It was with a little bit of a heavy heart that I went to race the Carlsbad 5000 this year.  I had not trained at all for a 5K, but Celeste had.  She was ready.  However, Celeste was not able to make this journey.  She was on quite a different one.  Where cancer comes to one house knocking politely and leaving a business card, it comes to another dragging a big bag of pain and frustration behind it.  It never asks, it just moves right in and takes over.

My race plan had been to go out conservative and see what happens or if I didn’t feel well to maybe pace Celeste to a solid performance.  In her absence, Celeste changed the race plan.

“You race that thing hard and fast.  You do this for the both of us.  You do this to celebrate life and ability.  You do this because you can.”

I wrote “Celeste” on my bib and tattooed in marker across my chest, “CC Life Is Beautiful.”  I would try my best with what I had on the given day- because I can.  It is wonderful to be healthy.

I felt tired and sleepy warming up.  The wind that had died down a bit began to pick back up with force.  It pushed my hair and every local palm tree sideways.  I wore my fastest gear possible and lined up front row- right next to Laura who I met last week in Austin at the Capitol 10K!  Small world!!!  I figured I would play poker and let them figure out what I actually had when the gun went off because basically I wasn’t sure.  I hadn’t done any real workouts and the last time (2009) that I raced CBad, I collapsed across the finish line buried in humiliation and anemia.  Oh Life, you’re a teacher!

Following the ten second count down, the pack went out hard!  Again, I ditched the GPS and ran by feel, but my gut told me that most of these women front running were going to fade.  Spastic breathing sputtered through the air as we crested the first hill, but not from me.  I pressed forward sliding into 15th place or so.  By the mile I was in 13th- 5:25.  Oops.  That was supposed to be slower.  A turn around came right as runners enter mile 2.  Here we ran along the coastline with the wind ripping off the shore.  I tucked perfectly in behind three runners.  When they slowed, I followed another runner around them and made the leap to the next group.  At the two mile, I was now 9th- 11:13.

Resisting slowing down in the third mile of a 5K is an understated challenge.  You have to really want it.  I pushed my chin down, I powered down the hill watching the leaders swing back around, and I pumped my arms and shortened my stride to climb back up.  I crested the hill and picked off one last female putting me in 8th place.  I whipped around the final turn giving what I had left for the finish- 17:43 (as seen written on a post race result sheet), 8th Female.

Good enough for today.  My mind stayed very focused in this race.  I felt in control.  I felt aggressive and I didn’t see any real reason why these girls were beating me accept that they were running faster.  Details….details….

And this one was for Celeste.  We will do it next year.

Interestingly, the Carlsbad results say I didn’t do it this year!

Ha!

Like a ghost.

I am working on that, but as anyone can see….Celeste, we were there!!!!

Four Days Later- I exist!  Results are now correct.

I had not planned to race the Austin Capitol 10K, but since my family and I would be in the Austin area for spring break, I figured I would take advantage of the here and now. Last year I had anticipated a solid performance in this race. However that was the week I tripped and instead of standing on a starting line, I sat in a chair icing my swollen knee….and chanting cuss words.  As I line up ahead of 23,000 people, a few girls on the Adidas Olympic development team joke to each other, “Congratulations on making it this far!”

“Hey,” I interject, “I celebrate every starting line- injuries will do that.” I watch several sets of twenty something sparkley eyes stare back at me as their mouths curled up in a slighted- Alright older gal whatever you say- smile.

Whoa!  I feel that like an Avon calling.  I look around.  Yep.  I am becoming the old gal.  When did this happen?  I must have been out running.  Yesterday I was a baby wasn’t I?  Maybe I am just too hot right now to think.

Hot?

Yes.  The temperature is going to climb up towards 90 degrees, but I think some one pre-heated the oven.  I stand under the starting line dripping in sweat and yes, mumbling about it in my best Texas twang- “Oh Gawd, it’s hat.  Y’all hat? Ima roastin’.”

“Sorry it is so hot ” a race official offers, “Wow, it is hot. Isn’t it?”   The crowd sings back- “yes.”  I might have heard “Damn straight.”  Alright it isn’t just me.  Everyone is hotter in Texas!

I feel relaxed.  Maybe a little too relaxed.  I am starting to miss the inner pre-race dialogue with the sweet psycho killer.  Hello?  Any body in their got an issue or a problem that they want to beat out on the pavement?  No?  Really?  OK.

Instead of clenching my jaw and narrowing my eyes in my this-is-how-I-try-to-attack stance, I take the time to enjoy lining up elite.  I make polite and fun conversations with the fasties in purple, pink, and red uniforms!  I love their uniforms.  Oooooh.

However when the gun goes off, I never find myself mixing with any other females.  Where’d y’all go?  Team purple pants aka Adidas Team Rogue takes off in the first mile faster than I know I can maintain and well, I never look back.  Anyone back there?

The early hill climbing hurts, but just a pinch.  I press off the pavement and pull my eyes upward.  I just can’t go any faster than this speed….which is whatever I am currently going because I am not wearing a GPS.  I watch the disappearance of team purple pants’ pony tails.  They seem to be in flight while gravity swarms me like late afternoon mosquitos.  However, my racing rolls out even as I come through the four mile mark in just a touch over 24 minutes and ultimately my finish time is 37:36- 7th female overall.  I have a little pick up for the finish line and that is good enough for today.

A year ago, I would have thrown a Texas sized hissy fit to see that clock time.  But for now, the fit has been de-hissed.  Participating- running in races- being a part of whatever I can do while I can do it- is fun.

And this was the first time I took water at every water stop in a 10K.  I even took seconds to pour down my back.

“What do you mean you took water?” Rusty asks baffled, “How did you have time for that?”

“I slowed down!” I gasp, “Texas is HOT!”

Tuesday I was served my first real track workout of 2012.  I have to say the oval barely flirted before it was all wham-bam.  Oxygen!  Why don’t the little safety masks drop down when I am in flight?

While the rest of the world may hip hip hooray for daylight savings, those of us who pay morning homage to the oval do not.  I found Rusty hiding in a thick sweat jacket and the ever present dark.

“How are you?”

“I got this heel rub thing, it’s been about 5 weeks, and blah blah blah- Look kids! Leg pain!- I am fabulous  fine.”

“Alrigggggght.  You are going to do one 600 in 90 per 400,” he relays as I watch his phone light up his workout list, “No, excuse me, one 600 in 78….”

So that is no 90?  That is a 78?  OK.  I am now listening.

“Then 2 min rest, 1 mile 5:50, 90 seconds rest, 1 mile 5:40, 3 min rest, 1 mile 5:30, 60 seconds rest, 1 600 at 78.  But you can go faster if you want.”

Want….want….such a silly word.  I would love to go faster.  Yes, I want to go faster.  Uh-hem, does the saying go where there is a want there is a way?  I forget.  I bounce off oblivious into my strides.  While these numbers would have been perfectly fine six months ago, I haven’t really done any work like this well- since December.  I have been somewhat patiently plugging along letting my body heal.  The over all numbers did not sound too bad, but the short rest….well….there’s the rub.

What I liked most about my approach to this workout was my attitude.  I didn’t think about it.  I didn’t worry.  I just took in what my coach told me and went about trying to get it done.  I have a lot going on right now and a previous me might have been tempted to put too much emotion into the track- uh-hem, frustration.  None of this was present- it was just a workout.  This was just track.

1st 600- 78 per 400.  Good morning lungs!  Gasp!

1st mile- 5:45.  Lungs?  Stay alert because it isn’t going to get easier.  The lungs don’t even argue how short 90 seconds really is because this is absolutely frivolous.  The legs just drag the wind bags to the starting line.

2nd mile- 5:40.  Ouchie.  OK!  We are awake!  

Two laps into the third mile, I can still manage to compute that I am running another 5:40.  Everything hurts and two more laps seems impossibly long.  However, oddly a very methodical voice took over in my head- void of emotion- expectation- or analysis.  It calmly told the voice that argued to lie down and play opossum in the astroturf to suck it up run faster.  I squeezed the last mile down to 5:35 coming through the line sucking IT (air) up!  Deeply and desperately sucking- heave ho, heave ho, heave…..

“What was that?” Rusty asks with enthusiasm.

“5:35.”

“Oh,” He pauses, “60 seconds.”

I remembered 90 seconds.  I remembered 90 seconds.  ”Russssy,” I try to speak but can’t really spare any breathe from panicking alveoli, “Russsy, 90 r 60?”

Finally Paula takes pity on my spastic speech and shouts, “Rusty, 60 or 90?”

“60!” Rusty returns, “Well, 15 now.”

The lungs skitter back like a cat about to get pushed into ice water, but the legs obedient as a dog just line up- Okee Dokee.

The last 600 squeaks out at 79′s.  I Hoover in the finish line.  SUCK AIR, must SUCK AIR.  I feel all tingly and numb like a junky who just got a wicked fix.  I made it.  I am on the other side.

Oval, you’re not much of a smooth talker, but you sure know how to take a girl’s breathe away.

And it is still just a workout.  I know where my fitness is at and I look forward to the build.  One step at a time.

Rarely do I not want to get up and go for a long run.  A very cozy night’s sleep had me pouncing on the alarm clock as though my pillow and I were under attack.  Oh no you didn’t just tell ME that it is 5:45 am!  Then a different sound flooded, hint hint, my ears….rushing water.  Is that….is that….rain?  We do not get many walls of water days in Santa Barbara.  I fluffed my pillow and kissed it good bye and climbed into my running clothes.

Rusty encouraged all the Boston warriors that they were actually very lucky to have such conditions as part of their you-are-racing-on-the-east-coast-and-not-in-paradise workout.  Having spent seven years on the east coast, he is right.  I had an entire cycling season where it either pissed rain or poured sleet or both or snow with wind and ice…always…there must be ice.  I am still traumatized from that season and I sat bone dry in my car as long as possible before surrendering to the elements.

Jessica spotted me immediately and rushed over to me with a rather funny story.  She stood there dripping wet relaying to me her experience at dinner the night before.  We were outfitted in the exact matching purple hat and team race jacket.  Her story ended with the words, “and on the flag kids had written follow your dreams, but I saw follow your Drea.”  I genuinely laughed.  Shit, I need a Drea to follow too.  I often forget that somehow I have become a role model, but when you are you and you reek in your own humanity and humility keeps putting salt in every teeny tiny little wound and paper cut possible, well….you forget….and then you get reminded and inevitably it makes you laugh and it makes you feel good.  Thanks Jessica.  I will keep trying to be Drea.

Work out today was a bit more encouraging.  I mean on paper it sounded OK.  4mile tempo- 5:54 average moving pace- 23:43 on the clock.  My best 4 mile tempo is 22:51 and I have a pile of tempos around 23:15….so….it was not that far off.  Uh-hem, but then I have to confess that two miles were straight down hill.  The wind might have been at my back.  Ah well, I saw some 5 somethings click by and could still talk so….I’ll take it.

“Better than last week,” Rusty smiles.

“Yep.”

My cool down dragged along because my alligators bit my butt and provided quite the drag.  Mike Swan hauled along beside me complaining of his own gators.  Tami has a gator.  Tim has a gator.  Joy has a gator.  Do you people name your gators like I do?  Craig had a song stuck in his head for his 20 mile Boston workout.  I got a song stuck in my head too Kuln Down and it’s I got the moves like Jagger.  Becauzzzzzze I named the left one Dundee and the right one (the worse one) Jagger.  I walk around post workout dragging my legs and jumping off chairs unable to sit still much like I would imagine a strung out Mick to do.

I got the moves like Jagger, I got the moves like Jagger.

Now if someone would pay me for my Jagger moves, that’d be Kuhl.  Right Kuhl n’ Down?

Runners….we got gators.  I wish they were hand bags.

I pulled a Clark Kent and changed into a new warm and cozy completely dry LuLu outfit post workout and trucked off to coffee at Lazy Acres.  I selected a cranberry orange bagel to go with my non-fat Latte and politely asked the gentleman behind the counter to toast it for me.

“We can’t do that, the ovens are not on.”

“Oh, really?” I smile and try my best eye bat.

“Well, let me check.”

Sweet!

“No, sorry, the ovens that are on are full.”

“Oh really?” I smile again and pull out any sugar I can muster, “You couldn’t possibly fit my bagel in that oven right there?”

“OK,” he says with ear to ear smiles, “Would you like me to slice it for you?”

“Oh could you?” I plead….and I thought being a southern woman taught me nothing.  Muhahahaha!

However….while….waiting for said bagel to be politely toasted like the pavement in an Austin spring, I had the pleasure of being visited by a life sized leprechaun.  He walked over to me with a warm sticky voice like a cinnamon roll on cigarettes.  His gray hair hung down evenly parted and below his shoulders.  His blue eyes of sapphire sparkled deeply in his red rosacea skin.  Silver earrings dangled from each ear in rows of three and his smile sported well capped teeth.  A woman’s red scarf hung around his neck while his body was draped in all black.  He spun me a polite and flattering exchange that somehow led to a palm reading and finally….

“You’re a gemini aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“How did I know that?”

“Um, cuz you’re a gemini too?”

“That must be why we are so well connected.  Do you mediate?”

“No.  I run.  No mediation required.  I just run my brains out.”

“I could teach you…”

Finally the lady holding my bagel captive asks, “How toasted would you like your bagel?”

“However toasted it is RIGHT NOW is fine.  Thank you so much.”

“Have a wonderful day,” says the leprechaun.

“Thanks.”

And then I got to watch my son’s basketball team win their final game in the last 10 seconds!  BIG CHEERS!