The 2013 Santa Dash and Reindeer Run

I'm an idiot. I procrastinate and make excuses and try not to do what I said I'd do and what I wanted to do all year long. And I'm cold.

These are the thoughts that ran through my head as I stood huddled next to ridiculously small open-air fire on Saturday morning. It was 27 degrees, the snow was falling thickly on my Santa hat-covered head, and my feet were absolutely frozen in their non-waterproof running sneakers four inches into the snow. I was waiting for ten o'clock to arrive so I could start running and I was absolutely miserable.

You see, running another 5K was one of my New Year's resolutions and it was December 21, so I really couldn't wait any longer to get it over with. The runners were supposed to come in costume, so there were elves in running shoes, reindeer in running shoes, a couple of Santas in running shoes. There was even one poor chap in red boxers and a green scarf...and running shoes. He looked especially goosepimpled and stayed close to the fire before the start of the run. I hadn't thought about dressing up because I was more focused on how I would stay warm yet cool for the race. I can work up quite a sweat before I finish running those three measly miles, so I didn't want to wear a heavy jacket or even a light one. I'd run in cold weather before and I knew the real concerns were keeping my feet, hands, and ears warm. My torso stayed fairly warm all on its own and my legs would adapt to the cold if I stayed in motion during the race.

You could take pictures before the race.

So I decided on thermal pants, some jogging capris, long striped socks (for festivity), a second pair of ankle socks for warmth and padding, my jogging sneakers, a long-sleeved shirt, a t-shirt, an ear-warming headband, and a santa hat. I was set.

Just waiting around for the race to start.

Josh and Scarlet came out to support me and stayed cozy by the fire. The runners all left the pavilion at the Sugarhouse park and made their way to the starting point. I stood behind the almost-naked guy at the front. I was jumping up and down in part to get some feeling back in my feet and partly because I was getting really excited as I always do at the beginning of a race. We all counted down from ten and then took off at a much faster pace than I normally run. I couldn't help it--I was so excited to be a part of this group of energized, enthusiastic runners. As I pounded down the track with the rest of the first wave, I pulled out my phone/ipod and snapped a quick picture of the runners in front of me. The snow was falling silently and I was stumbling through the ice of the road and my fingers were frozen and I was so excited!

Not many people were ahead of me...at the beginning of the race, anyway.

That lasted maybe two minutes. Maybe. Most likely it lasted thirty seconds. Then the strangest sensation took over me. The snow on the road sucked at my shoes, making it much more difficult for me to pick up my feet and slam them back down. And every time I did manage to lift a foot and force it back down, I slid into a small pile of snow or stumbled over a firm block of ice. I was finding it extremely difficult to move my feet in this run. Also, the cold air felt thin and razor sharp on my lungs. I'd been training at night in my work building's gym after Scarlet went to bed so Josh could study in peace for his actuary exam. It's the closest free treadmill I know of, so I had been training indoors on a 2.0 incline in the air conditioning. Running in less than 30-degree weather on a snow-covered track in the thin air was significantly different and infinitely more difficult. My nose started to run and wouldn't stop the entire race. My lungs were on fire. My legs had turned to jelly at the same time that my fingers went into that aching numb mode. What on earth was I thinking?!

At the first hill I slowed to a stumbling walk and began to cough and hack and bend over and try to grab enough oxygen in that frozen hell to keep myself from dying. Runners zoomed past me while I fought for air and my arms vibrated and my nose streamed. This was miserable. I wanted to go home. Josh had not been excited about my running the 5K the morning we had planned to leave for Las Vegas to spend an early Christmas with my family. He was anxious to beat the foul weather that was expected to hit Salt Lake City that morning. I was being very stubborn and insisted we pack up the car, drive to the race, and leave for Vegas afterward. It was inconvenient and dangerous if the storm followed us south (it did), but I just wanted to get the darn thing over with. Now that I was wheezing at a snail's pace on the track with bedecked joggers in jingle bells tinkling past me, I was seriously regretting my decision.

After what seemed an exaggerated amount of time, I had slowed my breathing enough that I felt I could start running again. I had started off so much faster than my normal pace that it took me way longer to catch my breath. I never walked enough to slow my breathing to normal because that defeats the purpose of a good cardio jog, so when I felt that I could breathe enough to live, I began to jog again. This time, I took it slow, moving at the pace I had practiced in the gym and regulating my breathing into a steady pattern in time with my footfalls. The snow was brutal on my feet. I kept slipping and stumbling and the track was much hillier than the incline I trained at. I slowed to a walk more than once to catch my breath. I started to set goals for myself along the way: just jog until you reach the light post; then you can rest. Don't let that mom-and-son tag team beat you to the trash can. Catch up to that Santa Claus in the sneakers before taking a break.

My hands were moving out of the achy numb stage and into the warm, blood-pumping stage. I was starting to get warmed up. A dip in the road opened up a downhill track and I picked up the pace and allowed gravity and inertia to propel me into the next leg of the journey. My body was toasty warm now and I had found my groove. Instead of stopping after this song or that next lamp post, I kept going, kept moving my goal to the next song, the next landmark until I absolutely had to stop to catch my breath. Then I'd walk slowly, coughing and wiping my nose, and regulate my breathing somewhat before jumping right back into the jog. I was in the zone.

Notes for the novice jogger: Power ballads and piano music are not appropriate for a race. You must have fast tempo-ed, energetic songs planned for your run. I had not organized my music in any particular order or genre on my phone, so after rocking out to a quick-paced rock song, I caught the lovely strains of a wordless piano melody. Very beautiful, but my body immediately responded to the slower tempo and dropped down to a slower jog. I grabbed the finger of my glove with my teeth and pulled off one of my gloves to change the song. Then I picked up the pace and kept going.

The last stretch of the race is a frighteningly steep hill covered in smushed ice and snow followed by a lane of double-parked cars to the finish line. Many people had completed the race by now. I decided that I was close enough to the end that I wasn't going to take another break from jogging so I kept running despite my wheezing lungs. I had to be very careful going down that hill. Inertia is the last thing you want more of when running down an icy slope, and gravity is no longer your ally. I picked my way softly and carefully down the hill, then picked up the pace along the lane of parked cars. I figured Josh and Scarlet would be waiting in the car because of the weather, but I passed my car and saw nobody in it. Instead I fixed my eyes on the finish line. Dozens of people waited with signs and cameras. Family members, race personnel, and joggers all milled about with hot chocolate. They always cheer on the runners, so people began to clap and cheer for me as I made my way toward them. Then I saw Josh holding up a pink fleece-jacketed bundle a little apart from the crowd and I aimed toward them.

I flew past the finish line and ran right up to Josh before stopping and bending over to breathe. Josh tried to kiss me in congratulations but I wheezed out, "Let me catch my breath first." Most people can run three miles without struggling. Most people wouldn't even think of a 5K as a big deal. But I cannot run three miles easily and a 5K is a HUGE deal, so I am proud to say that I completed my race and took a victory picture with Santa before packing up and heading off to Las Vegas for the weekend.

I ate cookies almost the whole way down.

Santa's looking trim because of all the jogging he does. He also totally beat me to the finish line.

Christmas Season

Something has just taken over me these past couple of years. I used to dread Christmas and the embarrassment and shame of giving out invariably insufficient and mediocre gifts to those I care about. It used to be a truly dreadful season for me, but not last year and not this year. I just love Christmas now--I can now shop for gifts without feeling embarrassment over how inadequately they express my sentiments or fear over how they will be received. I just enjoy giving them now. The whole season is a pleasure, and I couldn't wait to put up my Christmas decorations this past Friday night. I spent the night before scrubbing the house down from top to bottom to make up for letting things go while I was working on my MBA and Nanowrimo, and then I moved around our living room furniture and starting stringing lights around our kitchen and living room windows. Scarlet watched the Grinch on the floor for a while, then spent the rest of the time helping me by pulling on the lights until the tape ripped off the glass and I had to repeat my work three or four times.

Then when Josh got off of work, we went Christmas tree shopping at Lowe's (I didn't even know they sold trees until a certain pregnant friend mentioned it on her blog) and then bought a couple of gifts at some nearby stores. Josh and I had donated our old fake tree over the summer because it was so shamefully tiny and we were excited to buy our first real tree together. I grew up on real trees and had been talking about their lovely fresh scent so much that Josh was disappointed when we first installed our new live tree. He said it smelled like pumpkins and he wasn't impressed. Within a day, however, he had changed his tune and now every time he walks into the living room, he mentions how good it smells. It may be a fire hazard, but it's a fragrant one.

We have a lot of plastic ornaments, so we made sure to put those at the bottom of the tree while decorating. We also barricaded the tree with one our kitchen chairs, so Scarlet can reach out and tug on a few needles or a low-hanging ornament but she can't pull the whole tree down. I spent the rest of the night decorating with Josh after Scarlet went to bed and then I put on some Christmas episodes of Psych and wrapped gifts while Josh shopped online for my presents.










The next night Scarlet and I ventured out into the cold night to watch Santa and Mrs. Claus light the Christmas tree on the snowy lawn of Murray City Hall. They arrived by fire truck, which was kind of cool. Josh had to stay home to study for his actuary exam but he wasn't very sorry he missed out because ten minutes into our waiting with fifty or so other parents and small children, the skies opened up to dump a ton of snow on us. It was beautiful but super cold, so Scarlet and I didn't wait in line with the rest of the kids for a photo with Santa in the council room.

Instead, we drove very slowly home, where I turned on the tree lights and took a picture of Scarlet and her first real Christmas tree. This season is so magical and I hope I can continue to love the weather, the festivities, and the meaning.

Still sleeping??

I'm going out of my mind. Scarlet is STILL asleep! She usually wakes up around 7 or 7:30, but it's 8:37 and she's still snoozing. I'm afraid to wake her up because she seems to really need her sleep lately. Yesterday, instead of her two 1.5-hour naps, she had two 2.5-hour naps. It was madness! (I got so much accomplished in that time.) But this morning I don't know how to start my morning routine without her being awake. I made her a bottle in preparation for her waking up like forty minutes ago. Now it's gone cold. I need to do my work but I don't know how when I'm still tensed and listening for when she wakes up. Why is she still asleep?!

She must be going through one heck of a growth spurt.

**UPDATE**
She finally arose at 9:30. What a sleeper this morning!

On Being Protective

So yesterday I went to Smith's to pick up some formula for Scarlet. The weather had turned a little crummy and it was windy with occasional rain drops falling, so I hurried to carry Scarlet into the store. She was wearing her big jacket over her clothes but she only had socks on because the pink boots I bought this weekend were too small and I needed to exchange them after I picked up her formula. I threw her hood on, hugged her tightly to my body, and walked quickly toward the doors. My heart pounded extra fast as I dashed across the parking lot because I worry that cars won't see us and they'll hit us. I was caught behind two older women crossing the parking lot very slowly and I worried they might reach out and touch Scarlet (and give her the bubonic plague). Inside the store, a nice employee handed me a cart and I thanked him but pushed the cart a few feet away before strapping Scarlet into it. I always worry that strangers will attack me because if it came down to protecting Scarlet or saving my wallet, I'd lose my wallet and bad men probably know that. I wanted a few feet of space so I could keep an eye on the nice man.

Inside the store we went straight to the baby food aisle and I mused over some sippy cups until a woman walked down the aisle and eyed Scarlet. I quickly tossed some formula into the basket and hurried to the checkout stand. I worry that women in close proximity to her will touch her or talk to her or ask to hold her. At the checkout lane the cashier was an older man who liked to talk about his grandkids in a baby voice addressed to Scarlet. I couldn't hand him my coupon. I couldn't hand him my rewards card. I could not get away from him for the longest time, and panic was starting to rise in my throat. I'm always torn when cashiers  notice my baby because I worry I'll get stuck having to talk to them or that they might stroke Scarlet's cheek (and give her yellow fever).

I hurried back to the exit but was distracted by the Redbox station and stopped to scan the movies. The nice man who gave me my cart was talking to another employee close by and they spotted Scarlet and began to tell me all about how pretty she is and how cute babies are. I was petrified that they were going to steal my cart with the baby in it while I was stuck waiting for a dumb movie to dispense. I tossed the movie into my bag and dashed back out into the parking lot, where I ran to the car. I dumped the formula inside and then pushed the cart to a return stall with Scarlet still in it. I always worry about leaving her in the car while I'm returning a cart. Some stranger could jump in the car and drive away with her. I unbuckled her from the cart and hurried back to my car, terrified some crazy driver was going to come careening around the corner and plow into us. I got to my car and start to buckle her in, fumbling in my hurry. I always fear that some stranger will sneak up from behind while I'm stuck buckling in my baby and he'll steal my money or my car or my baby. I finally pull away from the death store and head to the mall to exchange Scarlet's boots.

Taking Scarlet out is stressful, and worrisome, and sometimes terrifying. She runs the risk of being touched by strangers, stolen, or catching SARS from the bad weather every time I carry her outside. I used to love running errands or going out at night. I still love being out, but when I have to bring Scarlet (which is always), it turns into a terrifying game of Russian roulette. We typically stay in these days.

How I Survived Nanowrimo 2013, Part 2

This meant I only had two days left and 15,000 words left to write. I wasn't giving up, though. Thankfully there was no work on Friday either, so I set the alarm for 5:00 a.m. and didn't allow myself to snooze when it went off. I had work to do. I went out into the living room and started typing in the semi-darkness, yawning hugely with each passing minute. Josh was restless in the bedroom and I could hear him tossing and turning. By 7, he had run to the bathroom. By 7:05 it became blatantly obvious that Josh was violently ill and couldn’t go in to work. The worst part was I had been counting on him to take care of Scarlet when he got home from work that day and instead I was responsible for taking care of both of them all day long. It was a grueling day. Scarlet was clingy and whiny because she was in pain from teething. I couldn’t type with her because she kept slamming the keyboard. She’s tall enough to reach it when I sit on the couch so I can’t move it out of her reach anymore. I can’t leave the room either, because she sobs and crawls after me. Plus if she were left alone I just know she’d hurt herself. So I had to wait until her morning nap before I could settle down and start typing. I had been checking on Josh periodically throughout the morning, asking him if I could get him anything and what he needed. Such was the degree of his suffering that he wouldn’t accept my offers and needed to be left alone. That only happens when he’s very, very sick.

When I was typing away during Scarlet’s nap, finally feeling like I had made a breakthrough with my work and was going to get a lot of writing done, Josh staggered out to the living room and asked me to pick him up some medicine. I sighed at the timing and left him with the sleeping baby to run to the store. The whole day was similar agony. I couldn’t seem to find the time when I wasn’t doing something for Scarlet or something for Josh to concentrate on my work. Josh was very apologetic and I couldn’t be mad at him for feeling so rotten. But it took every ounce of dedication I had to write eight thousand words that day.

Saturday. I was exhausted, Josh was still very sick, and I had seven thousand words to go. Josh went to work for a few hours in the morning to make up for missing work on Friday. Scarlet seemed to be doing relatively well so I left her on the floor to play with her toys and starting writing. I was having internal struggle with the quality of writing at this point. It wasn’t very good. I wasn’t sure I wanted to keep the organization of events that way I had been writing them. I desperately wanted to go back into my already written sections to edit them. But part of the tips for succeeding at Nanowrimo is to ignore the editor within you until you get the words on the page. You can go back in to rework them after the month is over and you’ve won. So I struggled through my temptations and ignored my terrible, awful words. I just kept writing.

Scarlet interrupted me often. She’s very needy right now. Josh came home when he was feeling too sick to stay at work. Scarlet began sobbing inexplicably whenever I turned back to the computer. I took her for a drive until she fell asleep and brought her back to take a nap, but she stayed in her room and cried for forty minutes before I gave up and took her out. The day was falling apart and I was falling behind. With four thousand words to go, I went to the Nanowrimo site to check on my partner-in-crime Megan. She was completing this challenge with me and she too had experienced word-stopping troubles in the middle of the month. By the power of her awesome, she had written the remaining three thousand words necessary to be crowned a winner for Nanowrimo 2013. I was so impressed with her. It felt like a victory for me to see that she had done it.

That was the fire I needed under me to keep slogging through the editor-doubts and slow-typing. In one hour I had dragged out 800 words. In another hour I had another 1200. I was building steam now. I knew I needed to write three more pages—1700 more words—to hit my goal. That’s when I slammed into my wall again. I could not for the life of me write anything else. I didn’t want to. The will to keep going had completely vanished and I just wanted to play with Scarlet in the last hour before her bedtime. What did I care if I finished or not? I was tired, I was stressed, and I had no more ideas in me to put down on paper. I just wanted to quit.

But the thought of having 48,300 words on December 1^st so offended me that I pushed through the wall. No one quits that close to the finish line. After a page of writing I latched onto an idea that carried me rapidly through the next couple pages. I stopped after Josh had put Scarlet to bed to check my word count. I had done it. I had hit my goal: 51,050 proud words were staring up at me from the white screen. Somehow despite the setbacks I had hit my two major November goals of completing my MBA and finishing Nanowrimo by 7:30 p.m. on November 30^th.

That night I went out to the mall to revel in some Black Friday (er, Saturday) shopping to celebrate. I picked up some shoes for me (a Christmas present from Josh—I buy ‘em, he wraps ‘em) and then dumped all my money at Carter’s for clothes for Scarlet. Now, of course the novel is not yet finished. My stories take about 100,000 words to complete, so I'm guessing I'm about halfway there. But that's a goal for December. I had met my goal for November. And it was the perfect ending to an incredible, impossible, triumphant month.

How I Survived Nanowrimo 2013, Part 1

So let me tell you about my month.

My MBA program ended November 30, and I was supposed to complete my capstone project by Halloween so I could concentrate on Nanowrimo (national novel writing month) throughout November and finally, FINALLY complete the challenge. Nanowrimo asks that participants dedicate the month of November to writing 50,000 words toward a novel. Thirty days, 50K words. You can outline the book and write character sketches and do all kinds of pre-work but the actual writing can't start until midnight of November 1st and it has to stop at 11:59 p.m. on November 30th. It's a lovely way to motivate yourself to getting through some of the very difficult blocks of writing--the actual doing it part--and I was really looking forward to participating.

Rewind to November 1st. I was 2/3rds done with my last class in the program and technically my class wasn't due until the end of the month, so although I was not finished with school, I jumped into Nanowrimo anyway. In the first weekend I wrote over 8,000 words and continued to write every day for the first week. I had 17,000 words by the first week, which is well over the minimum necessary. You just need to write an average of 1,667 words daily to make the goal, but you can write faster and skip a few days. It doesn't matter how you write so long as you make the goal by the deadline. 

So I was feeling pretty confident. Then week two hit. Week two of nanowrimo is apparently like week two at the Biggest Loser Ranch. You do extremely well in the first week and then crash right into a wall the second week. My school suddenly caught up with me and it turned out to be far more work than I originally thought. I was behind, I had so much to do, I was never going to finish my class by the end of the month. So I mournfully put off Nanowrimo to concentrate on school. The second week went by and I was neck-deep in Monte Carlo simulations and supply ordering averages. I was slammed with school. I made a few halfhearted attempts to keep up with my writing and a few thousand words were added to my word count but I quickly fizzled out.

Week three was worse than week two. Nary a word was written in my novel.

Then week four was here. I was behind on school, behind on writing, and had five days left. I remember waking up on Tuesday the 26, realizing that I had accomplished nothing this month and feeling a bit angry. I had put off my reading for months to catch up with school and if I didn't accomplish what I'd set out to do this month, it would all have been a waste. I had stopped cleaning my apartment regularly and poor Josh had been struggling to pick up the slack. I had stopped going outside; I had stopped taking Scarlet for walks or drives or doing anything I normally did so that I could finish school and write my novel. And I would be darned if I was going to let this last week go to waste.

So I set a goal for myself: I would dedicate all of Tuesday to writing 10,000 words in my novel. It would still mean I was very behind, but it would help catch me up a lot faster. Then I would dedicate all of Wednesday to my capstone and finish the darn thing. Then I would have Thanksgiving weekend (Thursday, Friday, and Saturday) to write the remaining 20,000 words necessary to completing my novel and winning Nanowrimo for the first time in my third attempt. It was an impossible goal. I was never going to be able to do it. But darn it, I wasn’t going to let the week go by and make me feel like a failure again.

Tuesday morning is the day I drop Scarlet off at her grandma’s and I drive to work to spend the day in the office. We got up at 5:30, we got ready and drove to Grandma’s house, I left her and drove to work and clocked in at 7:00. Work could not go by quickly enough. I was able to start my nanowrimo for a bit in the early morning but then I had meetings and work and Lindsay’s surprise baby shower, so I was unable to return to my novel until after I picked up Scarlet and drove home. Then it was crunch time. I spent a lot of time being distracted and writing at a sickeningly slow pace, but eventually I knuckled down and really wrote. By midnight that night, I had written 10,000 words that day.

The next day I was able to work from home, so Scarlet and I spent our work hours in the living room, me on my laptop and her on the floor. After I clocked out, I dove right into my capstone, writing my analysis and formatting, organizing, and laying out the statistical data associated with my project. It took me much less time than I first anticipated to finally complete my capstone project. By 6:30 that evening, I had sent off my final project and opened up my nano novel to pick up where I’d left off the night before. It was hard to concentrate on writing after spending so much of the day on technical analysis, so I gave up shortly after starting and watched television with Josh to celebrate being done with school (tentatively).

But the next day was Thanksgiving and I had 25,000 words to go. With no work on Thursday, I got up at 6:00 to try to get some significant word count in before turkey. Because I had let so much of the house chores go during the past month, Josh and I had to play catch-up on our day off, so I wasn’t able to write much. I wrote a couple thousand, we went up to Salt Lake for Thanksgiving, and we had an all-around great day. That night I tried to write a little more but I was exhausted from turkey and it was extremely hard to concentrate. By 11:30 pm. I had only written a paltry few thousand words, so I gave up and surfed the internet until midnight before going to bed.

Sleeping in on a Saturday

I love sleeping in. It doesn't happen anymore. Last night, being a Friday night and being that I finished a freelance project early, Josh and I celebrated by sitting down together after Scarlet's bedtime and watching a little TV. We stayed up later than we normally do, finally closing down the computer at midnight and stumbling off to bed.

Scarlet doesn't understand the notion of a late night or a late morning and she can't tell the difference between a weekday and a weekend just yet, so she was up and rarin' to go at 7 this morning. Perfect. Because Josh wasn't feeling well and because he gets up with her every morning, I went to get her this morning.

I made her a bottle and brought it in to her room. She was very happy to see me. (Granted, she would be happy to see a homeless person if it meant they could take her out of her crib.) We moved to the living room where I changed her diaper while she ate. Thinking over the activities I had planned today, I realized that my life is completely different from what it used to be.

I used to look forward to Saturdays as a time to do nothing at all or to see where the day took me with no particular plan.Today I have to catch up on Nanowrimo for two hours since I didn't write last night, then I have the primary program from 10 to noon. Then I have to work on my MBA capstone project from 12:30 to 3:30, then I get a bit of a break and will go see a movie with Rachel, then I have laundry, dishes, and cleaning in preparation for my family coming into town next week. Josh and I also need to go grocery shopping.

It's a busy day and I'm kind of dreading most of these plans, but I guess that's my life now. I just need to get through it. Who knew it would be the weekdays I look forward to after I had a baby?