Back in July, I wrote about how I was just running to run and that I had no races on the horizon, but I was OK with that.
Well, we can all guess how that turned out.
The thing is, that only works when you're in good shape. When running is easy and enjoyable, it really doesn't take a whole lot of motivation to get yourself out the door. However, I will admit that spring quarter took a toll on me and I definitely got a little out of shape... and then summer dawned and I got a serious case of the summer lazies and my running became really sporadic and unfocused. So in order to get myself up and running again, I've reverted to my old tactics: race training.
My ultimate goal is to run Tinkerbell 2013 (at the end of January), so I can see how far I've come in a year. I had such a wonderful time at that race last year, and I think it will be a really neat to see what a difference a year can make. But this time around, I'm getting really serious about it and I'm going to do the Rock and Roll Los Angeles Half at the end of October as a practice-slash-tuneup race. And that is the story of how this blog became the road to Tinkerbell for a second time!
I've been back to training for almost six weeks now, but I haven't really felt like writing because I've been struggling a little bit. I've been incorporating lots of different types of runs- short speed work and fartleks, mid-distance tempo, and long runs- to keep myself from getting bored, but I've still been having some difficulty. Maybe it's the hot weather here in LA or the fact that I'm still below my "best shape of my life" threshold that I hit in March. I also went gluten-free recently after reading a terrifying book about modern, genetically, modified wheat, and my workouts have been suffering as my body adjusts to a new quality of carbohydrates in my diet. Whatever it is, I've been having a hard time finding my bliss.
This week, though, things seem to be looking up. I used my Labor Day holiday to enjoy an early morning 6-miler in Santa Monica, a place that never ceases to amaze me. Running on the cliffs above the beach and seeing nothing but hundreds of miles of water and sky... it feels like I'm running on the edge of the world. And then this morning, I had a really incredible speed workout; it was only two miles, but sometimes those short, intense runs are the best it gets. I just feel so light and powerful... and then I think about Olympic runners, who run anywhere from two to four times as fast as I do, and I just imagine how that feels. I think that must be as close as anyone gets to flying.
I know that my bliss is close. I can feel it coming back to me, slowly but surely... hopefully, the arrival of fall and the cooler weather will help, too. I recently read an article in Runner's World about a man who traveled to Kenya and ran with some of the greatest runners in the world, and he mentioned that when they all run together, they use the phrase "choma moto," which literally means "to stoke the fire." While they use it to signal a coming increase in pace, the phrase stuck with me and has taken on a different meaning: I need to find that fire I used to have. I know it's still in there... I just need to stoke it.
Choma moto.
