicago) mother runner road trip, Sarah and I, naturally, discussed, via email, when we’d run. She floated the idea of my running the 10K at the inaugural Chicago ZOOMA Half-Marathon and 10K. I could run, she could set up our booth—she’s our primary merch girl—and then we could reunite and finish out the expo.
I didn’t write back a yes or no, because I wasn’t sure I was ready to pin on a race number after Ironmother. I knew I could run 6.2 miles, but I haven’t tried to run fast for 6 consecutive miles in, oh, over a year. Make that about three years, at least.
Sarah and I went out for a 6-miler on the Towpath in Cleveland on Wednesday morning, and it wasn’t the cakewalk I, a recently anointed Ironmother who was running at sea level, not the 5,280 feet I usually huff and puff at, was expecting. I didn’t feel great or swift, as I’d hoped, and so the idea of repeat performance on Saturday was not appealing.
But then the week went on, and we didn’t have a chance to run on Thursday. I wasn’t interested in running on Friday (Sarah ran 10 miles that day), so the 10K started to seem like a good option for me, given that:
a) I’m a much happier traveler after I run, and I was flying home on Saturday, the day of the race. Even though my tight hamstrings aren’t thrilled with the airplane seat, I have more patience to deal with all the turbulence, both real and virtual, that flying presents.
b) I realized I needed to pop my Ironmother bubble, and the estrogen-filled vibe of all-women’s race was probably the friendliest place to do so.
More on B: As you likely know, my day at Ironman Coeur d’Alene was nearly perfect. As much as I want to hold onto those memories for years, I also don’t want my amazing day to discourage me from putting myself out there when I’m not perfectly prepared. (Read: 99.9% of the time.)
After Ironmother, I definitely appreciate how amazing it feels to get so dialed in during training that you smash your race goals. But I also know how much work that is. I wouldn’t sign up for another race for years (forever?) if I clung too tightly to my Ironmother standards.
My Ironmother standards include great race pics. I was just grateful Sarah was at the finish line to get this shot.
Plus, I wanted to remind myself how fun it is to just jump into a race and spin the wheel. Some of my most favorite race memories are when I just say, this is where I am so let’s just go for it, like when randomly ran 13.1 with mother runner Cynthia at ZOOMA Annapolis.
Pre-race, I talked times with Sarah as she folded our shirts and I sat on a chair and wolfed down a banana. “I’ll be happy with sub-55 minutes,” I told her. She made some comment about me being a sandbagger, but I knew from my Cleveland splits that sub 9-minute-miles would be tough.
The start was predictably relaxed, and I tried to keep myself that way as well. “Easy, Dimity,” I told myself, “Just make this easy.” I visualized my feet as wheels underneath me, spinning quickly and with no friction. I chatted for a while with Amanda, another tall mother runner, who was going 13.1 as she trains for the Chicago Marathon. I embraced the fact that I’d be done with this race in less than 60 minutes. I took in the lovely , beautifully flat Chicago lakefront, and gave a silent thanks to the universe for letting me be active and smiling on a random Saturday in August.
Around mile 5, I made a conscious effort to pick it up. I passed another runner, started thinking about the finish line and stopped thinking easy and fluid. And then I tripped on possibly the only slightly medium-sized rock in the entire route, and went down hard. (There is, btw, no other way for a nearly 6’4″ person to go down. Hard is the only option.)
A few people nearby asked me if I was ok—the only thing truly hurt was my ego—and then, as I was pushing myself back up, a lady watching the race said, “I saw your talk yesterday at the expo yesterday. You were great!” Oh yeah: I give expert tips on race performance, then bite it on a completely flat race course. I thanked her, laughed at myself, walked for a bit to dust off, then began running again. I passed the runner again, and finished in exactly my goal time.
Maybe I should’ve bought a lottery ticket yesterday too.
The runner I passed (twice) also happened to be in the crowd when Sarah and I spoke. She stopped by the AMR booth to say thanks for the tips, and I just had to laugh again. I’m pretty sure Bart Yasso or Jeff Galloway don’t face plant during races, but hey: at least they liked our talk.
And I accomplished my goals. A: Thankfully, my flight home was smooth and I even slept (a rarity for me when I’m at 30,000 feet.)
And B: The Ironmother bubble is burst and the bar is reset to a comfortable, low level. All I want to do during my next race is stay upright.
Have you ever eaten dirt during a race? If not, do you ever just enter a race on the fly?
What Would Another Mother Runner Do?
Heidi and Ben this summer: She’s now juggling training for St. George Marathon with breastfeeding her adorable chunk-a-monk.
Reading about Michele Gonzalez (a.k.a. NYC Running Mama) pumping breastmilk for her 10-month-old son during both transitions of her recent Ironman triathlonreminded us of Heidi Garner. Back in February, that mother of four wrote of a breastfeeding dilemma on our Facebook page, and we realized it would make an intriguing episode of What Would Another Mother Runner, our semi-regular dilemma-solving feature. Heidi was three weeks away from running what she hoped would be a sub-4:00 marathon, and her five-month-old son, Ben, was refusing to take a bottle. Given the race set-up, she would have to leave Ben about two hours prior to the start of the race, meaning momma and baby would be apart at least six hours. “The longest he has ever been without his beloved boobs, I mean, mother,” Heidi told us.
Heidi was scouring the race website to find out how to defer her entry to 2014 when she noticed that Mile 18 was right near her parents’ house. “Where my little man would probably be screaming,” she wrote. “While this solution would make it so I can run the marathon I’ve trained 18 weeks for, I can kiss my sub-4:00 finish good-bye. But I assume I’m not the only mother runner who has stopped to nurse mid-race!”
What would you do?
Sarah answers: First off, I’m wow-ed Heidi had been able to juggle marathon training with the sleep deprivation and caloric/hydration demands that comes from exclusively breastfeeding a young baby, let alone running a household with three other children in it. I breastfed my oldest child until the week before my third marathon, but she was 14 months old by race day. Given that Heidi still had three weeks before the race, I would have put forth the same effort she had in training for the 26.2 to getting Ben to take a bottle. Sounds rough, but he wasn’t a newborn baby. If baby-training didn’t go as well as marathon training, I would shift to Plan B, and breastfeed him en route if he was a hungry dude when Heidi hits Mile 18.
Heidi running kids’ race the day before the marathon with her older son, Nate, age 6
Dimity answers: Nurse him. I say that for two reasons (and please note that one of them is not that his name is Ben, which is my son’s name; I’m not playing favorites here.) Reason one: As much as we eschew mother guilt around these AMR pages, my guess is your weighted-down boobs will remind you of how long it’s been, make you wonder if little Ben is inconsolable and just too darn tootin’ hungry. You’ve got more pressing concerns when you hit Mile 23 in a marathon. Reason two: If you’re close to nailing a sub-4 ‘thon with a 5-month-old tot, imagine what you’ll be able to do with a little more training time and a little less cleavage? Ben will be so proud when he sees his fast mama cross the line.
What Heidi did: She studied the race course like a law school graduate preps for the bar exam, coming up with a list of spots along the race course and her anticipated times of hitting those marks. The plan was, “if Ben was super-crazy with hunger, my parents would bring him to me so I could nurse him. And if he needed me more, I’d drop out of the race. My kids come first.” She also enlisted her family to pray that Ben would fare well during this, Heidi’s seventh, marathon.
Heidi at the end of her marathon. “Blurry because of camera work, not speed,” sandbags Heidi.
What happened: She missed her sub-4:00 marathon by 15 minutes—but not because of Ben needing his mom (and her breasts). She says it was, “a gift of some divine intervention” that Ben was asleep or content the entire time mom and babe were apart. Heidi’s mom gave him some rice cereal, and he was right as rain. Around Mile 17, Heidi’s dad and two of her kids waved at her and told her Ben was doing fine. Heidi, however, wasn’t feeling as good: She, “bonked at the halfway point and never fully recovered.” She chalks up her slower-than-she-hoped-for finish to three things: going out too fast with the 3:55 pacer; not training as well as she should have because of wintery weather and a weakened pelvic floor (“because of it, I did zero speedwork”); and her body using some race energy to make milk. “I was exhausted but not sore at the end.” Still, Heidi feels, “super-lucky to be able to train hard and still nurse,” she says. “Post-workout nursing are called ‘margaritas’ in our house–because there is a little salt around the rim!”
What would you, another mother runner, do?
And if you’ve got a running-related moment you’d like some clarity on, via WWAMRD, feel free to email us at runmother [at] gmail [dot] com. Thanks!
10 Running Truths for Mother Runners
So I went about 26.2 miles out of my comfort zone recently and did a solo, video streamed presentation at the Training Peaks office in Boulder. I’m becoming a better public speaker, but holy cow: if I had $10.00 for every time I said, “um” in this presentation, I’d be able to buy the new West End sectional I’m coveting for our family room.
The video is about 30 minutes long—and it’s far from Jimmy Fallon and the Roots playing Blurred Lines—so I’m not going to be hurt if you don’t watch. I’ve included my Cliff Notes below (some of them are cribbed from the10 Commandments for Running Mothers).
1. Accept the fact that running is hard. The paybacks, as you likely know, are excellent—strength, confidence, patience, efficiency, badass legs, mental equilibrium—but all those lovely attributes come at a cost. Namely, gasping breath, burning legs, and a constant questioning of why you’re doing this. If you can just accept that you’re going to mildly suffer for a few miles because you get this monumental payback, the whole shebang will just feel easier.
And good enough is truly good enough.
2. There is a very important difference between good and good enough. Make the former your baseline goal for every outing, and enjoy the good—and delicious—runs when they decide to grace you with their magical powers. And give yourself a really generous grace period when something really significant in your life happens. You have a kid, you change a job, you get divorced, you lose a loved one. A good enough run, in these cases, isn’t just good enough: it’s freakin’ great.
3. While running isn’t always enjoyable—I only really enjoy a run after it’s done—it shouldn’t be stressful. There are enough things in your life that can potentially cause anxiety. Pre-race butterflies? Certainly. Dread for every race (and run)? Time to reevaluate your goals.
This is the truth most days for me.
4. To find a closer version of an enjoyable run, take away the numbers. At least once weekly, forgo the your Garmin, similar GPS, or watch and just run to run. Tune into yourself—instead of into your numbers—and you’ll be surprised at what you feel. (Could that be joy? Or at least some really strong quads?)
Sub timed miles in for another person, and Oscar knows what’s up.
5. I can’t remember this one, and my chicken scratched notes aren’t helping me here. So if you watch the video, please let me know in the comments below what point I missed here. Thank you. I’m pretty sure it’s nobody cares about your finishing times but you, but not 100% sure of that.
6. Pick a goal that feels interesting and delicious for you; could be a mud run, could be a monumental run. If 26.2 feels like a big drag, the training will be one on your body and mind. FYI: The word “marathon” is not in the definition of runner, which is, according to our pals at Merriam-Webster, “one who runs.”
7. If your interesting, delicious goal feels slightly daunting to you, a coach can be your most valuable piece of equipment. Not only does she keep you accountable and running the appropriate distances and paces, but you can put all your issues—injuries, sickness, sleepness nights, travel—on her shoulders to deal with. All you have to do is run.
8.I f you have a crappy race—and we all have them—we give you permission to FB about it, be pissed about it, cry about it, be blue about it for exactly 24 hours. And then you have to get over it—and yourself.
9. Self-care begets self-care. You rally for a run, and almost magically, things in your life fall into place more easily. You eat better, you sleep more soundly, you realize that your needs shouldn’t be subterranean just because you’ve got a bunch of people in your nest.
Four words that can change your day—and your life.
10. Don’t think; just go. Early morning runs are usually easiest, but motivation can be hard to find when the bed is warm and the sky is pitch black. Lay out your clothes and anything else you need — pre-run banana, water, Garmin — the night before, and when the alarm goes off, say to yourself, “Don’t think, just go.” Then do it. (The same four words also work when it’s later in the day and your kids are begging you not to run. Don’t think about guilt. We promise: They’ll survive the hour or so you’re gone.)
There are more running truths than there are miles in an ultramarathon; what truths would you add?
A Conversation about Feet and Toes
Running: it all starts with your feet!
Perfect timing: Dimity’s feet are extra-gnarly thanks to doing the Ironman, so the mother runners welcome Jane Andersen, a podiatrist in private practice Chapel Hill, N.C., to talk all things feet. All three gals have big paws, so they start by talking about the importance of having roomy-enough shoes—and, perhaps surprisingly, big-enough socks to give feet and toes room enough to spread while running. Things get a bit yucky with discussion on the best ways to cut toenails, remove calluses, and lance yucky blood blisters under toenails. (Ew!) But the ladies work the laughs, so don’t shy away. Then the good doctor, who is also a mother runner of two, talks about more extreme issues, including stress fractures and plantar fasciitis.
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