What kind of testing?

Lactate threshold sounds like something that a nursing mother would be concerned about not a middle aged woman who is all to aware of her athletic shortcomings.   Today I looked completely goofy (exactly like the picture on the left with a few more pounds and more sweaty) and scientifically gathered the information necessary to help me train to get myself to a better physical state.  Things about this test that I found really interesting
1) I was nervous before the test that I would fail or do a bad job when really I am just testing the state of my body.
2)  I had a thing that stopped me from breathing out my nose - I will never again under appreciate the joy and beauty of taking a breath through your nose while running.
3) I hate drool.  I have a dog that drools and I do not like when he drools but I absolutely hate when I drool.  Some how this contraction around my head and the mouth piece left me drooling and it was really gross.  

So after the drooling, the pin prick blood taking, the claustrophobic special mask, the hard work of running harder than I normally run, what did I learn?  Well I learned my VO2 levels are smack in the average level for a woman my age and my lactate threshold heart rate is....but I am still not sure what it means as for as training, but that is why I have a coach.  I do think that I have gleaned from the information that I naturally work at or slightly below my threshold but to see some real improvement I am going to need Coach Jeff to guide me through work outs that push me.  I think that if I stay on my plan and follow through with Jeff I would like to test again in October/November and see my improvement.  It is kind of neat to have a baseline to build on and I am trying not to listen to the voices in my head telling me how much I suck.

Thursday ramblings

It is Thursday morning and it has not been an easy week.  My guy and I have both been under the weather although differently.  I have had stomach churning, throbbing headaches and total exhaustion, while he is suffering from sore throat, running nose and fever.   Of course this morning I wake us with a slightly loose nose and a scratchy throat.  We have not done much other than work and sleep because we have just been so worn down.  I am in a bit panic because week 3 is this most common week for us to drop off the wagon and leave all our goals and aspirations behind.  I feel myself slipping a little but not with the normal gusto when I fall of the wagon.  I believe that once I have just a bit more energy that we will start up with the plan again.  I am targeting a Friday night swim although I cannot lie my sore throat this morning has me a little worried.

I have hired a coach Jeff Godin to help me train for a redemption marathon Mount Desert Island in October where my goal is under 5 hours.  I am starting Saturday with some crazy Lactate Threshold and VO test to set my training plan up according to my HR and overall health.  I have seen a lot of naysayers talk about the testing not be worth the cost but there are some that say it is a good training tool as it can really inform how best to train.  I am interested in where I am from a health perspective and think that it is worth a little indulgence to learn something.  He said my legs would probably be a little wobbly after (YIKES) so I guess that is one way to get back on track.  I am not sure what it will all mean or how the testing works so I am nervous but looking forward to it.  We have a really hard half-marathon on Sunday that will be humiliating and exhausting but the good news is I can only get better (assuming I train) from here.

I have been reading my Pema Chodron books at night and honestly I had forgotten how much I enjoyed and how her words resonates with me.  I am amazed that for years I blocked out and  "completely forgot" about the comfort and sense of myself I find in the Shambhala teachings. I wonder if the fact that my biological mother is very radical left wing, (understatement)  if I did not pull back and become more conservative as a way of protecting myself from being too much like her.  Combine that with my aversion to the religion panacea and perhaps lumped Shambhala in as just another cultural construct to enforce morality and provide escape from the reality of the here and now.

However, Shambhala is such the opposite of what I normally consider religious doctrine.  I read last night Pema's four reminders of why we should stay in the present moment 1) how precious life (birth) is 2) truth of impermanence (we are all going to die)  3) every seed we sow comes back to us (Karma) and  4) the futility of samsara,  I realized last night that the teaching is everything I believe but have never been able to frame.  Living in the moment is such an overloaded term, but I really believe there is no heaven or hell - there is just now.  Why is this so hard for us to believe?  Why do we choose to live so opposite to this reality?  I do not want to lose sight of this and some how bring this more into my every day life.  Funny it feels slightly uncomfortable to profess this belief...I wonder why I have built such a wall around believing anything definitively...

I think the thing I am really missing is a regular practice of meditation.  I have been working on waking up (but not getting up) a little earlier than I have been with the hope that I could create more space in the morning to have some time to sit.   Right now I am getting up just in time to hang out with the boys in the morning and write when I am feeling inspired.   It sounds crazy but I cannot figure out the right order of things.  My thought is I should get up - do the 15 minute morning yoga, 30 minutes sitting and then be up with the boys - but wait - some mornings I want to run - so where does that fit?  It really isn't that hard though because if I would get up at 545 I could be through yoga and meditation before 630 and then once the boys leave go for my run.  Well the hard part is getting my body from that warm bed to the open world.  My goal is to do get up and do this three times next week.  Stop scheduling...start doing :)

For those playing along at home.  I wrote and mailed a note to my parents basically saying I am well and have been thinking of them and that the one hole in my life was our lack of reconciliation or relationship.  I said I would be open and encourage them to reach out to me if there was interest.  The mailing of the letter was anti-climatic and now that it is gone I feel relieved and I have no real expectations that I will hear from anyone.  I am not 100% sure what the motivation was but it feels good and true to me to have made the effort - again.





 

crazy family talk.

Perhaps it is the storytelling class or maybe the meditation but my adoptive parents have been in mind of late.  I have some sort pang or desire to reach out to them again but I have really nothing new to say and cannot expect a new response.  Even after all these years - almost 20+ years with the last contact (a letter) probably 15 years ago, I still cling and long for their forgiveness and acceptance. In the past, I have had therapists tell me I should be angry at them or no longer want or need their blessing but some how neither hold true to me.  I am not holding up my life or continuing the self-flogging about my failures but still I would like to finally make peace with them.

If they die and this is all we have ever had - this ambiguity and rejection - it will make me sad as a human being we never came to some basic resolution.  The history with them is a bit sordid and complicated and it is more complicated by the fact it was a young emotional mind that interpreted all the events and words that happened leaving me questioning everything.  My logical mind understands that there is always two sides to every story and that emotion easily skews perception.  I cannot help but wonder how much I am to blame for our inability to ever be cohesive or reconcile.   Was the adoption such a bad match that our personalities just remained in constant conflict?  I look at my children and cannot imagine not knowing about their lives and share in their joy and pain as life progressed.  The "irony" is that they adopted me when I was 5 and I was gone by 17 with 1.5 years at boarding school which means we have been estranged much longer than we knew each other.

I started with the idea of writing a letter and then when I started to type it out I was at a loss for what to say.  You cannot send a novel about your life to people that don't care - but then I thought of all those Christmas card letters were people recap their year and they do not analyze the reader's interest level.  Once I realized I did not have a letter in me, I picked up a card.  The quote on the card "All who wander....are not lost"  J.R.R. Tolkien.  I thought it was appropriate but not too over the top - better than something sarcastic, emotionally drippy or subversive (although one could argue it is a bit subversive).  Staring at a blank card, I began to worry about my handwriting and grammar and wanted to write out what I wanted to say in Word first. After about 10-15 rewrites what I have  so far is something like "Been thinking of you.  Hope your well"  Renee.  15 years and that is the safest thing I can come up with to write to my parents.

Why bother? My guy asked about the options of their response.  No answer - not unexpected at all and perhaps the best case scenario.  If they do not answer, I am assuaged of guilt that I did try to reconnect and they were just not willing. Although I am in no better position than I am now if they just ignore me. What about another "Don't bother us letter"? It is unexpected as I gather it would not be worth the effort at their age, 84 and 80, and I can not imagine they would spend the same level of emotional energy on this that I am spending.  I could imagine my brother - also estranged - writing me to tell me to go away as they might  interpret this reach out as a way to get into their will or get something from them instead of just wanting to close the loop or some reconciliation to the disaster of our relationship.  The scariest of all reactions is a desire on their part to reconcile or at least meet. The immediate emotional response is guilt that I had not tried before, fear of another failed reconciliation, and worse of all the feeling that I once again have to go be held accountable for the crimes of my youth and person.  Why do this again?  I guess I think some things are worth the risk of pain because this is always a shadow that lingers over me and my life.  I cannot imagine what it would be like to have the thorn pulled out of my paw after all these years, but I sure would like to find out.

Vigilance, Hope and Aspiration

I realized last night that I have become much less flexible and I am very rigid about not wanting to miss a work out or anything that disrupts my plans.  I am fearful that one day I will wake up and realize that I have lost the drive to meet my goals.  I have seen it happen so many times and I want this commitment to not wain or waiver.  I do not want an excuse to lead me down a path where I let go.  It has created an edge and harshness that I am not totally comfortable with but understand that I feel until I have confidence that I will be true to my goals.  

When I first started writing this post I had a misunderstanding of Pema's writing of abandon hope and felt that hope was merely an excuse for avoiding your situation and relying on something that you had no control over.  Although, I still agree that is the point I took it a step further because I believe I used hope as a way to avoid the lack of action on my goals.   I hoped that I would change and exercise but really I never worked on how I would achieve it given that I never changed my behavior.   However since I have been reading more and contemplating more I realize that was just a lack of commitment to my goals and not a "hope issue".  Although I am going to still post some of what I had because I find it interesting.  What does hope mean?  What does the desire of control and aspirations have to do with Pema's view?



Hope: to have a wish to get or do something or for something to happen or be true.  Hope is a basic human emotion that we all cling to at different times of our lives.  Hope is easy and does not require much effort and still provides the promise of better things.  I cannot help but think that our world is more reliant on hope than ever before. Think about it -  President Obama was elected on a slogan of hope for the future, hope for change. Some of the problems in the world and our lives that it seems that hope is the only real strategy to deal with all the issues.  I have spent a lot of my life hoping I would changing my habits, parts of myself, or my situation but really though what does hope get us?   

"The way I understand it is that we rob ourselves of being in the present by always thinking that the payoff will happen in the future. The only place ever to work is right now. We work with the present situation rather than a hypothetical possibility of what could be. I like any teaching that encourages us to be with ourselves and our situation as it is without looking for alternatives. The source of all wakefulness, the source of all kindness and compassion, the source of all wisdom, is in each second of time. Anything that has us looking ahead is missing the point."  Pema Chodron on Abandon Hope of Fruition

Aspiration: a desire or ambition to achieve something.  A wish for something to be true has no meat, no action - who are we wishing to?  Who makes wishes come true?  Aspiration requires desire and ambition which is necessary to make change and get things done.  Ironically this is me taking Pema's teaching to a place I want to take it because her point is that we use hope to hide from fear and to try to deny suffering.  She says:        

"Giving up hope is encouragement to stick with yourself, to make friends with yourself, to not run away from yourself, to return to the bare bones, no matter what ís going on.  Fear of death is the background of the whole thing.  It ís why we feel restless, why we panic, why there ís anxiety.  But if we totally experience hopelessness, giving up all hop of alternatives to the present moment, we can have a joyful relationship with our lives, an honest, direct relationship, one that no longer ignores the reality of impermanence and death."

 

In the end I am not sure where this leaves me because it still feels like this aspiration, drive and vigilance is still leading me away from making friends with myself.  This harshness and control that I am trying to maintain is a fear and anxiety that does not feel peaceful or living in the now.   I have come full circle to realize there is still something to learn here. I am just not sure what.   I need to relax and have faith in myself.  I need to breath and take each day each moment as an opportunity and not fear the change.  However, I still need to stay strong in my mind and not let the old habits and addictions derail me.  Geez - no wonder I am confused.

finding a ray of sunshine

I read an interesting blog post about surrounding yourself with people that inspire you and it had me thinking all day about how I bring passion and creativity into my life.  I believe reading Pema Chodron at night has helped with that some as it challenges me to think about compassion for myself and finding balance.   Other than that my life is fairly devoid of passionate or creative voices challenging me and pushing me to think outside of the box and to allow my creative spirit to wander.  She says in the post if those influences are not around you personally make sure you read and seek it out.

I am a huge reader that can very quickly churn through books, blogs, news article anything I can get my hand on.  The ease of consumption means that I will read anything that seemed the slightest bit interesting and without any real regard to the subject matter.  The indiscriminate nature and the pure volume of what I read some how diminishes the gems or those bits that could have bigger impact.  I have also volunteered for many organizations and even that I do with a laissez-faire attitude, just trying to fit it into my schedule as an interesting event or something fun to do. The impact of the event, the cause or purpose is lost to me and I come and go without any connection.  I have never really had a role model, hero, or someone that I admired and strove to emulate.  I am so analytical and grounded in "reality" that I dismiss and marginalize without allowing the potential impact of their ideas of the depth of their character.

On a similar vein, the other thing I read yesterday (I do read a bit) fed into this very well.  The Pema Chodron page posted the below:

We already have everything we need. There is no need for self-improvement. All these trips that we lay on ourselves - the heavy duty fearing that we're bad and hoping that we're good, the identities that we so dearly cling to, the rage, the jealousy and the addictions of all kinds - never touch our basic wealth. They are like clouds that temporarily block the sun. But all the time our warmth and brilliance are right there.  This is who we really are. We are one blink of an eye away from being fully awake.  excerpted from "Start Where You Are" by Pema Chödron

I had to read it several times and although a simple concept - it really blew my mind.  The idea that I am who I am and that is ok goes counter to almost everything I have ever thought about myself in my life.  I have struggled to "get better" and often the feeling I am "being bad" blurring with the belief that I am a bad person in turn causing me to relentlessly beat up on myself.   It is not hard to hear the condemnation of myself  in every word I speak and write when reflecting on who I am and what I do.  This simple statement from Pema was like a ray of light, but why would I just believe this rather than my lifetime of thoughts?  Over all the years and all the attempts at change - in the end I come back and I am still just me.  The struggles never change because the root cause is always the same.  However, I have been working on this recently and am starting to feel some positive movement.  Perhaps the clouds are parting a little?

I have felt truer to myself over the last few weeks than I have in some time.  The storytelling class and the shambhala training made me feel more centered, more aware and lessened the struggle of the disappointed of self.  I have tried to focus over the last few years on getting in shape and challenging myself physically to some difficult feats.  The training and exercise is a very valuable and I know it has brought me great benefits but I think one of the reason it fails to be sustainable is that when it is the only thing in my life I have an indescribably empty and hollow feeling that I desperately try to fill often with alcohol and food.  I am left wanting for more because all the work does not touch my heart or bring out the passion in me and leaves me feeling burnt out and deprived.  Life is more than just mechanics and I have to find a way to balance not just the tuning of the body but the tuning of all that makes life beautiful and interesting.

blah blah blah

I made it a whole week doing what I had planned for training and I am proud of myself because it wasn't easy.  The tugs and pulls of the desire to distract and reward and sabotage my training were very strong and felt a little like sand or grit in the gears.  Things felt slightly uncomfortable and even on this side of irritating especially on the weekend when time is plentiful and thoughts of slipping into the old habits are stronger.  Week 2 has started and I have already made a deal about missing swimming last night (traded last night for Sunday afternoon) because my tooth was killing me (stupid dentist) and my period was kicking my ass.  I did do ab ripper yesterday morning regardless of how I was feeling and I did get a slight bit better and my stomach muscles are not on fire.  It is small steps forward to keeping on the plan and I still feel motivated to stick to it. I just wonder when the training becomes more comfortable than the memory of the eating and drinking and kicking back?  

One of the things I am struggling with is where does the balance come in and when?  Sunday after exercising we splurged on some sushi and alcohol.  It caused me to gain 1 pound (although that could have been period weight) but more importantly it kind of screwed up the rest of the day because we were wiped out.  We crashed for the rest of the night and it was a struggle until we went to bed.  We had more than we should have potentially but we did not have a lot: 1 big beer, 1/2 bottle of saki each and a ton of sushi.  Maybe we would have been wiped out either way from all the exercise - I don't know but I started to wonder where is the line?  Drinking is LOTS of calories and a huge de-motivator but it is a integral part of adult social life - well at least for us.  I am not craving physically (I thought I would) but it is a strong draw when it comes to relaxing and hanging out.  It is a habit with a strong hold on my patterns.

Well I didn't have much to say this morning and I have limited time as I have to go running this morning.   I am not sure where my writing mind is but it seems to have left the house.  More tomorrow and hopefully I will have a bit more clarity in mind.

bring it on

So it begins.  In some way I am relieved that I had a hard yesterday during my run, because things had gone so well I was having a hard time why I ever had a hard time getting my butt in gear.  Yesterday was a run only in concept because I was really hurting.  My head was pounding, I had cramps in my kidneys and my legs felt like 3 ton weights.  Every step I took was incredibly laborious and I just did not have a drop of energy.  At one point I had to sit down because I felt like I was going to be sick.  This was only a three mile run people.  However, the physical discomfort was not the worse part.  The worse part was that my internal asshole kicked in full gear raking me over the coals for sucking so badly.  "Why did I think I could run, don't I remember how much I suck?"  "You are such a baby and this is all in your head, you are just making excuses to not run"  Every step I took was not about the effort but about the disappointment and failure.

I get back from my run wiped out, dizzy shaking and I completely mentally destroyed.  I tried to hold on to the pride that I got out there and ran rather than staying on the couch or coming up with excuses.   Even though it was a hard run, overall pushing my body would build strength and I would get better.  It took everything I had to shake myself out of defeat and despair.  If I have enough of those type runs, it gets hard to face miles of my internal dialog about how I am not good enough and how I suck.  I need to start appreciating my effort, the fact I face the challenge rather than backing away and some how find enough space in my mind to accept myself.  I need to tell my inner asshole who is running this ship and make sure that this time it does not win over my ability to reach my goals.

The other thing I noticed yesterday that I know will be a challenge going forward is that everything starts to feel like real work.   I am doing the things that need to be done and getting back on track and my inner party girl is pouting big time.  I have flashes of desire to screw it all and have a good meal, a good bottle of wine...hell why stop there?  It is a common reaction for me when getting back on my plan because it is just not as fun as the debauchery and ease of doing whatever I want.  Sleeping late, drinking heavy, gorgeous food - I gave up for running, swimming, yoga, meditation and a good diet.   My resolve often weakens and I end up rewarding myself right back into my old behavior.  The thing I have to keep telling myself is that the debauchery feeds my inner asshole as  I seem to use all of that fun to build a strong case against my fat ass about how lazy, overweight, and undisciplined I am.  All that fun is not without cost.  I am going to try to pay attention to the dialog that complains that I am not having enough fun and keep an eye on my end goal.  I do not want to be where I have been for the last year and that is going to mean a fairly radical shift in my behavior and some habits...well they die hard.

On one small up note, last night I told my story at my last Storytelling class and I think it went pretty well.  I would actually like to do a story at a Story Jam but I do not think I will get up the courage and with time it will disappear into to the folds of my memory.  However, last night I stood in front of a group of people and told a pretty entertaining story and they seemed to enjoy it and most of all I really enjoyed doing it.   Small successes.  I need a few more of those type times in my life to keep the balance.