Saturday, February 20, 2010

The Fat Ass

Today, I participated in my first Kennekuk Road Runners Trail Run at Kennekuk Cove Park near Danville. The event was called the Fat Ass. The run was broken into lengths... where the Fat Ass was 28.4 miles, Large ass 21.3, Medium 14.2 and Small 7.1 miles. There was also a Baby Ass that was 3.29.

This week was an emotionally heavy week. So I decided this a.m. that I was going to do the Small instead of the Baby. I needed time out and about. I had figured out through other race fliers that headphones are not approved at KRR races due to liability, so I was a little bummed about that -- until I got out there.

In the first two miles I learned lots of new things.

1) Pilates is not needed in your workout routine if you do trail running. The hills are steep and twisty at Lake Mingo and in snow and mud you are often required to use your core to stabilize when your feet slip out from underneath you as you wind through the woods. You also use your upper body to pull yourself up hills via trees or sometimes tree roots depending on the steep and muddy  ups and downs.

2) Trail running shoes might be helpful. So, you might want to heed advise from the expert runners passing you by and be budgeting for those soon.

3) You don't need music because your brain won't hear it anyway. It's too busy trying not to fall off of narrow wooden bridges or planks into the icy waterways below.

4) You don't find it weird when it's just you and an ice fisherman on the path.

5) Trail running requires not just endurance but a fair amount of agility and balance.

6) If someone doesn't say good morning, it's not that they're rude... it's that they're doing the actual FAT ASS and are down to a t-shirt and shorts from the 21 extra miles they're doing that day and don't even register that you're speaking anything but Klingon.

7) Sometimes you use your ass (no matter which one you're running) to safely get down hills by sliding on the snow on your butt.

8) It's always a good idea to bring a complete set of dry clothes with you to change into after the race.

9) Screw speed. The goal is to finish -- alive, without breaking an ankle.

10) No wimps. No bitching. Beer is good. -- These are my kind of people. I hope to partake in the festivities next time!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

When our oldest came along, sleeping with us was a non-negotiable no. John was strongly opposed to it and I wasn't a fan, either. She has always been a champion sleeper anyway (once she started sleeping through the night at 4 mo.) so it was never a problem. However, our youngest just turned four, and we have the exact same problems you described. She's a night person just like I was (before I had children), and she's a light sleeper. She didn't start sleeping through the night until she was 14 months old, and since the girls share a room, that was problematic for everybody's sleep. Over time, we got into the bad habit of just bringing her into bed with us.

Recently, going to bed in her bed became non-negotiable for me for two reasons: 1. I felt she was just getting too old to continue in this bad habit. 2. John gets up early and goes to bed early, so her insistence upon laying down with or cuddling with one of us seriously interfered with any alone time together we might want or need. And we were basically only accommodating her to avoid a full-on, holy-hell of a temper tantrum...I don't think she wasn't scared, but rather lonely, AND she simply wanted her own way. It became a sacrifice I was no longer willing to make, so we just forced the going to bed in her own bed issue. We used to lay down with her, but it usually ended up with the parent falling asleep, and her crawling out of bed over his/my sleeping body to get up. Besides, it didn't solve the problem of her learning to go to sleep ON HER OWN.

So, yes, we forced the issue. There were some horrible, screaming, made ME want to cry tantrums that lasted over an hour, but we out-stubborned her, and she has come a long way in the last month or so. Most importantly, she is becoming ABLE to to to bed and get to sleep on her own. She'll probably never be the type to fall asleep quickly, but we've been trying to teach her how to teach herself to wind-down. She is allowed to look at books and/or play with a small toy in her bed for as long as it takes to get sleepy. She may listen to music quietly. She still has some bad nights sometimes. But, if she has had a string of good nights, we'll let her watch a video in bed with our portable dvd player (but she has to earn that privilege with 3 or so good nights in a row).

We still have a problem with her staying in her bed all night. If she comes into our room early enough in the night, or if she is too restless for me to sleep, I just pick her up and carry her right back into her room. I find she does not object to this as much since we've been making her go to bed in her own bed, but often times I don't even realize she has climbed in until my alarm goes off. But right now, I'm happy with the fact that she goes to bed on her own. Truth be told, I like the early morning snuggles. :-)