I think I might be boring. I was exciting, once. I think. Ove the last two years I have allowed the voices of my babies to crowd out the screaming girl inside of me. I think she’s lost her voice, and a little pissy about it. I have been roaming aimlessly, little red running hood looking for my head. It’s motherhood, not the kids. She’s a bitch, making me put them first, making me leave the person in me behind. I’ve tried so hard. I made it so long. And now I am nothing, but a skin suit that makes dinner, helps with homework, and carries out judgments of time-out. Some days their tiny sweet voices scrape against the inside of my skull like a spoon.

"The talk"

(In the car on the way to track)
ME: Boys do you want to have babies when you grow up?
WILLEM: yes because kids wike to pet dogs, and I wike dogs.
COOPER: Not really. I used to but, not anymore.
ME: Why not?
COOPER: Well, right now it's pretty much disgusting to me.
ME: Why?
COOPER: Well, it's the sex. That idea grosses me out.
ME: *giggling*
COOPER: It gives me the eebby jeebies really. I used to want kids until I found how they happen.
ME: *still giggling* Someday you won't feel that way about it, but honestly that's how I felt about when I was your age. And yet I have not one but TWO kids.
COOPER: *smiles smoothly* Yeah, maybe.
(Willem remained oblivious throughout the entire conversation! I think he went to his happy place)

Preview Chitown '08

The promised second entry. As I completed my morning run, it is Tuesday after all, my mind wandered to the Marathon, of course. I know that I'm not in the best shape I'll ever be in, but I'm in the best shape I've ever been in. The recent change from Top 100 to Elite has taken me back to another race. A high school race. The race that got me a scholarship to college.
Don't be mistaken, the change to Elite doesn't mean that I'm suddenly amazing. It means I've been given a place on the line next some women that already are amazing, an opportunity to prove myself. An opportunity of a life time. It's a cruxt moment, granted to me by a generous race director.

In 8th grade I won the largest Invitational meet of the year, the Rensselear Invitational. There were some 200 odd girls in that meet. It was wonderful. 9th grade I place 40 something. After that I was the only girl on the team so we didn't go, until my Senior year. About two weeks before the meet I told my coach I really, really wanted to run it even though it wasn't on the schedule. For the next two weeks he begged the AD to get us added, and the AD begged the Invite's coordinator to add us. The Thursday before the meet we got word that it was a go.

Saturday morning we arrived to find long row of neat boxes evenly divided by straight, fat, white lines looking very geometric and official. We walked this line to it's end to find our box; skinny, orange, uneven lines, an asymmetrical after-thought. The number was cockeyed. I liked that.
I led from the gun, won by over 30 seconds, and my future college coach just happened to be there recruiting. He kept asking, "who is that?" and no one could answer because we hadn't been to that invite in the two past years. Even if we had I would've sucked. It wasn't a PR, but it was what I had hoped it would be, a cruxt moment utilized perfectly.

I had a feeling about that race. I just knew that I had to be there. Going into it everything felt like it was just taking care of itself the way it was supposed to. I made that opportunity for myself. This time the opportunity has been presented to me. This time there are no boxes painted in rows. If there were, mine would be the lopsided misfit on the end, the after-thought (it feels better when it's the result of someone else's command). I have a feeling about this race. I have a really good feeling about it. So while I know someday I'll run faster, on race day I'll run the fastest I ever have. Somehow I know it.

Marathoning Mommy

There will be two entries today... For a blog about my adventures as a Mommy who wants to be a fast marathoner I have never included any sort of documentation to show how I try to balance these two full-time jobs. A Glimpse at one day... then an over view of a week.

Tuesday/Thursday:

5:00am WAke up get dressed Drink a cup of Coffee in the quiet...
5:15 wake everyone else! load pajama boys in the car sleepy eyed and all
5:45-6:45: Drop Casey off at the train station
6:45: Boys must do chores, make beds, clean room etc. I make breakfast.
7:00am EAT BREAKFAST! and clean up dishes
7:20-8:00 It's a mad house getting lunches ready, hair brushed... nagging the boys to get dressed and brush their teeth. Hunting for library books etc.
8:10 head to bus stop with cooper...
8:25 back home with Willem, who is hopefully still clean.
8:25-8:50 some down time with Willem "Curious George"
8:50 Head to bus stop with Willem...
9:00 Good bye Willie! I head for a morning run... secretly racing the Bus out of the complex and waving at Mr. Sunshine as I do...
9:30 head back in from said run.
9:30-10:00 Computer time
10:00-11:00 Laundry other Miscellaneous Chores
11:00 Brunch
11:20 Shower (I know I'm gross) get dressed take vitamins.. "me" time
12:00 make lunch
12:20 get Willem off the bus
12:30 we eat lunch
12:50-1:30 reading time
1:30-3:00 Willem's rest time, sometimes I get a nap here, other times I do more chores
3:00-4:00 Willie and I play together or separate... depends on what he wants
4:00 Cooper gets off the buss
4:00-4:30 They eat a snack I pack water and such for my evening track workout
4:45- Out the door to lake forest
5:15 leave the car at the train station for Casey, Shelley picks us up and takes us the the track
5:25 arrive at track, the boys play like mad men (thursday's they have a playdate instead), and I run a workout 10x1000 or 6x1mile with a 2-3 mile warm up and cool down.
6:45 Casey arrives from work, and depending on the boys either takes them home or stays and watches the workout
7:15 head home
7:45 arrive and begin dinner
8:00pm eat dinner
8:30 boys to bed
9:00 me to bed


Monday's, Wednesday's and Friday's belong to the boys. I don't run at all on Mondays. I clean, and cook a real family meal, and play soccer, or tag with the boys in the afternoon. Sometimes we go for a hike, or to the beach. On Wednesday's I run once in the morning while Willem is gone. Then We go to Cooper's Gymnastics class in the afternoon, and Friday I run once in the morning and the boys and I play together in the afternoon. That's how we get balance around here! Weekends are when I "work" I'll be gone in the morning until 10 or 11 getting in a long run one day, and some "me" time the other, while Casey hangs out with boys. Definitely a lot in a day but what is temporary to me, is permanent to my sons. I don't want them looking back on their childhood and remembering long days filled with boredom. I want them to look back and remember days filled with vivacious laughter and merriment. Now, I did have one or two days this cycle where on a Wednesday or Friday I popped a movie in and lied on the ground and the boys watched a movie because I was too tired to move. That is a rarity they grant me without protest. So it may be hard to crest 100mpw with kind of schedule, but that's okay with me.

agrarian arts

While my belly grew out of control, stretching so tight it felt it would rip with Willem inside it, I was forced on bed rest. Powerless. I thought Willem would own my body forever. In the delivery room I felt my SI joint spread apart to make room as all 9 lbs of him decended through my small frame. The pain was intense. I wore my regular clothes home and was decieved in thinking this meant my body was the same. It wasn't. It was in pieces, and composed unrecognizably. It was as if I weren't in me anymore, but inside someone else peering out of darkness into two strange peep holes. This new body wouldn't cooperate. It kept breaking down and needing fixed. Injections, threats of surgery, and several layoffs due to hips that didn't want to run. Whose useless body was this they stuck me with? I got fed up with the weakness of this strange container. Finally, I decided this new body needed a mother. It needed someone to care for it, raise it, teach it right and wrong, and ultimately to discipline it with care. So I took time to teach it how I wanted it to behave, to become what I needed it to be. That in itself took me 3 years. Three years of making running a stranger, to get to know this body. My frame allowed me visitation with running, but not full custody. Not until 15 months ago.

15 months ago. That's when I dedicated myself to peeling back the paper on my potential as a runner. 15 months ago I was flaccid and out of shape, the marks of childbirth still lay claim my physique (despite the fact that Willem was 3 at that time). It's only been in the last 3 months that have noticed the land scape of my body change. Lines began to cut their way up my thighs. Rows plowed across my belly as what fat was there melted away. Now the remaining relics of my pregnancy are the stretchmarks that climb up my lower abdomen like ivy on some stately brick wall. Those I want to keep as a trophy of motherhood. Where once I was round I am now shadowed with crevasses. Don't get me wrong. I am no Deena, or Shalane. By comparison I am girlish and undeveloped. My lines are still soft and gentle. However, they exsist and are proof of a planting and a rebirth.

mirror, mirror

I am delving for the first time into Sylvia Plath. I had read "Daddy" and have known of her to be a feminist must read. A dark, disturbed, unsettled soul that put itself out of misery. However, my creative writing professors kept her from me. The pushed me towards Sharon Olds instead. The Bell Jar alluded to why they might do that. I saw my semantics and lexicon in hers. I thought I also saw more. The reflection seemed odd staring back up at me from the page, as if it were something I may have written 55 years ago. Thanks to Bridget for sending me this link http://archive.salon.com/books/feature/2000/05/30/plath1/index2.html to confirm my suspicions that this woman is this woman in a different life, with a different husband, kids, life. I don't know now whether to be terrified or just exuberant. I do think the differences make all the difference, and that they have murdered my muse.

Depth

Today the boys and I went to get their good friend Max and take him to the pool. On the way home we listened to this story. http://thestory.org/ of Jabari. Will and Max ignored it while Cooper listened intently. He found the story to be delightfully funny, and enlightening all at once. It amazed me that he found any depth in it at all. It was way over his head. It was like watching a baby discover themselves in a mirror. Jabari's insights were extremely deep, and Cooper's sense of them reflected that depth. Cooper's response to the epiphany Jabari has when he sees his relfection in a mirror while imprison was, "well of course! We are all in charge of ourselves. It's good that he figured that out. Now he can make good choices for himself. Prisoners just don't know that." I just sat silent. While I know he didn't understand everything he understood more more deeply than most. Not all jails have bars...