July Camps

Last week was a busy one, all fortunately concentrated around the one thing my life seems to endlessly orbit: running. Five days of working as staff of a high school track camp, directly followed by a weekend in Santa Cruz with my teammates kept me busy, focused, and revved up for this cross country season.

“Track Camp” is what we call it, but it’s more like supervising a blast from the past, being reminded of what we were like as high school track-letes. Girls in spandex and vibrant sports bras seem to have little concern for body image holding them back from peeling off their oversized Mt. SAC t-shirts, and placing more emphasis on face make-up and nail polish color than the concern of an untoned belly or under-defined deltoid muscles. Boys, wearing long baggy shorts as if all the pale skin of their thighs is too sensitive for sunlight, spike their hair with gel and fake a deeper voice whenever flirting with the young ladies. Despite the humor of it all, most the teens out there were sincerely interested in absorbing our wisdom about training the right way: nutrition, recovery, lifestyle habits, and workout diversity were presented as new tools for optimal performance. Their progression was visible, by the end of the week there was an evident increase in efficient running form (taught via drills), interest in aqua-jogging, embrace of the luscious salad bar over the greasy day old hash browns, and a vibe of enthusiastic camaraderie amongst each other. Observing their progress and resolving their curiosity on running related topics provided gratitude that overpowered the downside of the whole camp for the staff, which comprised mostly of overtraining and under-sleeping. The camp ended with a staff lunch, where I stuffed my face with a fat burrito and moseyed home to embrace the sudden evaporation of back-to-back “things to do.” I let the sunny summer boredom steal my sigh of relief and carry it through the warm wind that blew through Isla Vista. A couple hours later, my restless legs sprung into action, as my brother Nic and I rode our road bikes a half an hour to Bikram Yoga, sweat half our body weight out onto a soggy towel, and then hit up Whole Foods for dinner before riding back to my apartment, chasing the sleepy sun into it’s cool ocean bed. 

“Women’s Camp” began the very next day, as my teammates and I woke before the sun opened its big bright eye. Leaving rubber on the road behind, we roamed up the coast to Capitola Beach in Santa Cruz. The weekend workouts went well: two tempos and a long run wore me out but it was invigorating to be training with my supportive and focused teammates. An even spread of goal talk and girl talk wrapped up the weekend and I was back in Isla Vista before Sunday night concluded. I feel relieved now that I expressed my fears and insecurities regarding the season to my teammates, and mentioned the possibility of redshirting the upcoming cross country season. By no means would that decision make any alterations in my training, for I will prepare and race with the same vigor and determination whether the letters UCSB are proudly fixed across my heart or not. With only one more year of eligibility left and two years of school, it seemed to make sense to everyone that my strength will come with time, and reawakening my legs from three months of a bitter foot stress fracture requires more time than I am allotted to be as successful as I can in the Fall.

While nurturing a suffering achilles, I’m holding up well. In Santa Barbara for the rest of the week, I aim to hit 80 miles this week. I’m finally enjoying my training and getting excited for my first week of three strong workouts, drills and weights every other day, a couple sessions of Bikram Yoga sprinkled in, and some Foundation classes to improve my running efficiency. Oh, and of course I’m also excited for the wicked tan I’ll get from paddling around in the ocean on my housemate’s surfboard.

Santa Barbara x (running shoes + a bikini + my road bike) = the perfect summer            


What I'm listening to right now: Wash. by Bon Iver      

Solitude

I finally determined it was time. It wasn’t forced, although it was a long time coming. It wasn’t a sudden spur of spontaneity, but a gradual decline of interest. It was for the betterment of my self, for the sake of facing a fear and a challenge. Strength. I did it so that I would actually keep I touch with the people I care about, not just keep up to date with the over-glamorized façade put up by every person I know. It was an action I took for the sake of productivity and freedom from the overwhelming web of our sticky so-called social life. I’m piecing together a real social life now, cutting free seemingly endless wires that tie me down, plug me in, and make me feel less self-reliant. When it asked me to please explain my reasoning before pressing “Deactivate,” I replied:

“Facebook, you are a time sucker. Your conveniences reduce the worth of real relationships and the importance of truly keeping in touch. You make us think we are staying connected with our friends, but in truth, the depth of each relationship maintained through your services is greatly reduced. Fuck you Facebook, I need some solitude.”

And then… I felt free. 

Jammin' and Snappin'

Since it’s summer, I’ve been picking up some hobbies that have collected dust over the years. Nothing new, just those activities I used to love, but got tossed aside due to the hectic combination of running, school, and fulfilling basic needs that tag along with living with five other girls in a college town apartment. The two hobbies I have been embracing this summer are guitar and photography.

Relearning guitar was at first painful, with my baby soft fingertips. But after a month or so I’ve developed some pretty rad calluses that help extend my playing periods from what used to be two minutes, to two hours a day now! You’d think I’d have a couple songs down at that rate, but my other problem is song ADD. I can’t seem to perfect a whole song and get real smooth at it before dreaming up a different one I want to rock out to. It also doesn’t help that I am constantly listening to a playlist of 88 AMAZING songs on my iPod and want to try to play them all, so I can’t focus on the task at hand. So far, I can play most of Flume by Bon Iver, some of Wonderwall by Oasis, the intro to Naked as We Came by Iron and Wine, and a few others. Sadly, I left my capo in Santa Barbara, but I found a pretty nifty solution:

Photography is also quite a task. I was hoping to learn some tricks and skills from my older brother when I was visiting him in Portland two weeks ago, but time flew by a bit too fast and we didn’t get around to a real photography lesson. He did shield the sun from my lens while I was taking a picture of Multnomah Falls though! What a pal =)   

What am I listening to right now? Thumbing My Way by Pearl Jam. Ahhh so good!

Waiting for My Wings

Lately I’ve been feeling pretty down. Tired, unmotivated, cranky. For the past week, every step of almost every run has been forced and painful. Everyone has those dreams where they are running from something, but aren’t actually going anywhere…well that’s how I feel. When I’m not running, I want to sleep, yet when I try, I can’t fall asleep. Awesome, that’s just great for my training.

I credit this feeling to a variety of causes. It could be the heat, the altitude (5200 feet, mile high baby!), or my stubborn insomnia. Having recently abandoned my coffee addiction cold turkey, it’s feasible that this is what it feels like not to be riding out an adrenaline rush all day. Pumping caffeine all morning will sure make you feel alive, but I’ve decided that it’s peaked at an unnatural level. Its also possible that this is always the mood of July: getting in shape for cross country after having never finished a collegiate track season healthy and in one piece can be a slow process. Lastly, I can’t rule out every distance runner’s nightmare… the condition that makes us wince in terror…the all too common but worse case scenario of the beast eating our body from the inside out. Maybe… just maybe… I’m anemic!

Which would explain why my eyes lit up with animated anticipation when I spotted a package under my Grandma’s arm as she made her five-yard shuffle from her car to our front door with the daily mail. Normally, she slaps a stack of bills and notices on our table, which only deserves a glance from me, only half of a second of my attention before I proceed with the task I was involved in. But this package wasn’t just any daily parcel. It was a box, brown and slightly smaller than a shoebox, with the little Amazon smile-arrow-doodad along the side. Judging by her effort, it looked as though it weighed about five pounds, maybe less. I eagerly interrogated her about this intriguing rectangular cardboard complex: “Is it heavy? Who is it addressed to? Does it smell like pennies?” I didn’t exactly leave time for her replies, so she dropped it in my lap and I pounced like a five year old attacking his attractively wrapped present on Christmas morning. Her worrisome awareness with my struggle to pry the tape apart with my brute force launched her into a frantic search for the best key on her key ring to cut the Ashley-proof tape with. As soon as she sliced it open, I unfolded the brown cardboard flaps to a glorious sight: three bottles of liquid iron. Yes! Magic Juice!   

There are many theories behind the association between iron deficient anemia and distance runners. To name a few, iron is lost through sweating, red blood cell destruction from footstrike, and depletion that is associated with tissue inflammation. Now, I’ve never been diagnosed with anemia, but whenever I’ve requested a blood test, my ferritin levels have always come back low (the amount of ferritin in one’s blood is directly related to the amount of iron stored in one’s body). It’s said that a normal level is between 10-143 ng/mL, and both times I’ve checked, mine has been 19 and 16. I’ve always wondered what it would feel like to have a ferritin level in the triple digits, so here I am, taking shots of liquid iron twice a day, waiting for some kind of miracle to give me wings.  

A Refreshing Awakening

I didn’t hear the distant rumbles over the soothing melody of La Mar by the Beautiful Girls flowing through my headphones. Rather, what stirred me from my much-needed state of relaxation was the musty smell of rain. Although I hadn’t actually fallen asleep in the last hour that I was laying in my bed (but anticipated slipping into that peaceful darkness soon), I switched directions and gravitated toward the window to greet the rain. Delightfully, it greeted me in return with a crackle and sudden sheet of heavy drops. I was immediately refreshed! The drum of a million sporadic tears from the clouds silenced the racket of cars and wood chippers. The asphalt streets became pollen-filmed rivers within minutes. This transformation proved nature’s power to subdue the tainted spectacle of our industrial world. It was beautiful.

An hour later the storm had passed, so I tied on my running shoes and hit the soggy streets. It was only a thirty minute run followed by form drills, but I felt light and energized. I pondered for a reason behind this revived feeling that contrasted with the heavy, tired sensation I had during my morning run. It couldn’t have been the nap that was prompted by my persistent insomnia over the last couple of nights, because I never actually fell asleep. Maybe it was the delicious block of dark chocolate I munched on after lunch? Unlikely. I concluded that I felt great for the same reason the trees felt great, the same reason the grass, streams, and amphibious creatures felt great: the rain! It washed away my worries, replenished my tired body, and filled my heart with glee. It was just what I needed.

This blog is an account of how my love for running, nature, music, and food interact harmoniously to give life to my soul and my endeavors.