Thank you so much for your kind words of encouragement since my last post. I gathered each one of them to my heart, where I will save them for a time when I feel like giving up on writing. Which, I'm finding, is nearly every evening after I've written a bit and none of it comes out the way it sounds in my head. Fear is the thing I fight most. Fear says I am not good enough, or known enough, or I have nothing of value to say. I am learning to let the fears come, to sit with them for a moment, and then send them on their way. They may not know it, but they're just passing through.

The things that stick, the ones I give permission to hang around for a while, are the things I've worked for the hardest. In the past few years I've run three marathons (I may have mentioned it once or thirty seven times), and over time, as my bone and muscle built up strength and endurance, so did my spirit. I've built up the muscle of perseverance and stretched the fibers of determination, and on the days when they simply want to pass through, I take their hand and ask them to stay with me for a while. It doesn't take much convincing when they know they are welcome and needed.

Fear may not be your traveling companion. Perhaps it's anger or confusion or pride. Know this, if you are stepping out in faith, these things will come. It doesn't mean you are following the wrong path, it means you need to look for new companions to join you on the journey. I've discovered the closer I get to fear, the closer I am to reaching a place of freedom, where faith leads, fear fails, and I keep company with courage.

Who is keeping you company these days, and who is just passing through?

Over the holidays, I noticed a significant increase in my anxiety level. As in, unable to sleep, racing thoughts, and PMS worthy outbursts, type of anxiety level. I thought it was the traveling, or the kids, or the fact that I was sleeping on the most uncomfortable bed known to spoiled first world residents. I turned it over and over in my mind, and I soon realized it was because I was on a self-imposed running hiatus. Well, that's not entirely true. First, I tried to blame it on my husband, then I realized it was the running, or lack thereof, that was doing my head in.

When I started running, it was purely a vanity effort. I wanted to look decent in a bikini, and after three kids that was not going to happen on it's own. I ran consistently for a year, then started training for a race. If you want to know the meaning of the word anxiety, sign up to run a stupidly long race when the greatest distance you've ever run is five miles. Anxiety reduction was certainly not a part of the equation during those five months of training. My husband still gets that deer in the headlights look every time I tell him I'm considering signing up for another one. I tell him time will heal the wound of my temporary insanity that year, but he's never quite convinced. In light of that, it wasn't until I'd been running for a few years, that I realized the mental health benefits of a nice long run.

Don't get me wrong, if I could look good in a swimsuit and stay sane while sitting on the sofa eating chocolates, I would definitely go that route. Most mornings, I look at my running shoes and I sigh. Then I lace up anyway. When I began to run regularly, it was difficult to stop putting my thoughts on an endless loop of repeat, the most prevalent one being 'When will this be over?' But I kept at it, and now I find that I get into a zone where I'm able to shake my mind free of most of the excess and simply be in the moment. There are still times when the moment sucks or hurts or feels endless. But, the other times? The ones that feel like flying and like freedom? They are worth every ugly one times a thousand.

After a three week break, I've started running again, and I can feel the difference. I am sleeping better, feeling stronger, and taking anxiety out for a beating on the pavement. I've even decided to sign up for another race. Let the sanity begin.

I don't think I've mentioned it, but I recently signed up to run a half marathon. Reluctant runner that I am, I have discovered that fear of too-tight jeans is not enough to keep me on the treadmill. I need a reason to run, a schedule, a do or die date, if you will.

The half marathon is a new race for me. When I started running, I ran for one year and decided to skip the usual race progression of 5k, 10k, etc and went straight to training for a marathon. Perhaps I was a bit overzealous. And stupid. Thirteen miles feels just right, as I'm coming off a summer of little to no physical activity. I've had a few friends tell me that the half marathon distance will change my life. If by change my life they mean it will make my thighs magically disappear, then I am IN. If I get to keep my toenails in the process, even better.

I suppose I better alert my running buddies that I'll be coming around more often this Fall.


We do so enjoy one another's company.

How about you? Any runners out there? What's your favorite distance?

Kimberly

Hello, my name is Kimberly, and I am a reluctant runner. It's true. I have run many, many miles and even a few races. Some of those miles have been really great, but the majority are simply not. 

Six weeks ago, I ran 26.2 miles. It was an intense, exciting, life-altering experience.

Then I took a nice long break in which I refused to even look at my running shoes. And it felt good, real good. That is until I realized that I was losing the ground that had taken 16 weeks of hard training to gain. Two weeks ago, I began the process of taking back what I'd lost. The runs are slow and short, and sometimes they're great and often they're not. But, I'm forcing myself to push past the resistance and get out there and do it. I run because I have to, and also because I love chocolate chip cookies. Doing the work, means getting to enjoy the benefits. It doesn't mean the work is easy, or that I like it every day, or that I don't occasionally dream of throwing heavy objects at the treadmill.



My husband and I are celebrating fifteen years of marriage today. To be sure there have been highlights, those wonderful experiences that stand as hallmarks for the years we've spent together. But mostly, there's been the day to day. The working hard not to lose ground. The building on what has taken days, months, years to produce.

Have we had setbacks? Sure. Have there been days where we have wanted to give up, to sit around and eat cookies, and forget about doing the hard work? Absolutely. I'll even admit to throwing things a time or two. But, marriage isn't about the huge life events. It's about the daily exercise of keeping one's promise. It's lacing up, and being committed to the exercise because you know the payoff is worth it.



So worth it.

Kimberly

One of my favorite runs takes me up into the hilly farmland surrounding my home. There is a lake, grazing cows, and the organic smell of manure and soil. I run past farmhouses and through small villages, where the ambient sounds are cow bells and the occasional rooster's crow. Sometimes a few cars will pass by, but the stillness is rarely broken by anything but my own two feet.

We've just returned home from London, where my poor husband had to wrangle three kids through the masses of spectators for a glimpse of their old mom running/jogging/moving at a snail's pace on the marathon course. Marathon 2011 is officially over, I'm officially exhausted, and running is officially dead to me. At least for the next two weeks.

I returned home with a wicked cold, three fewer toenails, a mountain of laundry, and a medal. The medal was great, but better still were the hand scrawled signs and proud baby faced smiles at the end. The joy of listening to them recount this runner and that costume, how many high fives they gave, and what it took to push to the front took the edge off the after-ache.



The pulse and throb of tired legs kept me awake that night, everything screamed 'Weary'. But beneath the weary was a steady beat that said 'Alive'. This is what it is to be Alive...to possibility, to pain, to potential.



It's why I run. It's why I'll probably be back pounding the pavement by May, and maybe even considering another race in the distant (very distant) future. It's why I tell you all about it too. To say that something might yell 'weary' at you, but if you listen hard enough it may speak of something better.

Kimberly

Michael has been steadily trying to convince me that I should go to the apple store in Zurich today in order to queue for the release of the ipad2.

Please.

He can not be serious.

Tomorrow is my last very long run (22mi.) before the marathon in 4weeks. I am dreading it enough as it is, and to attempt to do it on legs that have been waiting for hours on end for an ipad? I think not.

He suggested I bring a lawn chair.

I suggested he run 22 miles.

He suggested that maybe I don't actually run on Saturdays, but instead head off for a coffee at Starbucks for three hours then splash myself with water to appear sweaty.

I suggested (under my breath) something that does not bear repeating here.

Aaaahhh, the final weeks of training. They do require a mental fortitude that I'm not sure I possess.

In other news, E has been away on a three day snowboarding trip to Davos. He arrives home this evening, and I can't wait to get my arms around that boy's neck.

Happy weekending!

Kimberly

I went for a longish run today on my usual Saturday route.  I am about six weeks into training for the London Marathon in April.  I'm not entirely sure what has possessed me to run it so soon after NYC in November, but it's on the bucket list, and as I see it, there isn't any better time than the present.  I write this to prepare you for the inevitable barrage of posts in which I will be either complaining, lamenting or calling myself names with regard to this event.  Consider yourself warned.
 
My goals for this race are as follows:

1. To keep all of my toenails in the training process.  I don't have high hopes for this one.
2. To improve my time by a few minutes.  Harder than you think given the amount of time it takes to complete the race.
3. To remain marginally pleasant during the hardest weeks of training in March. I think I might be able to pull this one off, as at some point you kind of get used to being exhausted and in pain.  I liken it to the early years of motherhood.

That's a lot of background information for what I really want to say, which is this... I came home disappointed.  I ran ten miles (which sounds like a lot, but really isn't comparatively speaking) and it was tough.  Tougher than it should be for me.  After returning home feeling a bit defeated, it crossed my mind that perhaps I've reached the limits of what I'm able to accomplish.  I let that thought sit and stir for a while, and realized that I actually feel that way about a number of things in my life.  That perhaps I've simply reached my limits?  Perhaps I won't run stronger and faster this time. Perhaps I can't make it down a mountain without spending the majority of the time on my backside. Perhaps I'll never write as well as I'd like.

I find that the line between realistic expectations and unrealistic hopes is easily blurred by fear.  Sometimes it's hard to know the difference, when to push through it, and when to accept that yes, there are limits.

Thoughts?

Kimberly

  

I've been taking a wee bit of a blog break.  The past few weeks have been full to brimming with the usual stuff of life, with a little Halloween fun and friend making thrown in to sweeten the pie.  We've been busy living routine and schedule and family.  Although the ordinary isn't always something to write about, it is the place where duty and joy stand toe to toe, shake hands and agree to do life together.

The next week will be lived outside of the ordinary, while Daddy holds down the homefront and I recover from jet lag and pre-marathon jitters.  I'm a few days away from the event I've been training five months for, and I wish it were over and I wish I was faster and I wish I wasn't so afraid and I wish.....

I wish the uncommon things weren't so gut wrenchingly difficult. 

I wish it all came to me with ease and confidence and surety. But it doesn't and I suppose that's why I press on and run for the finish.  It's why I make new friends and live in a foreign land and travel alone and keep moving forward, one uncomfortable and uncommon thing at a time.

Kimberly

It's been a while since I've stopped in here, mainly because I seem to be missing the multitasking gene that most women are born with.  I have long been aware that I am simply not capable of doing more than one or two things well at any given time.

At the moment I'm bearing into the final full-on running weeks before the marathon, which leaves little to no energy for much else.  I've also started a few classes which are requiring a brain squeeze, the likes of which I haven't known in thirteen years or so.  It's a miracle my children are fed and looked after.  Unfortunately, this means the blog suffers.  But, really, how many times can you hear me complain about my remaining seven toenails and utter physical exhaustion?  One more I guess:)

I wish I could take you along on a run with me here, among the hills and forest and cows.  All physical discomfort aside, I feel a sense of rightness with the world when I'm out there.  I begin my run near a lake, while the fog still hovers over the surface and the trees are slick with moisture.  It reminds me of Genesis, where it speaks of the Spirit of God hovering over the face of the waters.  And on those early mornings I can feel Him there, Spirit hovering over lake, mountain, me.


I run past orchards and farms, rolling hills of grass and through tiny little 'blink and you missed it' villages.  I get slightly amused looks from the donkeys and sheep.  The cows never change with their exaggerated chewing and languid glances.


When I get tired, I detour into the forest and follow paths woven between the fallen leaves by feet and spinning wheels.  The earth smells musty and I can see my breath hold in the air for a moment.  I pass the occasional runner who may or may not say 'Gut Morgen'. Usually not.  I say it anyway because sometimes I like to hear the sound of my voice in the still places.



When I'm tuckered out and my watch beeps for the 15th or 18th time, I head back to the car, back to a house full of kids in their pj's and a barefoot husband making homemade waffles.  And I am hungry and full, tired and yet so very satisfied.

Kimberly

Photos were taken in the middle of a summer day along my running route.  I must take some on an early autumn morning because it's spectacular.

Sometimes I can't believe myself.  I really can't.  Today I got a taste of the medicine that I usually dole out to my husband.  I returned home from my twenty mile run, sweaty, tired, hurting in places I didn't think possible.  First order of business was to get a drink of water, so while standing in the kitchen I turned my attention to the running schedule posted on the wall. As I looked at it, I realized that something about the dates didn't add up. Something like the fact that I didn't account for a week, meaning I have another week of training.  Meaning that I ran twenty miles too early in the schedule.  Meaning I have another really long run to complete.  Meaning that I wanted to collapse in the corner and cry like a baby.

I have attention to detail issues and usually I reserve this minor character flaw for situations that involve trips to Home Depot, placing Michael's chinese food order, or having the correct shirt clean on the right day.  This means that I am frequently doing or not doing something that will land me in some sort of trouble with Michael. What it should not mean is that I have to run an extra twenty miles due to an accounting error.

Good grief.

Kimberly

I'm having a hard time wrangling my thoughts these days. I apologize for the lack of posting, but there's simply nothing noteworthy happening at the moment.

My neighbor almost ran me over a few days ago.  That was interesting.

My daughter has been giving me the third degree over how many chocolate chip muffins I plan on eating for breakfast.  She wants to be sure there's enough for her.  I really feel like I'm past the age where my food consumption needs to be monitored.

And I'm having aches and pains in places I did not think it possible, thanks to the commencement of the most intense training weeks before the race in November.  I'm not sure my neighbor running me over would have been a bad alternative.

We're hitting the six month mark here in Zurich.  I also like to refer to it as "Buyer's Remorse" month.  Six months is always the hardest.  It's when the shine starts to wear off the new toy, and you realize you've still got a long way to go before you can shop at Target and no longer endure a fridge/freezer that seems more appropriately sized for Barbie's dream house.

I miss home, toes that don't bleed,  neighbors who don't attempt to kill me and eating as much as I want without having to report to a miniature person.  In spite of all that, life is good.  We're off on an adventure this weekend and I'm running my first 20 miler of the season.  Yes, life is good.

Kimberly  
 

I've been quietly and steadily increasing my running lately.  I took a long hiatus with our move, and am just now starting to find my way back.  A few years ago, when I had just begun running, I read a fantastic book called "What I talk about when I talk about running" by Haruki Murakami.  In it Murakami explores his love of running and it's interconnectedness to the other aspects of his life, specifically his writing.  At the time it resonated with me, but I didn't fully understand what he was getting at, the writing, the running, how it all fits.

The mind and the body each crave their own kind of freedom.  My mind craves words. Words give flight because they are decision makers, heart breakers and everything in-between.  But the body, it craves the freedom of a fight.  When I run I fight every can't and won't and never will be.  I face down doubt, and refuse pain.  I keep running and pretty soon the words that don't give freedom give way the ones that do.  Words like can and will and might someday be. 


Two years, one marathon, and the start of another training season later, I know what it is I talk about when I talk about running. 


Kimberly

In one week, I have hit maximum cheese consumption allowed by a sedentary individual.  At some point I will have to attempt a little cheese self control, but until that day is determined (probably when I put my swimsuit on for the first time), I need to get off my duff.

I decided to do just that and have been on a few short runs, winding my way through our town down to Lake Zurich.  I wish I could have brought my camera to capture a bit for you, but the only extra weight I'm carrying during a run is in my rear end.  This morning was cold and foggy, but a treat nonetheless, the only downer being that I have to run uphill the entire way home.  I don't really do hills.  Well, I didn't do hills, I guess I do now.  I suppose it will be good preparation for...wait for it....the 2010 NYC Marathon!

That's right, as if my life wasn't crazy and complex enough, I have decided to try and run the marathon again in November.  One might think I enjoy physical pain and exertion.  I don't.  I also don't like planning my entire day around a running schedule or losing toenails or sweating.  What I do like, is that feeling of setting a goal (an insanely difficult one), and reaching it.  I like fresh air breathed deep and freedom.  Nothing holds me back, not words or thoughts or expectations.  For a moment in time, I run free.

Have you found that special something that makes you feel free?

Kimberly

I miss this little patch of space.  I wish I could pop in more often and clear the head a bit, but that's not likely to happen for a few more weeks.  The house is topsy turvy, and we are days away from the arrival of the shipping company.  Then the goodbye's begin.

The aches and pains from Sunday's race have begun to wear off, but with their retreat comes the loss of the post race euphoria. That's the thing about reaching a goal. Once you've reached it, you celebrate it and life goes on.