May 2017

That’s My Girl: The Early Summer 2017 BAMR Playlist

To paraphrase Queen Bey: Girls run the world. And what better soundtrack to accompany a run or a race than a playlist composed exclusively of songs by women! Especially a women’s race—like ZOOMA Annapolis half-marathon.

So here you go. This playlist lasts about 2:35. The songs in the beginning start a bit slower, then build to a crescendo of driving beats and pour-it-on lyrics in the final third. If you think you’ll cross the finish line sooner than about 2:30, I suggest you cut out about 10 songs from the middle of the list. Take a bit longer to finish? Sprinkle in a few chick songs that rev your engine. I chose mostly newer songs, so maybe some Britney, Madonna, or Lady Gaga.

If you’re at ZOOMA, I hope to see you there: I’ll be workin’ the AMR booth at packet pickup, then emceeing the race. I hope these tunes propel you to a great race—but please consider taking out your earbuds in the final 100 or so yards so you can hear me giving you props as you finish!

Today, by the way, is also World Milk Day, which our friends at the Western Dairy Association are celebrating. You can join them by drinking in the goodness of this playlist (see what we did there?). Here’s link to the playlist on Motherrunner account on Spotify (minus “Conquerer” as it’s not on Spotify, so playlist is a bit shorter over there).

Spring 2017 All-Women’s Playlist 

Run: Delta Rae (Song title reminds you what you’re here to do!)
Dancing on the Sun: Bahari
Confident: Demi Lovato (While this title tells you how to feel—about your training, your abilities, your determination)
Can’t Bring This Down: Brigit Mendler
Side to Side: Ariana Grande (Catchy song, but remember forward motion is the order of the day!)
Conquerer: AURORA
Rise: Selena Gomez
Love Me Badder: Elliphant (One of my
Don’t Be So Hard on Yourself: Jess Glynne (The title of this catchy song is an important reminder during rough patches in a run or race.)
Move Like U Stole It: ZZ Ward (Perhaps a mantra when you need an extra boost?)
Dangerous Woman: Ariana Grande
Show Me How You Burlesque: Christina Aguilera
Rise Up: Andra Day
Love Myself: Hailee Steinfeld (Driving beat—and message.)
Made of Gold: Shenna
Breathe: Astrid S (Another title that offers great running advice!)
Beautiful: Betty Who
That’s My Girl: Fifth Harmony
Me Too: Meghan Trainor
Good Times: Ella Eyre
Never Give Up: Sia (Gotta do as Sia says!)
Set It All Free: Scarlett Johansson (Sure, it’s from a kids’ movie but, dang, this is a powerhouse tune!)
Celebrate: Ingrid Michaelson
Run away with Me: Carly Rae Jepsen
The Glow: Sylvan Esso
Just Like Fire: P!nk
Unstoppable: Sia (Sia just keeps the motivation pouring on!) 
Survivor: M.I.A.
Now or Never: Halsey (Subliminal “pass that runner you’ve been following since Mile 2” suggestion) 
Electric Love: BØRNS
Life Goes on: Fergie
Talking Body: Tove Lo
Burn: Ellie Goulding
Did It for the Fame: Sabina Ddumba
I’m a Lady: Meghan Trainor
Human Touch: Betty Who (Could have included like 20 of her songs…)
Bon Appétit: Katy Perry
Dancing on My Own: Robyn (One of the older songs on here, but I put it on repeat in final mile of a marathon cuz it’s that good.)
Don’t Kill My Vibe: Sigrid
Gold: Britt Nicole
Swag It out: Zendaya
Break Free: Ariana Grande (A soaring message by Ari to propel you toward your goal!) 
The Greatest: Sia (Greatest feeling: pride or relief?!)

Woman Crush Wednesday: Mirna Valerio

You might know Mirna Valerio from her blog Fat Girl Running or from the Runner’s World story or from CNN or NBC or from a certain AMR podcast. And if you don’t already know Mirna, you really should.

Which is why she’s kicking off our series of Women Crush Wednesdays. I, Adrienne, find Mirna’s buoyant spirit infectious and I do my best to channel her whenever my running loses its joy. I’m a fat girl running, too, and Mirna’s attitude helps me move further down my path toward loving the body I have. 

Mirna took a few minutes in between teaching and mothering and marathon running to talk with me about writing a book, tackling Tough Mudder, and facing her fears.

My first question is something I wonder about every time I see your Instagram pictures: How do you maintain such a positive attitude?

I just love to be outside and I love to be moving. Even if I don’t feel good in the moment I know that I’m always going to feel good afterwards. I’ve never felt mentally, emotionally or spiritually worse. Physically, yes!

How did you get started with obstacle course races like Tough Mudder?

When Merrell asked me to be their ambassador, they asked if I was interested in doing one because they had just signed on as Tough Mudder’s title sponsor. I said, “sure.” I almost immediately regretted because I was like, “Oh my God. I’m going to have to do this.” I actually have to train. I’m going to actually have to jump off of things. The mud didn’t phase me at all – but all of the other stuff that was scary to me.

What scared me in general is that I didn’t have enough upper body strength to do any of the obstacles that required that. I work on weight training but it was always so that I could make sure that I’m running with correct form. I felt I had to change my training to gain a significant amount of strength in my upper body.

There were also a couple of obstacles that scared me. There’s one obstacle, King of the Swingers – I’ve done it five times and each time it’s like I’ve never done it before. You’re up on this platform between 12 and 15 feet up in the air on a ledge. There’s a t-bar you have to jump to and swing across the water under you. There’s a bell that you are supposed to hit if you have enough momentum. I’ve never been able to hit the bell. I only last about two seconds and then I drop.

Being on a ledge in itself is not scary. I’m not afraid of heights. Swimming is not scary in and of itself because I am a swimmer. But when you put those things together and there’s this brief moment where you have no control over your body because you’re jumping to this bar and you’re not tethered to anything — it’s the loss of control that I don’t like.

Once I’ve done it, I’m, like, damn. I did that. I got over that fear again but that fear hasn’t abated at all. I’m working on it.

So how much fear did you need to work through during the process of writing your book, A Beautiful Work in Progress?

The easy job was just writing the first draft. I had the summer off. What I would do is I would go to the gym – I was training for two Tough Mudders – and I’d work out and go sit in the café, because it was a really fancy gym in New York City. I would write. I’d get my 2000 words a day.

When I got it back for the developmental edit, that was when shit got real. I was so overwhelmed. My blood pressure went up. I was having anxiety. I went to the heart doctor. I was like what is wrong with my heart; I’m having palpitations. He’s like, what’s going on in your life right now? I told him everything. He’s like, oh, yeah. That’s anxiety. Your heart is fine. As soon as I turned in that edit, the palpitations went away immediately.

We went through two more rounds of developmental edits and each was successively easier. It was amazing to see that I could write that much. It’s 345 pages! I wrote all of it. Most of it is original. About ten percent of the book is refashioned from the blog.

I’m calling it a body-positive running memoir. You have your elite running memoirs, and then you have this whole subset of running memoirs from people who are bigger people like me or people who have had weight loss surgery or people who have lost a significant amount of weight on their own. I’m sick and tired of hearing the weight loss narrative.

The other sort of running memoirs by bigger people are very self-deprecatory and I wasn’t interested in doing that. I wasn’t interested in laughing at the fat. I wanted to tell the story of how this runner came to be in my body. For some of it, even though I am fat, if you don’t know who I am — I’m just talking about running. I’m talking about a race, how amazing it was, and what I learned from it.

I wanted to show you can be a runner. Just look at what I did. I did this marathon in my body and it took me a long time but I don’t care. I did a marathon.

Chronic Running Injuries: 9 Ways to Cope

 

When you last heard from me on this blog in early April, I was managing gracefully. I’d like to think I still am. But when I wrote nearly two months ago, I was kind of hoping I’d be running a tiny bit by now. I’m not—and I don’t see it happening anytime in the next month or two.

My injury has been diagnosed as everything from a high hamstring strain to sciatica to a pinched nerve. These days, I’m describing it like somebody spilled coffee my spinal motherboard, and my muscles and nerves don’t know how to function or fire correctly, let alone support each other. The hamstring sounded the alarm, but it’s far from the only issue. My back and hips are totally in the mix, and it’s a mess.

I’ve bounced around to a few PT’s (all helpful in different ways, showing me different perspectives on my alignment and physiology); I’ve been dry-needled and cupped; I’ve heated and I’ve iced; I’ve rested and stretched and done enough glute bridges to qualify me for the Buns of Steel medal.

While I’ve had streaks of good days, I still haven’t found significant enough relief and progress to lead me to believe that going for a run wouldn’t set me back quite a bit.

With that in mind, I wanted to share a few things that I’ve learned over the past few months. I’m hoping you’re not injured, but if you are, I’m hoping they’ll help you too:

1. Change your perspective from Not Running to Healing. 

For months, all I’ve thought about is the fact that I’m Not Running. I’m swimming three or four days a week, walking the other days, doing physical therapy or Pilates most days as well. Sounds like a lot—and it is, time-wise—but mostly, I think of myself as Not Running.

Any guesses on how well that’s Not Running mindset is going for me? Yep, not great. As Dr. Justin Ross says in the Perform Like a Mother sessions, your mind is like a spotlight: it focuses on whatever you choose to shine it on. I’ve had the klieg lights on Not Running.

So I’m trying to switch things. I’m not Not Running. I’m Healing. And my only goal with Healing: Feeling less pain today than I did yesterday. I just need to do that.

2. Acknowledge the pain.

Running injuries feel minor in the world of cancer and big disease that it can feel ridiculous to complain about them sometimes. “Oh, you were just diagnosed with breast cancer? And your mom has MS? Well, I’ve got this hamstring thing that has been going on since October, and I haven’t really run in about six months.”

Yeah, not so much.

And it also feels like I—an athlete for decades—should be able to just bear down and handle it. It’s not debilitating. I can still brush my teeth and send emails and otherwise get through the day as a 45-year-old functioning woman.

Thing is, chronic pain doesn’t have to be debilitating to be all encompassing. On bad days, it gnaws at me, wearing away patience and compassion for those I love the most, a fact that also gnaws at me. On good days, I am anxious about the pain coming back, and the vicious cycle starting again.

I recently tried an integrated Feldenkrais session, a practice that helps restore your body to its natural movement patterns. About halfway through my first session, the practitioner put her hands on my left shoulder and said, “You are in so much pain.” Her statement felt oddly validating. A running injury may not be life-threatening, but it’s certainly exhausting.

3. Then manage the pain physically.

Earlier this spring, I went to my orthopedic doctor, and he gave me a prescription for what, I later learned via google, is like advanced ibuprofen with arthritis relief. Arthritis? My grandmother had that in her knuckles. My ego doesn’t like that. But my back does.

Whether it’s a heating pad or a prescription or essential oils or turmeric or energy work, do what you need to do to get the pain to a manageable point. There will always be people who are anti-NSAIDS or anti-cortisone shots and preach, quite vocally, about the side effects of them. Weigh all your choices and listen to different opinions, then do what feels right for you.

Bottom line: You need to find some physical relief to let the healing begin. I kept wishing my pain away. Turns out, that isn’t super effective.

4. Tune in.

What exercises/techniques/practices actually relieve your pain vs. what should, based on anecdotal or other evidence, relieve your pain?

In other words, does dry-needling actually make you feel better or do you think it makes you feel better because it worked for your BRF or on a different area of your body?

This is a hard one and I’m all for the placebo effect, but so much of healing comes in shades of gray. I feel better in this position but not in this one; my back was a four on a scale of 1-10 yesterday, but now it’s a six. Why? Chronic injuries are not like broken bones that just heal with time and space; they are influenced by myriad factors.

That said, it seems reasonable that one should feel some significant relief within a handful of sessions. My chiropractor was instrumental in helping my shoulder when I was training for Ironman, but when I went to her this winter with my situation, her therapies weren’t working.

On the flip side, 50 clam shells with a band around my knees and 40 glute bridges with a band around my knees always provides relief.

5. And manage it mentally.

Easier said than done, as anybody who has been sidelined for extended periods of times knows. Here’s what has been working for me: emphasizing sleep, working in my garden, making sure I’m eating relatively well, checking out books at the library that have nothing to do with running, meditating for 10 minutes a day, then hanging with Sylvia Boorstein or Pema Chodron for another 10 minutes.

Today, Sylvia reminded me that, pain is inevitable, but, “suffering is the demand that something be different than what it really is.”

I cause myself to suffer when I set arbitrary dates on when I’ll be running again. I cause myself to suffer when I think about what I should have done differently to avoid the injury. I’m healing now. I will run again one day, but that day is not today, and it’s likely not tomorrow or three weeks from now. That’s ok.

6. Be kind to runners.

This doesn’t mean I’m advocating standing at the starting line of the half-marathon you can’t run, but jealousy and envy aren’t exactly healing emotions.

If I see a runner as I drive back from a swim, I do my best to think, “I hope you are having a good run and feeling strong.” (Or if I’m feeling really noble and am channeling Sylvia, I think, “May you live well and be well.”)

7. Don’t compare your cross-training and/or physical therapy to running. Spoiler alert: It won’t measure up.

Whether you genuinely love your miles or just love how you feel after your miles, running is the gold standard: super accessible; relatively affordable; a calorie torcher; good catch-up time with friends and/or podcasts/music; fresh air in spades. It’s all there.

Everything else has some kind of drawback. The dude next you at the gym on the elliptical is picking is nose. Swimming leaves your skin lizard dry. Squats on the BOSU in your laundry room? No fresh air for miles.

If you’re constantly complaining about what you actually can do and lamenting what you can’t do, you’re wasting energy. Of course I’d rather be running than swimming, but that’s not my reality right now. (Or as Sylvia says, it’s not what I wanted, but it’s what I got.) I can swim, I can walk for an hour, I can clamshell and TVA march and plank with the best of them. #goodenough

8. Chronicle your progress.

It’s super easy (and emotionally, very fulfilling) to throw up a run on Strava or in Training Peaks, but how satisfying is it to document a 15 minute session on the elliptical? Not very. Still, I’d argue that documenting your situation, both in terms of exercise and pain, is super important for two reasons:

—First, you have a record of what you did. That nebulous did-that-help-or-hurt? mentality becomes a little easier to clear up when you notice that you did side planks on Tu and Th, and on Wed and Fri your left shoulder ached more than usual.

—Second, you’re keeping yourself accountable. It can be crazy hard to keep up the momentum when you’re improving by centimeters, not meters, and filling in a chart is (and putting your workouts on social media, if you’re so incline) gives you a gentle push.

(Full disclosure: I haven’t been super good at this lately, but I’m going to get better again. Feel free to cheer for my swims on Strava!)

9. Cry. Totally fine to let your waterworks open again and again. Running is an integral part of my identity—and if you’ve read this far, it’s part of your’s too. Missing that slice of your life is going to hurt, and not acknowledging the absence hurts even more.

What ways have I missed?
How do you navigate your running injuries?

A Moving Memorial from a Military Mother Runner

Annamarie is a military mother runner whose story is particularly poignant on Memorial Day. We’re honored to share it with the Tribe.

I started taking running more seriously when my then-best friend (now husband) went off to basic training for the Army. We ran our first marathon together a week before my college graduation, which was a month before we got married, and about 7 weeks before moving to Germany. Through the years, i got more and more invested in running and started taking on longer distances. By the time we moved back to the States in 2013, I was running ultras and loving it. I ran 4 during my husband’s second year-long deployment. It was my way to focus through how harrowing this experience was for both of us. It was a dangerous few months.

Annamarie at the finish line of the JFK 50-miler, her absolute favorite ultra to date. On the back of her shirt are the names of 50 service members, past and present, one for every mile.

Upon his homecoming, we decided we wanted children. After a while, it was apparent something was wrong. Rates of infertility are significantly higher among military families, something that the Army, the public, and the VA don’t love to acknowledge. Seeking fertility help was one of the most humbling, sad, and empowering things we’ve ever done. I ran through giving myself shots every day, through being poked, prodded, and puffed full of hormones. My husband was a phenomenal support — but was actually not even in the same state as me the day we did our successful IVF transfer.

We found out we were pregnant with twins the day we left for our next assignment in El Paso, Texas. It was the start of a challenging 9 months but running (with my boys on board) kept me feeling sane. My husband was away for the first half of the pregnancy, which consisted mostly of me vomiting constantly and slogging on the treadmill while trying to set up our new home, work, and nursery.

Delivery was both wonderful and terrible. Both our boys were healthy for a twin birth but I suffered from severe tearing and hemorrhaging. Learning to breastfeed twins made me think that my M.Ed. was not a high enough level of education to make it happen. To top it off, my husband would deploy again in about 6 weeks.

Three weeks after the boys’ birth, I ran 1.5 miles. It was as hard as my 100K and made me just as proud. I felt like me again. However, I didn’t know or refused to see, that I was suffering from severe postpartum anxiety. With 6-week old twins, I flew across the country to stay with family while my husband flew back to the Middle East. I ran and ran and never slept and cried A LOT. Several months went by, and, one day, while walking with the boys I randomly turned on an AMR podcast for the first time. It was an episode about running, PPD, and PPA. In all of my million doctor’s visits, I had never heard someone describe PPA the way that it was in the podcast.

I was walking with a mammoth double stroller, not having slept more than 2 hours at a time in almost 6 months, and I bawled my eyes out while listening. That day, my journey to embracing both being a mother and being a runner began. During my 4 a.m. 10-milers, I learned that I can be both a runner and a good mom and that this is what makes me a BAMR.

Ten long months later, my husband came home to two healthy, happy baby boys and a wife who was finally finding herself. Now I am on week 9 of the Own It marathon plan, training for San Francisco in July, running both harder and faster than I ever have.

Annamarie, her husband, and the boys.

Military mother runners — both the amazing women in uniform who have to prove themselves everyday in a man’s world and the women married to Soldiers who sacrifice their careers, time with family, personal goals, sleep, fertility — are a breed of mother runners who face unique challenges and have unique strengths. We run because running is a way to make yourself feel at “home” every time you have to uproot yourself AGAIN. We run because we have to drive ourselves an hour and a half to a fertility clinic for the third time this week while our husband is, yet again, out in the field training with the unit. We run because we haven’t heard anything for a few days and “no news is good news” is something people say but no one believes. We run because we are too worried to hear CNN say one more thing about a roadside bomb in Afghanistan and if we stay in the room one second longer they might name a province and God forbid you recognize it.

We also run because sometimes it is the least we can do. During the deployment of 2013-2014, several Soldiers in my husband’s unit were killed. When I raced after each of these, I would wear the name of these young men on my bib. Ultrarunners are amazing people and would run and talk with me about these young men. They would always know what to say, which isn’t “I’m sorry for your loss” but rather “I’ll think about Kerry and all he gave during the big hills today.” I gave these memorial bibs, along with a letter, to the parents of these men at their memorial services. The least we can do for these parents is tell them that, somewhere, a runner is slogging up a hard hill and remembering that story about a young Soldier who died in combat and how he was such a funny, hardworking guy.

And that’s why Military Mother Runners run. For sanity, for solace, for love, and for remembering. And, of course, for many happy miles.

#262: Transitioning onto a Race Training Plan

Sarah and co-host (and best running friend!) Molly gab with each other in their final days of easy-going running before embarking on 18 (!!) weeks of marathon training. They talk about travels with their childhood BFFs, before debating why their eyes water while running. (Any clue??) Molly shares a story about her dog’s #ratfarts, then the conversation turns to wildlife, including brushes with coyotes and possibly Sasquatch. A longtime veterinarian, Molly tells what to do if a dog attacks you on a run. (Remember: “Be like a tree.”) As talk turns to training for the Twin Cities Marathon, the ladies debate the value of multiple 20-mile runs, including the joy of finally getting to tell the long version of stories! Molly offers a pearl of wisdom that is ready-made for a T-shirt slogan or bumper sticker. Find out what discussing time goals and “The Price Is Right” have in common. (Here’s a link to the marathon training plan the Portland duo are following.)

Be sure to stick around for special bonus content at the end of the pod: Sarah and podcast producer Alex Ward (a.k.a. “the 29-year-old bearded guy in the room where it happens”) discuss Breaking2. Learn what role Alex played in the tightly controlled, Nike-funded attempt to break the 2-hour barrier in the marathon.

*Discover the amazing new maternity workouts, as well as stroller sessions, on Aaptiv, the mobile app with coached workouts set to fresh, fun playlists! If your baby-days are behind (or ahead of!) you, tap Aaptiv for workouts focused on running, indoor cycling, elliptical, yoga, strength training, and more. For a free month, sign up at aaptiv.com and enter code AMR30

*If you’re digging our podcasts, we’d be super-grateful if you’d take a minute (because we *know* you have so many to spare!) to write a review on iTunes. Many thanks.

**Also, the quickest way to get our podcasts is to subscribe to the show via iTunes. Clicking this link will automatically download the shows to your iTunes account. It doesn’t get any simpler than that. We’ve also joined the Acast podcast network, download their app to hear our podcast and many others like it!

Dry Martini: Road Trip!

The last few weeks have been a tedious exercise in energy management, with the energy in question being my own. And while I could go into a long and rambling (and just a little bit whiney) tale about aging parents and Hallmark holidays and children and work, I’ll spare you. Besides, you likely have your own version, with some of the details changed but the end point being more or less the same: wrung out like a sponge that’s seen better days and should likely be tossed before it grows some kind of lethal bacteria.

More than once (per hour) during the last two weeks, I’ve dreamed of stocking the fridge full of frozen pizzas, jumping in the car, and driving away. I’ve held off, because I’m an adult, damn it. And also because I knew I’d have a chance to do just that Memorial Day weekend.

I’ll be on the coast above the skier’s head. Hopefully, there won’t be snow – but one never knows in Vermont in May.

Nearly three years ago, some knitter runners and I took on the Vermont City Relay. A few months ago, one of those same knitter runners, who I will call Carol because that is her name, decided she wanted to take on the full 26.2 this year. Carol asked if any of us would like to run some of it with her. Lisa (who is my go-to BRF and has turned up in posts on more than one occasion) and I said “sure.”

Carol is in the red/pink hat; Lisa is in the white hat; I am #teamvisor in the back.

Carol’s marathon training went well over the winter and into early spring. Bodies, however, are fragile and marathon training excels at teasing out all of your personal fragilities and laying them bare.

The good news is that what the doctor thought could be torn cartilage in Carol’s knee isn’t quite that dire. While the marathon is no longer in her plan (this year), she has been given a cautious OK to run the half. So we three will still run, just in a different configuration than planned.

Given the way Vermont City organizes its race, there is no official half. Instead, two runners each take on 13.1 miles of the marathon course and run it as a relay. Lisa and I will be a 2-person team. Carol start with whichever one of us takes the first leg; then the third runner will pick up at the second leg. I might make a play for being the second leg runner, if only because I’m told there will be ice pops and drag queens on that part of the route. Priorities.

It appears that I took zero pictures when I last ran this race so I’ve stolen this one to show you how pretty the course is. It goes right along Lake Champlain and is lovely, if brutally sunny in spots.

My only goal for the race is to finish — and I’m 100 percent willing to let that go if Voldesun drops in or if I get hungry or if my shoe feels weird. I do like Sunday morning that ends with a medal, though. That plus finish line Ben and Jerry’s will likely see me through.

More than the race, what I’m really looking forward to is four hours in the car on the way up (and the way back). I love a solo road trip, especially one that won’t take me through any major city centers. Once I get past Albany, it’s mostly cow country, which means more time with my thoughts and my podcasts and lush, rolling hills. It’s one of the ways my batteries recharge and the power is currently low.

Add to that the knowledge that I’ll be able to spend 48 hours or so with two knitters — we’ve already been talking about the projects we’re bringing — and no rigid schedule, well, I couldn’t look forward to my road trip any more. Any other mother runners going to be there, too?

A simple question this week, how do you recharge your batteries? 

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