Here I sit... That damn cursor blinking at me... and I can't figure out where the story goes from here. So I thought 'what the hell, maybe blogging about it will help!' Of course it is also cheating because that means I'm using today's allotted writing time for actual writing. I've been kicking ass and taking names on the outline - who knew I'd be so good at it since I thought I was a discovery writer! I've consistently been writing as planned - mostly. Nothing goes one hundred percent right all the time. And now I'm sitting here with a story that is three quarters roughed out. I've got new characters I didn't know existed, new motivations I didn't know they had, lots of twists and tension... and now... yeah... I don't know exactly how they all get to the ending I see in my head yet. Of course that ending has only been summed up in a single sentence up until now which is precisely the problem. (And no, the sentence is NOT "They lived happily ever after" either, thanks for asking!)
I keep exploring possibilities but it all feels too cliche or anti-climactic. I need another twist and I can't see where it will come from yet. Nothing I've come up with has me inspired enough to even write down. And no, blogging about it hasn't helped yet either.
Anyone out there in Internet land want to share their favorite twists on story endings so I can get my creative juices kicked into gear over here? Please? If not, I'll be forced to show up with no first chapter and no completed outline at writer's group next week. And that will suck...
Monday, August 15, 2011
Friday, August 5, 2011
Embarking on the crazy journey... or the one about Terra project planning her life
Remember a couple of posts ago when I was talking about standing at the edge and knowing that leaping into this I'm-finally-going-to-write-that-novel-I've-been-working-on-for-years pool was going to be super shitty and hard and basically freaking out? Well, I pulled myself together and decided that all I needed was a plan. I tackled this gigantic endeavor as I would any project of its scope and magnitude: I broke it down to requirements and measurable deliverables and defined how to utilize my resources. (Told you I was a total data girl and project manager extraordinaire!)
Here are my requirements:
1) I'd made a commitment to read the entire manuscript we will be critiquing at our August writer's group meeting. Since this is book two of the trilogy of which the first book already has a publishing deal, I know I can't slack on that commitment and call myself one of the members of my kick-ass writing group. Since typically my reading happens via iPod, having to sit down and actually READ a book represents significant time.
2) I am still training for whatever I decide to do in the fall - I keep going back and forth about whether I'm going to do another half marathon or not - so I can't slack off on my running or sacrifice training time for writing time. I just got new shoes. My last pair were new in late February and I'd already run three hundred miles on them. Three hundred miles every five months makes this not a small deliverable.
3) I have to find time to write in the non-magical world where there are only 24 hours in a day, of which I still have to work eight at my "real" job and spend at least a few hours with my family being a wife and mother. I have to write every day and be consistent about it or nothing is ever going to be different than now where I talk about writing as if it will always be in the future and never happening in the present. The Universe sent me LOTS of pointers on this one in the form of podcast topics and daily writing tips telling me to JUST. DO. IT. Kind of like shouting it at me with a "FOR GOD'S SAKE" added for good measure.
So here's the general plan that I came up with...
First, I gave myself a super tight deadline of finishing the critique for my writer's group by the end of July. I was only two days late. Check that one off the list!
Second, starting August 1, I will write everyday and act as if THIS month is NaNoWriMo month and just keep at it until the first draft is done.
And finally, stick with the same running schedule I used while training for Ragnar all year since I know for the most part it works for my life.
How does that actually look with my schedule? Monday through Friday workdays I either run at work (short-run day) or at the gym (the night Big Sister does NOT have dance) or in the morning (mid-week longer run). When I get home from work, I'm a Mom/Taxi until the kids are tucked into bed at a reasonable time. No more letting Big Sister stay up as late as she wants. Since school starts in three weeks and we need to get back to a scheduled bedtime this works anyway. The hours between 9:30 bedtime and when my natural clock winds down for the day, somewhere between 11:30 and midnight, will be devoted to writing - with the exception of Friday nights which I protect and preserve for quality time with Hubby. Weekends are devoted to at least one long run - typically about ten miles Sunday morning - and getting on top of mundane things like laundry and dishes and perhaps squeezing in a touch of a social life - aka, the things I have been doing between the kid's bed time and mine until now. Since weekends are way more flexible I will write a minimum of three hours a weekend somewhere between the two days. My house may be less clean for a while, I'll definitely have to drink more coffee than normal and my DVR will fill up with all the things I won't be watching regularly; but all of these things are worth what I'll be gaining in return - being a novelist.
I'm off to an amazing start - only two days late due to the critique deadline that I blew but who's counting, right? The first night I spent two hours rekindling the story in my mind and working out any bugs in the outline I've got so far. I figured out that the story should actually start with what's in Chapter Three so I had to work the back story info-dump I had planned for chapters one and two in elsewhere. And, I determined which of the three main characters point of view each chapter/section would be written from. In the wee hours before dawn when I was awakened over and over again for a pretty heinous on-call shift, an element of the story kept churning through my head and I came up with the missing piece of my world's creation myth - got to love bonus non-planned creative time, right? Don't forget, I have RELIGION of all things in my book. Insane, I know. Even more so when you realize that I have to basically come up with the equivalent of an entirely new system of mythology to explain what and why things happen and why people let them happen without question. Last night, I worked another three chapters into the outline... and busted out a blog post which actually by definition counts as part of my writing.
It feels amazing making progress on the novel and it's crazy how I kept thinking it was going to be so hard to find all this time and stick to such a rigid and unbending schedule so I wouldn't have to sacrifice anything in my life. What I didn't factor in is that I enjoy writing so much that the time just flies by and all the shit about how tight my schedule is doesn't even matter. Here's to starting strong and continuing the trend all the way to the end! I am a novelist by definition since I am writing a novel... regardless of whether I ever get said novel published or not.
Here are my requirements:
1) I'd made a commitment to read the entire manuscript we will be critiquing at our August writer's group meeting. Since this is book two of the trilogy of which the first book already has a publishing deal, I know I can't slack on that commitment and call myself one of the members of my kick-ass writing group. Since typically my reading happens via iPod, having to sit down and actually READ a book represents significant time.
2) I am still training for whatever I decide to do in the fall - I keep going back and forth about whether I'm going to do another half marathon or not - so I can't slack off on my running or sacrifice training time for writing time. I just got new shoes. My last pair were new in late February and I'd already run three hundred miles on them. Three hundred miles every five months makes this not a small deliverable.
3) I have to find time to write in the non-magical world where there are only 24 hours in a day, of which I still have to work eight at my "real" job and spend at least a few hours with my family being a wife and mother. I have to write every day and be consistent about it or nothing is ever going to be different than now where I talk about writing as if it will always be in the future and never happening in the present. The Universe sent me LOTS of pointers on this one in the form of podcast topics and daily writing tips telling me to JUST. DO. IT. Kind of like shouting it at me with a "FOR GOD'S SAKE" added for good measure.
So here's the general plan that I came up with...
First, I gave myself a super tight deadline of finishing the critique for my writer's group by the end of July. I was only two days late. Check that one off the list!
Second, starting August 1, I will write everyday and act as if THIS month is NaNoWriMo month and just keep at it until the first draft is done.
And finally, stick with the same running schedule I used while training for Ragnar all year since I know for the most part it works for my life.
How does that actually look with my schedule? Monday through Friday workdays I either run at work (short-run day) or at the gym (the night Big Sister does NOT have dance) or in the morning (mid-week longer run). When I get home from work, I'm a Mom/Taxi until the kids are tucked into bed at a reasonable time. No more letting Big Sister stay up as late as she wants. Since school starts in three weeks and we need to get back to a scheduled bedtime this works anyway. The hours between 9:30 bedtime and when my natural clock winds down for the day, somewhere between 11:30 and midnight, will be devoted to writing - with the exception of Friday nights which I protect and preserve for quality time with Hubby. Weekends are devoted to at least one long run - typically about ten miles Sunday morning - and getting on top of mundane things like laundry and dishes and perhaps squeezing in a touch of a social life - aka, the things I have been doing between the kid's bed time and mine until now. Since weekends are way more flexible I will write a minimum of three hours a weekend somewhere between the two days. My house may be less clean for a while, I'll definitely have to drink more coffee than normal and my DVR will fill up with all the things I won't be watching regularly; but all of these things are worth what I'll be gaining in return - being a novelist.
I'm off to an amazing start - only two days late due to the critique deadline that I blew but who's counting, right? The first night I spent two hours rekindling the story in my mind and working out any bugs in the outline I've got so far. I figured out that the story should actually start with what's in Chapter Three so I had to work the back story info-dump I had planned for chapters one and two in elsewhere. And, I determined which of the three main characters point of view each chapter/section would be written from. In the wee hours before dawn when I was awakened over and over again for a pretty heinous on-call shift, an element of the story kept churning through my head and I came up with the missing piece of my world's creation myth - got to love bonus non-planned creative time, right? Don't forget, I have RELIGION of all things in my book. Insane, I know. Even more so when you realize that I have to basically come up with the equivalent of an entirely new system of mythology to explain what and why things happen and why people let them happen without question. Last night, I worked another three chapters into the outline... and busted out a blog post which actually by definition counts as part of my writing.
It feels amazing making progress on the novel and it's crazy how I kept thinking it was going to be so hard to find all this time and stick to such a rigid and unbending schedule so I wouldn't have to sacrifice anything in my life. What I didn't factor in is that I enjoy writing so much that the time just flies by and all the shit about how tight my schedule is doesn't even matter. Here's to starting strong and continuing the trend all the way to the end! I am a novelist by definition since I am writing a novel... regardless of whether I ever get said novel published or not.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
My writing lesson for the week
Another lesson learned this week on the trail of writing a good book: make sure your facts check out so your story is believable to everyone who reads it. As with most things in life, this can be accomplished one of two ways: either knowing something or knowing someone.
One of my writing buddies is in the alpha-reader stage of one of her manuscripts. About a year ago she asked me some questions about small airplanes because I used to be a pilot, sort of. I gave her some general details and forgot about it - generalities like how crashing a single engine would be much easier that a multi-engine, etc. And then I read "Chapter Six" last weekend and realized I should have given her way different and more specific details because what she had taken from our discussion had been used to create a very tension filled and exciting plane crash - that had little resemblance to how it would really happen. The best thing about it is that when I text her and said "we need to talk about Chapter six" she knew exactly which part I was referring to and had been waiting patiently for me to get to that part so I could tell her exactly how to fix it. See, she knew I would know and thus didn't waste a lot of time researching. Smart girl, that one!
I had a ton of fun stewing about how it could be fixed without changing anything fundamental about how the characters got to that point or how they walked away from it (aka, keeping the storyline intact) and trying to remember my pilot training that I never actually finished twenty years ago. Luckily I have a buddy who IS a pilot who helped fill in the details. What we came up with resulted in some very minor changes but that will make a huge difference in a reader's perception - because now it will be authentic.
I learned several lessons from this small encounter.
1) any writer needs a trusted few who they can count on for alpha-reading. That group of people who can read as writers not readers; those who can overlook the grammar and punctuation errors that still exist in the early stages of revision and just point out the plot holes and elements of the story and characters that could be tweaked for a better overall story. The punctuation and grammar come later after revising to death and then "readers" (beta at that point) can have a crack at it.
2) details must be authentic regardless of the genre you're writing in. You never know when a reader will pick up your book and have a basic understanding of the part of your story you've written happening to and around your characters. Even though it is a plane crash in a sci-fi book, it is still a plane crash and it must look realistic or you lose the trust of your readers. I still remember when I read a book by a very well-renowned best-selling author (*cough* Richard Sparks) and found he hadn't bothered to fact check that the ruins around a certain city in Mexico are Mayan, not Inca. I will probably never pick up another book by him almost solely for that reason.
What this means for me and writers everywhere is that if you aren't lucky enough to know someone who knows something about what you're writing, you better do at least basic research. Your book can be made or broken in the details and if you haven't done your homework, some reader some where out there will know that you slacked off - even if you get it past your publisher - and will tell their friends how much you suck. And hopefully you have a well-rounded writer's group or other such potential alpha readers to make the revision process less painful. Thank god for MY writer's group who are chomping at the bit for me to get to alpha-reader mode already!
One of my writing buddies is in the alpha-reader stage of one of her manuscripts. About a year ago she asked me some questions about small airplanes because I used to be a pilot, sort of. I gave her some general details and forgot about it - generalities like how crashing a single engine would be much easier that a multi-engine, etc. And then I read "Chapter Six" last weekend and realized I should have given her way different and more specific details because what she had taken from our discussion had been used to create a very tension filled and exciting plane crash - that had little resemblance to how it would really happen. The best thing about it is that when I text her and said "we need to talk about Chapter six" she knew exactly which part I was referring to and had been waiting patiently for me to get to that part so I could tell her exactly how to fix it. See, she knew I would know and thus didn't waste a lot of time researching. Smart girl, that one!
I had a ton of fun stewing about how it could be fixed without changing anything fundamental about how the characters got to that point or how they walked away from it (aka, keeping the storyline intact) and trying to remember my pilot training that I never actually finished twenty years ago. Luckily I have a buddy who IS a pilot who helped fill in the details. What we came up with resulted in some very minor changes but that will make a huge difference in a reader's perception - because now it will be authentic.
I learned several lessons from this small encounter.
1) any writer needs a trusted few who they can count on for alpha-reading. That group of people who can read as writers not readers; those who can overlook the grammar and punctuation errors that still exist in the early stages of revision and just point out the plot holes and elements of the story and characters that could be tweaked for a better overall story. The punctuation and grammar come later after revising to death and then "readers" (beta at that point) can have a crack at it.
2) details must be authentic regardless of the genre you're writing in. You never know when a reader will pick up your book and have a basic understanding of the part of your story you've written happening to and around your characters. Even though it is a plane crash in a sci-fi book, it is still a plane crash and it must look realistic or you lose the trust of your readers. I still remember when I read a book by a very well-renowned best-selling author (*cough* Richard Sparks) and found he hadn't bothered to fact check that the ruins around a certain city in Mexico are Mayan, not Inca. I will probably never pick up another book by him almost solely for that reason.
What this means for me and writers everywhere is that if you aren't lucky enough to know someone who knows something about what you're writing, you better do at least basic research. Your book can be made or broken in the details and if you haven't done your homework, some reader some where out there will know that you slacked off - even if you get it past your publisher - and will tell their friends how much you suck. And hopefully you have a well-rounded writer's group or other such potential alpha readers to make the revision process less painful. Thank god for MY writer's group who are chomping at the bit for me to get to alpha-reader mode already!
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Is there really a perfect job?
Lately this question has plagued me. I've always worked since I was sixteen and I have a super, over-achiever work ethic. Even through two babies and their resulting maternity leaves I have never wished to be a stay-at-home mom. But how do you find the perfect job? Mine is nothing I have said "I want to do {that} when I grow up". Because have you ever heard a child say 'Mommy, when I grow up I want to sit on my ass in a row of cubicles, surrounded by other worker bees who are a constant form of irritation in one way or another, basically typing all day - for forty hours a week'? No, me neither.
Which is why I'm writing a book. So I can be my own boss and make my own hours and be the one who financially benefits as a direct result of all my hard work and labor and have a glorious life away from this crappy nine-to-five world. Only now I'm seeing, through my fellow writing buddy and her publishing deal, exactly how much work will be required once I finish and sell a manuscript. None of it sounds too fun or exciting - it sounds like, well, work. And that's only IF I finish and sell a manuscript, the hardest part of the whole process being breaking into the publishing world. (My first novel I've been at for so many years it's almost embarrassing. Yes, yes, I know I've learned the craft of writing in that time so it isn't like wasted time. But still, we are talking years!) Plus I'm not naive enough to think that selling one book to a publisher will mean I can pack up everything and buy a remote cabin in the Montana mountains where I can go and live and write in bliss. It will remain work, and almost harder work once I've "made it". Then comes deadlines for new books and book tours and all the other stuff that comes with being a successful author. I'll just be trading one kind of hard work for another and not really setting myself free.
So how do you pick the right job that will take you through to retirement with your wits still about you and not so burned out that you can still enjoy life? And what part of your life right now, in the present, do you have to sacrifice to get to that pie-in-the-sky end result? Unfortunately I don't have any of these answers. Could it be that the uncertainty awaiting me in the life of an author is the real reason I haven't done much on my manuscript the last month? Forget the two vacations and running Ragnar I've been up to lately, what if THIS is the real reason I'm dragging my feet and filling my evenings with things that are not writing? I mean, the outline is basically done - even detailed for most of the book - with the ending all summed up with room for my characters to form their own path to the finish as they flesh themselves out. The perfect balance for me, the discovery writer who needs a little direction to keep her characters reined in.
Bottom line, I'm not going to know if the life of an author is right for me until I become one who has finished a manuscript and done all the hard work - just like I didn't know what I really wanted to do when I grew up before spending fifteen years getting to where I am in the working world I am currently in. Being a writer is the one thing I'm doing now that I remember saying I wanted to do way back then. That's got to mean something, right?
I guess the real reason I'm dragging my feet with getting started - again - on the novel, now that I've turned my reflection glass all the way to internal and taken a good hard look, is that I know it's going to be like having two jobs. Which means it will be hard and there won't be much sleep involved. Picture it: work forty hours a week away from home so we can keep paying the bills; feel like a single mom at night with hubby working a ton of late hours while juggling Big Sister's dance schedule and spending enough quality time with Baby Sister that she likes me more than the nanny; be on-call for the day job for twenty additional hours of nights and weekends; write every day for several hours to keep the momentum up and finish the first draft this year; oh, and don't forget to run and stay in shape so I stay sane through it all. I guess my love affair with coffee will be good and the one with my bed not so for a while. In a way it feels like the dread and anticipation I feel when approaching a race day. You wonder if you've trained enough yet are excited to see how it all goes. I need to put on my big girl panties and suck it up if I expect to get to the end, no matter what race I'm entered in.
If I'm being honest, and when have you known me not to be, I feel like I'm standing at the edge of my future afraid to take the next step in case I fail. Remember the scene in the Indiana Jones movie when they are after the Holy Grail and Indy has to take a leap of faith not knowing what will happen? That's how I feel - standing at the edge of a cliff where I have to stop talking about how amazing it's going to be when I get to the other side and find what I really want in life waiting for me. (In other words, start writing this novel again and this time finish the damn thing!) I may not know exactly how it will look but until I get there to see it I'll never know! So here's to officially embarking on the journey from writer to author, may it not kill me...
Which is why I'm writing a book. So I can be my own boss and make my own hours and be the one who financially benefits as a direct result of all my hard work and labor and have a glorious life away from this crappy nine-to-five world. Only now I'm seeing, through my fellow writing buddy and her publishing deal, exactly how much work will be required once I finish and sell a manuscript. None of it sounds too fun or exciting - it sounds like, well, work. And that's only IF I finish and sell a manuscript, the hardest part of the whole process being breaking into the publishing world. (My first novel I've been at for so many years it's almost embarrassing. Yes, yes, I know I've learned the craft of writing in that time so it isn't like wasted time. But still, we are talking years!) Plus I'm not naive enough to think that selling one book to a publisher will mean I can pack up everything and buy a remote cabin in the Montana mountains where I can go and live and write in bliss. It will remain work, and almost harder work once I've "made it". Then comes deadlines for new books and book tours and all the other stuff that comes with being a successful author. I'll just be trading one kind of hard work for another and not really setting myself free.
So how do you pick the right job that will take you through to retirement with your wits still about you and not so burned out that you can still enjoy life? And what part of your life right now, in the present, do you have to sacrifice to get to that pie-in-the-sky end result? Unfortunately I don't have any of these answers. Could it be that the uncertainty awaiting me in the life of an author is the real reason I haven't done much on my manuscript the last month? Forget the two vacations and running Ragnar I've been up to lately, what if THIS is the real reason I'm dragging my feet and filling my evenings with things that are not writing? I mean, the outline is basically done - even detailed for most of the book - with the ending all summed up with room for my characters to form their own path to the finish as they flesh themselves out. The perfect balance for me, the discovery writer who needs a little direction to keep her characters reined in.
Bottom line, I'm not going to know if the life of an author is right for me until I become one who has finished a manuscript and done all the hard work - just like I didn't know what I really wanted to do when I grew up before spending fifteen years getting to where I am in the working world I am currently in. Being a writer is the one thing I'm doing now that I remember saying I wanted to do way back then. That's got to mean something, right?
I guess the real reason I'm dragging my feet with getting started - again - on the novel, now that I've turned my reflection glass all the way to internal and taken a good hard look, is that I know it's going to be like having two jobs. Which means it will be hard and there won't be much sleep involved. Picture it: work forty hours a week away from home so we can keep paying the bills; feel like a single mom at night with hubby working a ton of late hours while juggling Big Sister's dance schedule and spending enough quality time with Baby Sister that she likes me more than the nanny; be on-call for the day job for twenty additional hours of nights and weekends; write every day for several hours to keep the momentum up and finish the first draft this year; oh, and don't forget to run and stay in shape so I stay sane through it all. I guess my love affair with coffee will be good and the one with my bed not so for a while. In a way it feels like the dread and anticipation I feel when approaching a race day. You wonder if you've trained enough yet are excited to see how it all goes. I need to put on my big girl panties and suck it up if I expect to get to the end, no matter what race I'm entered in.
If I'm being honest, and when have you known me not to be, I feel like I'm standing at the edge of my future afraid to take the next step in case I fail. Remember the scene in the Indiana Jones movie when they are after the Holy Grail and Indy has to take a leap of faith not knowing what will happen? That's how I feel - standing at the edge of a cliff where I have to stop talking about how amazing it's going to be when I get to the other side and find what I really want in life waiting for me. (In other words, start writing this novel again and this time finish the damn thing!) I may not know exactly how it will look but until I get there to see it I'll never know! So here's to officially embarking on the journey from writer to author, may it not kill me...
Monday, July 11, 2011
Let's talk food
It's been twelve weeks - and then some - since I started working with my nutritionist and it is still the best money I've ever spent on my path to wellness... well, if you don't count my running shoes! I learned so much that I thought I'd share some of the journey.
It started off with a test to see what my resting metabolic rate was so I would know exactly what kinds of calorie requirements I personally need. Sitting in a chair, doing absolutely nothing, my body burns fifteen hundred calories a day. Wow, so that means the twelve hundred calories I'd been thinking was a target - IF I counted calories - was way too low. Plus, the frightening dose of reality was that according to the metabolic test I was super close to being pre-diabetic. My body burned more sugar than fat even when I was at rest. This was not good, and the main reason I decided the money would be worth it to educate myself. I'd been a hard core runner for over a year and to see these numbers proved I was missing a very important piece of the puzzle. (I guess my trainer I wanted to blame was right after all...)
The twelve week program started with my nutritionist extraordinaire interviewing me about how I eat and giving me a plan of how healthy people eat which, turns out, were completely opposite. I wasn't eating enough of anything and I wasn't eating them in the proper ratios. Remember my fifteen hundred calorie metabolism at rest? I was only eating about eight hundred a day when we broke down what I ate into calories. No wonder I wasn't losing weight! I wasn't even meeting my minimum caloric requirements for being sedentary and then was running five days a week and lifting weights three times a week. All these factors combined to my poor body being in starvation mode and holding on dearly to every last fat cell I had left thinking we'd never have enough ever again. I needed tons more protein - which luckily I can get from things OTHER than meat since I'm not a huge fan. I needed less dairy, okay, no dairy; and no sugar. I needed to eat different fruits that weren't so high in natural sugars - bye bye bananas and pineapple. And I needed way more vegetables, which I already knew going into it. Three weeks later I had dropped five pounds and felt better than I ever have in memory. I had so much more energy and my running was better and I was sleeping better and my skin looked better. Everything was better.
After the first visit where we laid out the eating plan, the meetings with him were more like therapy. Not that I've ever had therapy before but it was like how it looks in the movies. We talked about how I was feeling, about what I was eating, if I was missing anything that I couldn't eat and all the emotions around food that most people have. About halfway through the whole program the aha moment came where I realized this wasn't some diet I was on with an ending date - like HCG - but how I would eat the rest of my life. If I stuck to "the plan" ninety percent of the time, I could lose weight. If I stuck to it eighty percent of the time I could maintain. It didn't mean I could never have a glass of milk or a sugary treat, just that I needed to make conscious choices about when I ate them and know going into it rather than just eating and giving no thought to what I would feel like afterward.
The most memorable conversation was when he told me I was pretty much over all the emotional ties I had with food and that I could now add in two "free" meals a week instead of sticking rigidly to the plan, but within reason. He asked me what my favorite meal was - where I would go and what I would eat if I didn't care about nutrition. That's easy: I'd go to Olive Garden and have a pasta dish with cream sauce, bread sticks dipped in Alfredo sauce, wine, and of course dessert. And then he told me it would take ten HOURS - TEN - running on a treadmill to burn off the calories in that one meal. Ouch!
It is amazing the transformation my relationship with food has taken since that conversation. Yes, I still go out but I make sure I have a dish that has mostly protein and I usually skip the bread basket before dinner and the dessert after unless someone will share so I only eat a few bites. I eat a lot of balanced meal replacement shakes and tons of fresh veggies. We eat mostly whole foods rather than processed; and veggies, not starch, are the main components. I don't miss milk or cheese - which was a total surprise since I LOVED milk. I eat a ton of eggs because they are my preferred choice of protein. And, when my daughter asked me the other day what my favorite food was, I couldn't answer her. Food isn't that important to me anymore to even have a favorite. It is a means to an end. A way to fuel my body for the activities I want to do. Nothing more. This from an Italian girl who was obsessed with food a mere year ago.
It amazes me the amount of money that is spent in marketing and creating foods that have been processed so much that it isn't really food anymore. By leaving all of that behind I've gone back to food the way nature intended and evolved to nourish the human body. The difference is amazing in both how I feel and how I will look when I'm finally rid of the last stubborn fat cells my body no longer needs to hold onto instinctively because I am properly fueling it for everything I am doing.
After three months of eating well and not dieting - which means not sticking to the eating plan formula more than about 75% of the time, I have maintained my weight and still lost a few inches from toning and building muscle mass. I was so thrilled and am now committed to my own personal twelve week challenge to stick with the plan 90% of the time. I know I already look amazingly better than I did when I started this whole fitness fad back in 2008 but until I am completely happy with how I look in a swimsuit the journey cannot be considered finished. Of course, do you actually know a single woman who can't find something to scrutinize about her body in a swimsuit? Could be a long time before I'm completely satisfied but at least I'll be happy and healthy getting there!
It started off with a test to see what my resting metabolic rate was so I would know exactly what kinds of calorie requirements I personally need. Sitting in a chair, doing absolutely nothing, my body burns fifteen hundred calories a day. Wow, so that means the twelve hundred calories I'd been thinking was a target - IF I counted calories - was way too low. Plus, the frightening dose of reality was that according to the metabolic test I was super close to being pre-diabetic. My body burned more sugar than fat even when I was at rest. This was not good, and the main reason I decided the money would be worth it to educate myself. I'd been a hard core runner for over a year and to see these numbers proved I was missing a very important piece of the puzzle. (I guess my trainer I wanted to blame was right after all...)
The twelve week program started with my nutritionist extraordinaire interviewing me about how I eat and giving me a plan of how healthy people eat which, turns out, were completely opposite. I wasn't eating enough of anything and I wasn't eating them in the proper ratios. Remember my fifteen hundred calorie metabolism at rest? I was only eating about eight hundred a day when we broke down what I ate into calories. No wonder I wasn't losing weight! I wasn't even meeting my minimum caloric requirements for being sedentary and then was running five days a week and lifting weights three times a week. All these factors combined to my poor body being in starvation mode and holding on dearly to every last fat cell I had left thinking we'd never have enough ever again. I needed tons more protein - which luckily I can get from things OTHER than meat since I'm not a huge fan. I needed less dairy, okay, no dairy; and no sugar. I needed to eat different fruits that weren't so high in natural sugars - bye bye bananas and pineapple. And I needed way more vegetables, which I already knew going into it. Three weeks later I had dropped five pounds and felt better than I ever have in memory. I had so much more energy and my running was better and I was sleeping better and my skin looked better. Everything was better.
After the first visit where we laid out the eating plan, the meetings with him were more like therapy. Not that I've ever had therapy before but it was like how it looks in the movies. We talked about how I was feeling, about what I was eating, if I was missing anything that I couldn't eat and all the emotions around food that most people have. About halfway through the whole program the aha moment came where I realized this wasn't some diet I was on with an ending date - like HCG - but how I would eat the rest of my life. If I stuck to "the plan" ninety percent of the time, I could lose weight. If I stuck to it eighty percent of the time I could maintain. It didn't mean I could never have a glass of milk or a sugary treat, just that I needed to make conscious choices about when I ate them and know going into it rather than just eating and giving no thought to what I would feel like afterward.
The most memorable conversation was when he told me I was pretty much over all the emotional ties I had with food and that I could now add in two "free" meals a week instead of sticking rigidly to the plan, but within reason. He asked me what my favorite meal was - where I would go and what I would eat if I didn't care about nutrition. That's easy: I'd go to Olive Garden and have a pasta dish with cream sauce, bread sticks dipped in Alfredo sauce, wine, and of course dessert. And then he told me it would take ten HOURS - TEN - running on a treadmill to burn off the calories in that one meal. Ouch!
It is amazing the transformation my relationship with food has taken since that conversation. Yes, I still go out but I make sure I have a dish that has mostly protein and I usually skip the bread basket before dinner and the dessert after unless someone will share so I only eat a few bites. I eat a lot of balanced meal replacement shakes and tons of fresh veggies. We eat mostly whole foods rather than processed; and veggies, not starch, are the main components. I don't miss milk or cheese - which was a total surprise since I LOVED milk. I eat a ton of eggs because they are my preferred choice of protein. And, when my daughter asked me the other day what my favorite food was, I couldn't answer her. Food isn't that important to me anymore to even have a favorite. It is a means to an end. A way to fuel my body for the activities I want to do. Nothing more. This from an Italian girl who was obsessed with food a mere year ago.
It amazes me the amount of money that is spent in marketing and creating foods that have been processed so much that it isn't really food anymore. By leaving all of that behind I've gone back to food the way nature intended and evolved to nourish the human body. The difference is amazing in both how I feel and how I will look when I'm finally rid of the last stubborn fat cells my body no longer needs to hold onto instinctively because I am properly fueling it for everything I am doing.
After three months of eating well and not dieting - which means not sticking to the eating plan formula more than about 75% of the time, I have maintained my weight and still lost a few inches from toning and building muscle mass. I was so thrilled and am now committed to my own personal twelve week challenge to stick with the plan 90% of the time. I know I already look amazingly better than I did when I started this whole fitness fad back in 2008 but until I am completely happy with how I look in a swimsuit the journey cannot be considered finished. Of course, do you actually know a single woman who can't find something to scrutinize about her body in a swimsuit? Could be a long time before I'm completely satisfied but at least I'll be happy and healthy getting there!
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Ragnar Wasatch Back 2011 - Part 3
It took us more than an hour to drive directly to the major exchange at the Oakley Rodeo Grounds where we would take the baton from Van Two in the morning. It was a cluster trying to get out of the East Canyon State Park because they were routing people down and around to wind through the campgrounds instead of letting us get directly back up onto the road. By the time we got there, we were so exhausted and ready for sleep. We parked in the far corner of the parking lot in front of what looked like a grassy area we could lay down and sleep on. We hiked across the vast parking lot to stand in line for the Honey Buckets... again... and nearly froze to death. It was one AM at this point and we had been up for nearly twenty four hours. And I'd run fifteen miles!
When I got back to the car, shivering, I told Hubby there was no way I was going to sleep outside in our light sleeping bags we had packed. Maybe if we had sub-zero rated bags it would be a different story. So, we climbed back into the car and tried to sleep. Steven, who is over six feet tall, headed out with his fleece blanket to attempt to sleep lying down on the ground instead of folded into a seat. Sean headed to the free hot chocolate tent where we assumed he was hooking up with chicks, being the available bachelor of the group, and we didn't see him for several hours. The rest of us tried to curl up with pillows jammed between the window and side of our necks so we could ward off the crick in the neck you get from sleeping with your head on your own shoulder. Well, everyone except my sister who couldn't find her pillow. Being the awesome wife I am and knowing how hard this situation was going to be on Hubby who has a ruptured disk in his lower back, I let him recline the seat in front of me so he could kind of stretch out. Which meant I was crammed in between his seat and mine with little room to maneuver...
A while later, Sean crawled back into the car who, it turns out, had not been picking up chicks but had gone out to the grass and laid down to sleep - without even a blanket. No wonder that didn't last long! So now we have my sister in the driver seat, minus her pillow; Hubby in the passenger seat, reclined; me crammed behind Hubby in a seat that didn't recline, Sean in the other non-reclining seat behind my sister, and Jose and Jaclyn sharing the back seat feet-pointed-toward-each-other style. A couple of tossing and turning hours later at about three am, the overhead light went on with Steven at the door. I'll never forget what he said in his apologetic voice... "Sorry guys, but I can't feel my feet. I need to get back in." So, Jaclyn - who weighed all of about ninety pounds - climbed into the very back and laid on top of all our bags and coolers, etc. Now Jose and Steven are in the back and we all try and go back to sleep. Well, first I snap some photos to prove it is possible to sleep seven adults in one Ford Excursion. The same photos that exposed Jose as the pillow thief he is since once they were posted to Facebook my sister screamed "That's my pillow!! No wonder I couldn't find it and no wonder it stunk when I got it home!!"
About four o'clock I was so cold, even with my sleeping bag on top of me like a blanket, that I whispered to my sister to turn the car on so we could get warm. Which she promptly obliged, probably because she hadn't been warm since we left the hotel Friday morning. We ran the heater until it was so hot in there I thought I would vomit (which according to her was not nearly long enough) and then I realized I was hungry. Like my stomach was growling. Guess who hadn't eaten after her second run and who had an empty tank with nothing left to fuel another run in a couple of hours. Yes, the same girl who still can't run on either an empty or a full stomach. Luckily someone had passed the reusable grocery back toward the front and I had the makings of PB&J within reach. I made me a sandwich and ate some grapes from the fruit cooler between the seats with the aid of my headlamp - which I never actually used for running but was required to have - without disturbing the rest of my van-mates.
After I was done eating I realized it was coming up on about four thirty and if the other van had either made up time or was on schedule still, we were going to need to be ready to run in just over an hour. I sent Melissa a text to check in and found they had fallen even further behind. They estimated they wouldn't be done and ready to pass off to us until about eight o'clock. Elated, I switched my alarm clock on my phone to much later and fell back to sleep, kind of.
The alarm clock went off at six forty five and everyone groaned since if I was up and needing to change my clothes, everyone had to be up so we could unload the car to get my bag out. They were offering breakfast of pancakes, eggs and sausage that we took advantage of. I changed out of the clothes I had spent the last thirty hours in and wiped down with some baby wipes - since there were no showers available. You never think that a wipe down with baby wipes is going to cut it until you're in a situation where it does and then you're grateful to have them. The downside of the morning was when my sister was in line for the Honey Buckets and the pump truck arrived to pump them out, and she was downwind. It was disgusting enough that she had almost made her way to the front of the line and still stepped out of it to escape the stink. I will say that overall the Honey Buckets themselves were never disgusting and the race team did a fabulous job coordinating the servicing to accommodate fourteen thousand runners using them constantly.
By the time we had all cleaned ourselves up, the sun was shining, mocking us with the inviting field of grass we could have slept on had we had the appropriate gear. We headed for the exchange to wait for Van Two. We had about half an hour of hanging out with the girls from the other van hearing about their overnight runs and van antics and the fact that they had not had any sleep yet while we waited for Melissa to arrive. I was so nervous and didn't think I had anymore running in me. I had rolled out with TheStick (which every runner must have we all decided that weekend) but I hadn't stretched much after my last run because it was too cold outside to do it before we hit the sack. I worried that I'd beaten my body to it's limit and it would rebel. I feared I'd take the baton and have to walk the whole length of my last four mile run.
I didn't need to be nervous, though. Melissa arrived, told me she had fallen on her face, and sent me on my way with the baton. I had psyched myself up, swore I would not humiliate myself by walking out of the exchange no matter what and surprisingly ran the first mile and a half straight. Then I hit some rolling hills and did more walk/run intervals telling my concerned van-mates that I was fine and was just going to take it easy. I had plenty of water and I would see them at the exchange since it was a short little run of four point one miles.
When I hit two miles according to my GPS I celebrated that I was halfway there and kept telling myself that even though I could see the course ahead of me and knew it was uphill the remainder of the way that I could do it. After all, I only had to go one more mile and then I'd see that beautiful and much loved marker that proclaimed "one mile to go". I was on the home stretch!
I looked down at my GPS and saw that I had gone three point nine miles, which meant I had a mere three tenths of a mile to go, and looked up to see... the "one mile to go" marker which was not welcome HERE and had become a taunt rather than a beloved sight. What the fuck are you talking about one mile to go? I KNOW this leg was only four point one miles! It must be a joke, right?! Only it wasn't... turns out the leg was actually four point nine, in other words a five mile leg, not the four I was expecting. That last mile began to drag out and my body - which I had been making deals with all morning to please just get me to that last exchange - started to scream in agony. My right foot started shooting weird pain from my arch down to my toes which I started worrying was some kind of injury; I could no longer muster the energy for even a short run interval between the walking and I was putting us seriously behind in our times.
I rounded the last corner and could see the exchange ahead of me. With the last ounce of will I had left I started running and as I got within fifty yards I screamed - at the top of my lungs with both arms held high, "I'M FUCKING DONE!" Did I care that my language probably offended half the people standing around? Not in the least... And I even had someone yell it back at me as I passed saying she thought she was the only one who felt that way. With jubilant screams and relief proceeding me, I saw my Hubby step up to take the baton from me for the last time. The running part of my Ragnar was over!
I stretched my poor calves and feet a bit and heard that the talk in the van had been along the lines of "why doesn't she let someone else take the last leg if she's hurting that much?" Which my wise sister proclaimed, accurately, I would never do because I was stubborn and had said I'd do it and by god would. We loaded into the van to catch up with Hubby who only had three miles to go. He ended up tweaking his knee not even a mile in and couldn't run anymore. He had to walk most of his third leg and hated every minute of it and most especially those minutes that included someone passing him. I hated seeing his disappointment of not finishing strong but reminded him that he barely trained for this event and should be proud that he did as well as he did on the first two legs and even had the ability to walk the last one.
Everyone else had short and easy legs except Steven who had been dreading his hardest and longest third run. It was over eight miles up another mountain highway pass behind Jordanelle. It was also a leg of no van support so we waved him goodbye from the exchange and toiled a bit to let Hubby and I stretch and relax a little before we made our way to the next exchange. Steven kicked ass doing what he calls construction intervals - run to a cone, walk to a cone. Then we watched Jacklyn sprint down into Heber Valley like a shot running about six and a half minute miles. Not bad for a mountain biker who doesn't run outside very often! She made up time for both Hubby and I and then Sean and Jose had quick and easy runs and we arrived in Heber to trade off one last time to Van Two at about one o'clock.
After the last exchange, we stretched out on the grass and again pulled out the cooler and food. We were so ravenous! Jose's family - who weren't going to see him for two weeks between business travel and Ragnar weekend - came and met us and Jose and Sean went home with them after we snapped some "OMG We did it" photos. (Deserters!)
We packed the car one last time, two people short, and headed for Park City High School and the finish line. We parked, used the Honey Buckets... again, walked forever to get to the stadium and then hung out for hours waiting for the team finish. We browsed through the very picked over merchandise tent, wandered past all the other vendor tents, scoped out the food and copped a squat at a table. Steven's family and Jaclyn's husband arrived and we got to tell our first recap of the weekend and relive the adventure we were still on. After some more food, we ended up in the end zone of the football field so we could have an easy reference point to tell Van Two where to meet us when they arrived. Since Steven's wife is a close friend, I chatted while my sister and Hubby fell asleep on the astro-turf.
Then Van Two arrived and at last we were all together. Mina, the nurse practitioner and all around kick ass woman, took one look at Hubby's knee and promptly escorted him to the first aid tent for an exam and an ice pack. Turns out he had overused and irritated his knee and needed Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation but had not torn his ACL again which is always his first fear. We made our way to the team holding area and began the stretch of waiting for them to announce our number over the PA so we could go onto the track and run with Melissa the last tenth of a mile to the finish line together. It was fun catching each other up on what each van had been up to. Mina disappeared and turns out had gone down the trail to meet Melissa and run in with her since this had been a no van support leg the whole way for her.
Finally they announced team 1048, Run Piggies Run and Melissa and Mina ran up onto the track and we all sprinted for the finish together... until I screamed "slow down" so we wouldn't leave my poor Hubby behind. We crossed at just past eight thirty PM. There were tons of smiles and lots of pictures snapped as we crossed as a team - well, minus the deserters who went home early. We were quickly herded to the adjoining tents to receive our medals and other finish line goodies and then to pose for official team finish photos in our medals. Two free pizzas from Little Caesars were snarfed down and poor Melissa tried to process it all while overwhelmed that she had just finished her long and very difficult run while we all rested and waited in anticipation.
Our official time was one hundred ninety two miles in thirty eight hours, five minutes and nine seconds. The winners did it in about eighteen hours, but we were not the last team to finish which is all that mattered. The only thing that mattered was that we DID finish!
We all walked together to the cars to hand out the official shirts that I'd been carrying around in Van One all weekend. Steven, Jaclyn and Mina went home with their families who came to watch the team finish. And the rest of us all climbed back into the stinky vans to make our way home after group hugs galore and talk about doing it all again.
I don't know if, after all of this, I have successfully expressed how amazing this weekend was. It was the most grueling and rewarding thing I have ever done. At times I hated it, at times I wanted to smack van-mates when my sleep deprived bitchy side was showing. But at the same time I loved every minute of the experience and I can't wait to do it again! Ragnar Vegas? Ragnar Napa? Anyone? The funniest thing is that registration for 2012 Wasatch Back is already open exclusively for those who did it this year. So I'm already back to planning and logistics mode for next year. If you're interested in being on the 2012 team, let me know!
My most relished moment overall was applying the badge of honor to the rear window of my car: the coveted Ragnar sticker. As Steven said, it makes it that much more impressive knowing that you don't get it when you check in, you can't buy it anywhere, you only get it when you finish. In other words, it is earned! Yes, the medal is nice and includes a bottle opener but it doesn't have anything on the sticker!
When I got back to the car, shivering, I told Hubby there was no way I was going to sleep outside in our light sleeping bags we had packed. Maybe if we had sub-zero rated bags it would be a different story. So, we climbed back into the car and tried to sleep. Steven, who is over six feet tall, headed out with his fleece blanket to attempt to sleep lying down on the ground instead of folded into a seat. Sean headed to the free hot chocolate tent where we assumed he was hooking up with chicks, being the available bachelor of the group, and we didn't see him for several hours. The rest of us tried to curl up with pillows jammed between the window and side of our necks so we could ward off the crick in the neck you get from sleeping with your head on your own shoulder. Well, everyone except my sister who couldn't find her pillow. Being the awesome wife I am and knowing how hard this situation was going to be on Hubby who has a ruptured disk in his lower back, I let him recline the seat in front of me so he could kind of stretch out. Which meant I was crammed in between his seat and mine with little room to maneuver...
A while later, Sean crawled back into the car who, it turns out, had not been picking up chicks but had gone out to the grass and laid down to sleep - without even a blanket. No wonder that didn't last long! So now we have my sister in the driver seat, minus her pillow; Hubby in the passenger seat, reclined; me crammed behind Hubby in a seat that didn't recline, Sean in the other non-reclining seat behind my sister, and Jose and Jaclyn sharing the back seat feet-pointed-toward-each-other style. A couple of tossing and turning hours later at about three am, the overhead light went on with Steven at the door. I'll never forget what he said in his apologetic voice... "Sorry guys, but I can't feel my feet. I need to get back in." So, Jaclyn - who weighed all of about ninety pounds - climbed into the very back and laid on top of all our bags and coolers, etc. Now Jose and Steven are in the back and we all try and go back to sleep. Well, first I snap some photos to prove it is possible to sleep seven adults in one Ford Excursion. The same photos that exposed Jose as the pillow thief he is since once they were posted to Facebook my sister screamed "That's my pillow!! No wonder I couldn't find it and no wonder it stunk when I got it home!!"
About four o'clock I was so cold, even with my sleeping bag on top of me like a blanket, that I whispered to my sister to turn the car on so we could get warm. Which she promptly obliged, probably because she hadn't been warm since we left the hotel Friday morning. We ran the heater until it was so hot in there I thought I would vomit (which according to her was not nearly long enough) and then I realized I was hungry. Like my stomach was growling. Guess who hadn't eaten after her second run and who had an empty tank with nothing left to fuel another run in a couple of hours. Yes, the same girl who still can't run on either an empty or a full stomach. Luckily someone had passed the reusable grocery back toward the front and I had the makings of PB&J within reach. I made me a sandwich and ate some grapes from the fruit cooler between the seats with the aid of my headlamp - which I never actually used for running but was required to have - without disturbing the rest of my van-mates.
After I was done eating I realized it was coming up on about four thirty and if the other van had either made up time or was on schedule still, we were going to need to be ready to run in just over an hour. I sent Melissa a text to check in and found they had fallen even further behind. They estimated they wouldn't be done and ready to pass off to us until about eight o'clock. Elated, I switched my alarm clock on my phone to much later and fell back to sleep, kind of.
The alarm clock went off at six forty five and everyone groaned since if I was up and needing to change my clothes, everyone had to be up so we could unload the car to get my bag out. They were offering breakfast of pancakes, eggs and sausage that we took advantage of. I changed out of the clothes I had spent the last thirty hours in and wiped down with some baby wipes - since there were no showers available. You never think that a wipe down with baby wipes is going to cut it until you're in a situation where it does and then you're grateful to have them. The downside of the morning was when my sister was in line for the Honey Buckets and the pump truck arrived to pump them out, and she was downwind. It was disgusting enough that she had almost made her way to the front of the line and still stepped out of it to escape the stink. I will say that overall the Honey Buckets themselves were never disgusting and the race team did a fabulous job coordinating the servicing to accommodate fourteen thousand runners using them constantly.
By the time we had all cleaned ourselves up, the sun was shining, mocking us with the inviting field of grass we could have slept on had we had the appropriate gear. We headed for the exchange to wait for Van Two. We had about half an hour of hanging out with the girls from the other van hearing about their overnight runs and van antics and the fact that they had not had any sleep yet while we waited for Melissa to arrive. I was so nervous and didn't think I had anymore running in me. I had rolled out with TheStick (which every runner must have we all decided that weekend) but I hadn't stretched much after my last run because it was too cold outside to do it before we hit the sack. I worried that I'd beaten my body to it's limit and it would rebel. I feared I'd take the baton and have to walk the whole length of my last four mile run.
I didn't need to be nervous, though. Melissa arrived, told me she had fallen on her face, and sent me on my way with the baton. I had psyched myself up, swore I would not humiliate myself by walking out of the exchange no matter what and surprisingly ran the first mile and a half straight. Then I hit some rolling hills and did more walk/run intervals telling my concerned van-mates that I was fine and was just going to take it easy. I had plenty of water and I would see them at the exchange since it was a short little run of four point one miles.
When I hit two miles according to my GPS I celebrated that I was halfway there and kept telling myself that even though I could see the course ahead of me and knew it was uphill the remainder of the way that I could do it. After all, I only had to go one more mile and then I'd see that beautiful and much loved marker that proclaimed "one mile to go". I was on the home stretch!
I looked down at my GPS and saw that I had gone three point nine miles, which meant I had a mere three tenths of a mile to go, and looked up to see... the "one mile to go" marker which was not welcome HERE and had become a taunt rather than a beloved sight. What the fuck are you talking about one mile to go? I KNOW this leg was only four point one miles! It must be a joke, right?! Only it wasn't... turns out the leg was actually four point nine, in other words a five mile leg, not the four I was expecting. That last mile began to drag out and my body - which I had been making deals with all morning to please just get me to that last exchange - started to scream in agony. My right foot started shooting weird pain from my arch down to my toes which I started worrying was some kind of injury; I could no longer muster the energy for even a short run interval between the walking and I was putting us seriously behind in our times.
I rounded the last corner and could see the exchange ahead of me. With the last ounce of will I had left I started running and as I got within fifty yards I screamed - at the top of my lungs with both arms held high, "I'M FUCKING DONE!" Did I care that my language probably offended half the people standing around? Not in the least... And I even had someone yell it back at me as I passed saying she thought she was the only one who felt that way. With jubilant screams and relief proceeding me, I saw my Hubby step up to take the baton from me for the last time. The running part of my Ragnar was over!
I stretched my poor calves and feet a bit and heard that the talk in the van had been along the lines of "why doesn't she let someone else take the last leg if she's hurting that much?" Which my wise sister proclaimed, accurately, I would never do because I was stubborn and had said I'd do it and by god would. We loaded into the van to catch up with Hubby who only had three miles to go. He ended up tweaking his knee not even a mile in and couldn't run anymore. He had to walk most of his third leg and hated every minute of it and most especially those minutes that included someone passing him. I hated seeing his disappointment of not finishing strong but reminded him that he barely trained for this event and should be proud that he did as well as he did on the first two legs and even had the ability to walk the last one.
Everyone else had short and easy legs except Steven who had been dreading his hardest and longest third run. It was over eight miles up another mountain highway pass behind Jordanelle. It was also a leg of no van support so we waved him goodbye from the exchange and toiled a bit to let Hubby and I stretch and relax a little before we made our way to the next exchange. Steven kicked ass doing what he calls construction intervals - run to a cone, walk to a cone. Then we watched Jacklyn sprint down into Heber Valley like a shot running about six and a half minute miles. Not bad for a mountain biker who doesn't run outside very often! She made up time for both Hubby and I and then Sean and Jose had quick and easy runs and we arrived in Heber to trade off one last time to Van Two at about one o'clock.
After the last exchange, we stretched out on the grass and again pulled out the cooler and food. We were so ravenous! Jose's family - who weren't going to see him for two weeks between business travel and Ragnar weekend - came and met us and Jose and Sean went home with them after we snapped some "OMG We did it" photos. (Deserters!)
We packed the car one last time, two people short, and headed for Park City High School and the finish line. We parked, used the Honey Buckets... again, walked forever to get to the stadium and then hung out for hours waiting for the team finish. We browsed through the very picked over merchandise tent, wandered past all the other vendor tents, scoped out the food and copped a squat at a table. Steven's family and Jaclyn's husband arrived and we got to tell our first recap of the weekend and relive the adventure we were still on. After some more food, we ended up in the end zone of the football field so we could have an easy reference point to tell Van Two where to meet us when they arrived. Since Steven's wife is a close friend, I chatted while my sister and Hubby fell asleep on the astro-turf.
Then Van Two arrived and at last we were all together. Mina, the nurse practitioner and all around kick ass woman, took one look at Hubby's knee and promptly escorted him to the first aid tent for an exam and an ice pack. Turns out he had overused and irritated his knee and needed Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation but had not torn his ACL again which is always his first fear. We made our way to the team holding area and began the stretch of waiting for them to announce our number over the PA so we could go onto the track and run with Melissa the last tenth of a mile to the finish line together. It was fun catching each other up on what each van had been up to. Mina disappeared and turns out had gone down the trail to meet Melissa and run in with her since this had been a no van support leg the whole way for her.
Finally they announced team 1048, Run Piggies Run and Melissa and Mina ran up onto the track and we all sprinted for the finish together... until I screamed "slow down" so we wouldn't leave my poor Hubby behind. We crossed at just past eight thirty PM. There were tons of smiles and lots of pictures snapped as we crossed as a team - well, minus the deserters who went home early. We were quickly herded to the adjoining tents to receive our medals and other finish line goodies and then to pose for official team finish photos in our medals. Two free pizzas from Little Caesars were snarfed down and poor Melissa tried to process it all while overwhelmed that she had just finished her long and very difficult run while we all rested and waited in anticipation.
Our official time was one hundred ninety two miles in thirty eight hours, five minutes and nine seconds. The winners did it in about eighteen hours, but we were not the last team to finish which is all that mattered. The only thing that mattered was that we DID finish!
We all walked together to the cars to hand out the official shirts that I'd been carrying around in Van One all weekend. Steven, Jaclyn and Mina went home with their families who came to watch the team finish. And the rest of us all climbed back into the stinky vans to make our way home after group hugs galore and talk about doing it all again.
I don't know if, after all of this, I have successfully expressed how amazing this weekend was. It was the most grueling and rewarding thing I have ever done. At times I hated it, at times I wanted to smack van-mates when my sleep deprived bitchy side was showing. But at the same time I loved every minute of the experience and I can't wait to do it again! Ragnar Vegas? Ragnar Napa? Anyone? The funniest thing is that registration for 2012 Wasatch Back is already open exclusively for those who did it this year. So I'm already back to planning and logistics mode for next year. If you're interested in being on the 2012 team, let me know!
My most relished moment overall was applying the badge of honor to the rear window of my car: the coveted Ragnar sticker. As Steven said, it makes it that much more impressive knowing that you don't get it when you check in, you can't buy it anywhere, you only get it when you finish. In other words, it is earned! Yes, the medal is nice and includes a bottle opener but it doesn't have anything on the sticker!
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Ragnar Wasatch Back 2011 - Part 2
We arrived at Snow Basin, the second major exchange where we would eventually meet up with the runner from Van Two and get the baton back to kick off our second set of runs, at about two o'clock. We didn't have much down time since the first set of legs for Van Two were all fairly short and they only had about five hours of running. Plus we'd hung out in Eden for a while already. We hiked from the lower parking lot to the lodge, stood in line for the Honey Buckets with the masses, and hiked back to the car. We had planned ahead to have real food with us and pulled the cooler out for pasta salad and grilled chicken. It was nice to lay down on the ground and stretch our legs. We even ended up being sucked into the merchandise tent to get our Ragnar gear - hoodies, shirts and beanies.
At this point in the day it wasn't much different than a day of training; I'd already done several days run in the morning and run at night. And this was the leg I was super excited for - my downhill leg. We checked in with the other team to see if they were on track for their run schedule, which they were, and relaxed for a bit. Steven was the smartest of us who wandered off with his blanket to find a shaded spot to try and get some sleep. The rest of us laughed and gossiped and talked about our next set of legs.
At about quarter till five o'clock we packed our gear up and got ready to head for the exchange point. This meant it was time for me to get nervous with anticipation again and start checking and double checking all my gear. I failed to mention that on my first leg my iPod decided to quit about a mile in. It doesn't like cold temperatures as much as I do apparently. I'd charged it in the car and strapped it onto my arm hoping it wouldn't fail me this time since I had a two hour run ahead of me. Garmin on my wrist, check. Heart rate monitor and Nike+ Sportband on the other, check. I filled up my water bottle to strap to my back, loaded up with my Gu for pre-run and mid-run fueling and prepped my recovery shake with water in my blender ball. I sprayed down with sunscreen and was ready.
Or so I thought...
I stood at the exchange for a long time waiting for Melissa - the last runner from Van Two. I couldn't blame her, she was running up the steep canyon road and she had told us she'd have to walk parts of it. I couldn't have done it and there's no shame in walking. The exchange was crazy and the volunteers were clearly not very adjusted to what they were doing - I suspected it was shift change. The runners were all lined up and craning necks to try and watch who was rounding the corner to see if it was their team mate or not. The more we craned our necks, the more the volunteers told us to step back. All the other exchanges had people who were radioing ahead from a half mile out when each runner would pass and they would announce the team number for those waiting. Well, not this exchange. Finally I saw her turn the corner running like a trooper. Apparently my Hubby, always the jokester, yelled "way to go, Melissa! Just one more mile!" Melissa didn't miss a beat and promptly flipped him the bird and the crowd roared with laughter. The fact that I missed this exchange completely, even standing right there, tells you how distracted I was and focused on my run. Hubby was laughing about it later and I had no idea what he was talking about.
And then I had taken the baton, slapped it around my wrist and headed off... On a journey into Hell.
The description of my leg was something like 'depart exchange 12 via utility road behind the lodge, turn right onto Snow Basin Road... blah blah blah... DOWN the canyon into Ogden Valley'. The reality of that utility road was nothing that I had planned for. It didn't just go quaintly behind the lodge that was right there, it went half a mile up the ski hill behind the lodge and was rocky as hell. I couldn't run it without twisting my ankle so it was more like a hike - a slow hike up a fifteen percent incline. I was super dejected when I realized it was a ski lift I was running next to and the road just kept going up. Finally, after what seemed like miles, the road turned back down the hill and my heart and lungs got a little breather - not to mention my legs. The worst part was the bugs - that kept hitting me in the face and sticking to the sweat there. And, of course, there was no van support on this section so I couldn't even tell anyone I needed the bug spray, which was buried in my bag in the back of the van anyway. I was miserable and had eight miles left to go.
And then I hit the snow...
Yes, SNOW! I had to climb three steps up onto the top of a large section of snow and run across the top of it. Trust me, I looked and there was no way around that snowbank that completely covered a section of the utility road. It was slushy snow - a pile which had been there for a while, cold, then melted, then cold again. I slipped and sloshed around in the ankle-deep slush on top literally cursing with each step thinking about how miserable this run would be if I had wet shoes or wet socks or both.
Once past the snow, I hit the road and was finally back to van-support. I had a section of uphill which I figured was my last and settled in for walk/run intervals to get to the top. Running is such a mental sport and I kept telling myself that I could do it and focused on the downhill reward after this little uphill section since then I would be heading back down to hook up to the main canyon highway from the little detour into the ski resort exchange point. Not long after I hit the road I saw the blessed - and now recognizable thanks to our decorating efforts - back of my van. I yelled at the top of my lungs "bug spray!" and hoped my sister who was hanging out the open driver's window could understand what I was screaming. She did and luckily had some which was more handy than mine and didn't require an unpacking of the van to get to. I stopped to get sprayed down, glad for the little rest after the uphill, and headed out again - still excited.
And man was that downhill ever fun! Seven percent downgrade - hell yes! Except it didn't last as long as I thought and about two more miles down when I hit the main highway I was back to uphill... and it was a long and steady slight uphill grade which is my least favorite. I'd rather have a super tough but short uphill that I can psych myself up about and push through. This was torture. And on top of that, we were now in an area of main highway and the support people in my van couldn't get out and cross the road to me if I needed anything. I'd already drank most of my water I was carrying, was feeling the late day heat and knew I'd need more. Since it was a long non-van support leg, there were water stations and at the first one they let me refill my water bottle and I grabbed some Powerade. About that time my calf started cramping up because I hadn't stretched as much as I should have between runs. I yelled to the van across the highway that I needed a banana and Steven chucked one across the road. I'm a total girl so I didn't catch it and it landed at my feet, broken open and smashed on one end. I ate most of it and tossed the biodegradable remains over the side of the cliff and pushed on hoping my dancing nanny who had told me the trick of eating a banana to get rid of cramps was right. Guess what, she was!
The rest of the leg translated much differently in reality than what I had envisioned based on the graphic on the leg map. It was more rolling hills with a general trend downward. So not what I had been looking forward to in the form of constant downhill! Guess I should have trained for uphill just a bit more than I had...
At the halfway point I was a wreck. I had pushed my body to lengths it had never been pushed before and I was approaching - and would exceed - the most mileage I had ever run in a twelve hour period. Not even my half marathon mileage was this long. My feet were hurting, my plantar fasciitis that I'd been babying for a week of rest prior to race day was flaring and shooting pain up my heel with every step. But I kept going because there was no way this race that I'd been dreaming about for years and training for months for was going to beat me. And then I could see the end and the last stretch of downhill waiting and knew I just needed to make it the last three miles and I could rest. I had hit a point that I needed to be by myself to struggle on my own and didn't want my van-mates to see it so I waved them on to the next exchange so Hubby could get ready for his run. I took some more Powerade from the last water station and settled in for the longest stretch of road I have ever run...
As I crested the last section of slight uphill with about two miles left to go, I looked up and saw the most beautiful view of the Ogden valley opening up below me. The sun - which was almost setting to my right - bounced off the green hills surrounding me with surreal light. And then our song from our wedding started playing on the iPod in my ears which thankfully hadn't quit on me this time. I started crying, it hit me so hard. And I'm not going to lie, I cried those last two miles almost nonstop while people continued to pass me and yell "good job" counting me as the roadkill I felt like. This was also the point I had officially sweat off all the bug spray because the bugs returned and started sticking to the sweat on my face again. Bugs are so gross!
As I came into view of the exchange I tried to pull myself together, still trudging along and telling myself I felt this way because I had just run fifteen miles in the space of twelve hours - FIFTEEN - and that I was amazing for living through it and still be running. I was able to stop the tears and focus on getting to the exchange point, looking frantically for my Honey who had changed his shirt while I was running. When he stepped up from the line of runners waiting at the exchange and I finally saw him I lost it again, slapped the baton on him and wished him luck. As he ran off looking strong I promptly broke down like a baby while my team stepped up to congratulate me. Luckily my friend Steven offered his shoulder to cry on for a moment while I composed myself. I'm sure it was awkward for him but I appreciated it so much. Then I saw my sister, though, and I lost it again. Thank god she was there for me to hug, cry with and to snap me back to reality. She told me how amazing it was that I had just done something that no one else she knows could have done, reminded me I HAD done it and it was over, and that I needed to pull myself together. Just the right combination of bitchy and supportive I needed. I stretched a tiny bit and jumped into the van because Hubby's leg was only three miles and we couldn't let him beat us to the exchange while I had an emotional fit. I put my big girl panties back on, mixed up my recovery shake and drank it while basking in what I had just accomplished. The irony that the leg I had most looked forward to during training was the one I hated the most was not lost on me. And, we were now forty minutes behind our estimated pace times between me and Melissa having to walk parts of the canyon.
We leap-frogged through the rest of the runners who all now had to wear their reflective gear because we'd entered the official night time running hours: reflective vest, head lamp and butt light all required. Everyone between me and Jose had their easy legs with short and flat mileage paralleling the highway running through the valley I'd just gotten us into and I envied every single one of them.
By the time Jose headed out on his final run it was full dark and this was his hardest and longest leg heading up to East Canyon State Park. A combination of no one paying attention to what time he actually left the exchange, several of us needing to stand in line for the Honey Buckets... again... and him running either faster or slower than his published pace, we lost him. It was surreal how every single runner from the back looked exactly the same with the exception of being able to tell which version of reflective vest they had - the vest kind or the Y-suspender kind. We went ahead of where we thought he should be and stopped to wait. Then panicked after sitting there long enough that we swore he should have passed by already and worrying that he'd already passed that spot while we dallied at the exchange. So we moved a couple of miles ahead passing what we estimated was the entire section of the runners who had just run past us at the last place and then some hoping to catch up to him. We did this three more times without ever being able to pick him out and decided we better head to the exchange assuming at this point he would beat us there.
Except when we got there, he wasn't there and I got worried. Yes, he was carrying his own water and he was a strong runner who said he didn't need anything from us when he headed out but we'd agreed we'd meet him at the halfway mark of his eight mile run to check on him. And instead we'd lost him among the other runners and ultimately abandoned him. We settled in at the exchange with Nancy, the first runner from Van Two, and waited in the freezing night air. And by freezing I mean freezing, literally. Sub forty degree temps are fabulous to run in, not so fun to stand around in with only a hoodie...
Finally we heard them announce our team number and saw Jose come down the last stretch and into the illumination of the lights. Relief! We wished Nancy and Van Two luck as they were off to run all through the rest of the night and we headed to the car to get warm, apologizing to Jose for losing him as we went.
We headed out from the exchange all very excited for some much anticipated rest we had ahead of us. As we read the directions from the race magazine about where we could go and hang out to have indoor sleeping accommodations and showers (for a price, of course) and then realized it would mean a thirty mile backtrack in the morning to get to the exchange which they recommended we get to early, we all decided it would be best to maximize the time we had to sleep and go straight to the real exchange instead of the alternate hang out location. So, we bee-lined it straight to Oakley to sleep and run again the next morning.
At this point in the day it wasn't much different than a day of training; I'd already done several days run in the morning and run at night. And this was the leg I was super excited for - my downhill leg. We checked in with the other team to see if they were on track for their run schedule, which they were, and relaxed for a bit. Steven was the smartest of us who wandered off with his blanket to find a shaded spot to try and get some sleep. The rest of us laughed and gossiped and talked about our next set of legs.
At about quarter till five o'clock we packed our gear up and got ready to head for the exchange point. This meant it was time for me to get nervous with anticipation again and start checking and double checking all my gear. I failed to mention that on my first leg my iPod decided to quit about a mile in. It doesn't like cold temperatures as much as I do apparently. I'd charged it in the car and strapped it onto my arm hoping it wouldn't fail me this time since I had a two hour run ahead of me. Garmin on my wrist, check. Heart rate monitor and Nike+ Sportband on the other, check. I filled up my water bottle to strap to my back, loaded up with my Gu for pre-run and mid-run fueling and prepped my recovery shake with water in my blender ball. I sprayed down with sunscreen and was ready.
Or so I thought...
I stood at the exchange for a long time waiting for Melissa - the last runner from Van Two. I couldn't blame her, she was running up the steep canyon road and she had told us she'd have to walk parts of it. I couldn't have done it and there's no shame in walking. The exchange was crazy and the volunteers were clearly not very adjusted to what they were doing - I suspected it was shift change. The runners were all lined up and craning necks to try and watch who was rounding the corner to see if it was their team mate or not. The more we craned our necks, the more the volunteers told us to step back. All the other exchanges had people who were radioing ahead from a half mile out when each runner would pass and they would announce the team number for those waiting. Well, not this exchange. Finally I saw her turn the corner running like a trooper. Apparently my Hubby, always the jokester, yelled "way to go, Melissa! Just one more mile!" Melissa didn't miss a beat and promptly flipped him the bird and the crowd roared with laughter. The fact that I missed this exchange completely, even standing right there, tells you how distracted I was and focused on my run. Hubby was laughing about it later and I had no idea what he was talking about.
And then I had taken the baton, slapped it around my wrist and headed off... On a journey into Hell.
The description of my leg was something like 'depart exchange 12 via utility road behind the lodge, turn right onto Snow Basin Road... blah blah blah... DOWN the canyon into Ogden Valley'. The reality of that utility road was nothing that I had planned for. It didn't just go quaintly behind the lodge that was right there, it went half a mile up the ski hill behind the lodge and was rocky as hell. I couldn't run it without twisting my ankle so it was more like a hike - a slow hike up a fifteen percent incline. I was super dejected when I realized it was a ski lift I was running next to and the road just kept going up. Finally, after what seemed like miles, the road turned back down the hill and my heart and lungs got a little breather - not to mention my legs. The worst part was the bugs - that kept hitting me in the face and sticking to the sweat there. And, of course, there was no van support on this section so I couldn't even tell anyone I needed the bug spray, which was buried in my bag in the back of the van anyway. I was miserable and had eight miles left to go.
And then I hit the snow...
Yes, SNOW! I had to climb three steps up onto the top of a large section of snow and run across the top of it. Trust me, I looked and there was no way around that snowbank that completely covered a section of the utility road. It was slushy snow - a pile which had been there for a while, cold, then melted, then cold again. I slipped and sloshed around in the ankle-deep slush on top literally cursing with each step thinking about how miserable this run would be if I had wet shoes or wet socks or both.
Once past the snow, I hit the road and was finally back to van-support. I had a section of uphill which I figured was my last and settled in for walk/run intervals to get to the top. Running is such a mental sport and I kept telling myself that I could do it and focused on the downhill reward after this little uphill section since then I would be heading back down to hook up to the main canyon highway from the little detour into the ski resort exchange point. Not long after I hit the road I saw the blessed - and now recognizable thanks to our decorating efforts - back of my van. I yelled at the top of my lungs "bug spray!" and hoped my sister who was hanging out the open driver's window could understand what I was screaming. She did and luckily had some which was more handy than mine and didn't require an unpacking of the van to get to. I stopped to get sprayed down, glad for the little rest after the uphill, and headed out again - still excited.
And man was that downhill ever fun! Seven percent downgrade - hell yes! Except it didn't last as long as I thought and about two more miles down when I hit the main highway I was back to uphill... and it was a long and steady slight uphill grade which is my least favorite. I'd rather have a super tough but short uphill that I can psych myself up about and push through. This was torture. And on top of that, we were now in an area of main highway and the support people in my van couldn't get out and cross the road to me if I needed anything. I'd already drank most of my water I was carrying, was feeling the late day heat and knew I'd need more. Since it was a long non-van support leg, there were water stations and at the first one they let me refill my water bottle and I grabbed some Powerade. About that time my calf started cramping up because I hadn't stretched as much as I should have between runs. I yelled to the van across the highway that I needed a banana and Steven chucked one across the road. I'm a total girl so I didn't catch it and it landed at my feet, broken open and smashed on one end. I ate most of it and tossed the biodegradable remains over the side of the cliff and pushed on hoping my dancing nanny who had told me the trick of eating a banana to get rid of cramps was right. Guess what, she was!
The rest of the leg translated much differently in reality than what I had envisioned based on the graphic on the leg map. It was more rolling hills with a general trend downward. So not what I had been looking forward to in the form of constant downhill! Guess I should have trained for uphill just a bit more than I had...
At the halfway point I was a wreck. I had pushed my body to lengths it had never been pushed before and I was approaching - and would exceed - the most mileage I had ever run in a twelve hour period. Not even my half marathon mileage was this long. My feet were hurting, my plantar fasciitis that I'd been babying for a week of rest prior to race day was flaring and shooting pain up my heel with every step. But I kept going because there was no way this race that I'd been dreaming about for years and training for months for was going to beat me. And then I could see the end and the last stretch of downhill waiting and knew I just needed to make it the last three miles and I could rest. I had hit a point that I needed to be by myself to struggle on my own and didn't want my van-mates to see it so I waved them on to the next exchange so Hubby could get ready for his run. I took some more Powerade from the last water station and settled in for the longest stretch of road I have ever run...
As I crested the last section of slight uphill with about two miles left to go, I looked up and saw the most beautiful view of the Ogden valley opening up below me. The sun - which was almost setting to my right - bounced off the green hills surrounding me with surreal light. And then our song from our wedding started playing on the iPod in my ears which thankfully hadn't quit on me this time. I started crying, it hit me so hard. And I'm not going to lie, I cried those last two miles almost nonstop while people continued to pass me and yell "good job" counting me as the roadkill I felt like. This was also the point I had officially sweat off all the bug spray because the bugs returned and started sticking to the sweat on my face again. Bugs are so gross!
As I came into view of the exchange I tried to pull myself together, still trudging along and telling myself I felt this way because I had just run fifteen miles in the space of twelve hours - FIFTEEN - and that I was amazing for living through it and still be running. I was able to stop the tears and focus on getting to the exchange point, looking frantically for my Honey who had changed his shirt while I was running. When he stepped up from the line of runners waiting at the exchange and I finally saw him I lost it again, slapped the baton on him and wished him luck. As he ran off looking strong I promptly broke down like a baby while my team stepped up to congratulate me. Luckily my friend Steven offered his shoulder to cry on for a moment while I composed myself. I'm sure it was awkward for him but I appreciated it so much. Then I saw my sister, though, and I lost it again. Thank god she was there for me to hug, cry with and to snap me back to reality. She told me how amazing it was that I had just done something that no one else she knows could have done, reminded me I HAD done it and it was over, and that I needed to pull myself together. Just the right combination of bitchy and supportive I needed. I stretched a tiny bit and jumped into the van because Hubby's leg was only three miles and we couldn't let him beat us to the exchange while I had an emotional fit. I put my big girl panties back on, mixed up my recovery shake and drank it while basking in what I had just accomplished. The irony that the leg I had most looked forward to during training was the one I hated the most was not lost on me. And, we were now forty minutes behind our estimated pace times between me and Melissa having to walk parts of the canyon.
We leap-frogged through the rest of the runners who all now had to wear their reflective gear because we'd entered the official night time running hours: reflective vest, head lamp and butt light all required. Everyone between me and Jose had their easy legs with short and flat mileage paralleling the highway running through the valley I'd just gotten us into and I envied every single one of them.
By the time Jose headed out on his final run it was full dark and this was his hardest and longest leg heading up to East Canyon State Park. A combination of no one paying attention to what time he actually left the exchange, several of us needing to stand in line for the Honey Buckets... again... and him running either faster or slower than his published pace, we lost him. It was surreal how every single runner from the back looked exactly the same with the exception of being able to tell which version of reflective vest they had - the vest kind or the Y-suspender kind. We went ahead of where we thought he should be and stopped to wait. Then panicked after sitting there long enough that we swore he should have passed by already and worrying that he'd already passed that spot while we dallied at the exchange. So we moved a couple of miles ahead passing what we estimated was the entire section of the runners who had just run past us at the last place and then some hoping to catch up to him. We did this three more times without ever being able to pick him out and decided we better head to the exchange assuming at this point he would beat us there.
Except when we got there, he wasn't there and I got worried. Yes, he was carrying his own water and he was a strong runner who said he didn't need anything from us when he headed out but we'd agreed we'd meet him at the halfway mark of his eight mile run to check on him. And instead we'd lost him among the other runners and ultimately abandoned him. We settled in at the exchange with Nancy, the first runner from Van Two, and waited in the freezing night air. And by freezing I mean freezing, literally. Sub forty degree temps are fabulous to run in, not so fun to stand around in with only a hoodie...
Finally we heard them announce our team number and saw Jose come down the last stretch and into the illumination of the lights. Relief! We wished Nancy and Van Two luck as they were off to run all through the rest of the night and we headed to the car to get warm, apologizing to Jose for losing him as we went.
We headed out from the exchange all very excited for some much anticipated rest we had ahead of us. As we read the directions from the race magazine about where we could go and hang out to have indoor sleeping accommodations and showers (for a price, of course) and then realized it would mean a thirty mile backtrack in the morning to get to the exchange which they recommended we get to early, we all decided it would be best to maximize the time we had to sleep and go straight to the real exchange instead of the alternate hang out location. So, we bee-lined it straight to Oakley to sleep and run again the next morning.
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